Rock on the Range 2018: Lineup Analysis

We are ONE WEEK away from the festival of all festivals. For many of my hard rock and heavy metal bretheren, May represents the beginning of festival season. There are many great festivals all over the country that give fans a great chance to experience a weekend packed full of great shows. The biggest, and arguably the best of any of these is the almighty Rock on the Range, which takes place May 18-20th in Columbus, OH.

We snagged our tickets prior to the lineup announcement, which occurred late in 2017. This will be the tenth consecutive year that we make the trip from Indianapolis to Columbus to take in the weekend, and I have to tell you – I cannot wait.

I know that all of you are like me – you’re having trouble focusing on anything else as you look forward to one of the best weekends of the year. In order to support that obsession, we are releaseing a last minute line-up analysis for Rock on the Range 2018. The analysis below is for people who may not know all the bands in this years lineup and are looking for an opportunity to catch a new band that may become a favorite. However, it’s also for those who know every song of every band, and are just looking for an excuse to think about Rock on the Range for an hour. 🙂

The Rock on the Range 2018 Lineup Analysis below provides a detailed look at the landscape for this year’s ROTR. We provide commentary on what you might expect based on previous experiences, other shows and tours we’ve seen, and the current status of the bands. The bands are grouped by the slot they were given: the headliners, the top-tier bands, and the mid-tier bands. In addition, we include some bands that have something to prove, and suggest some can’t miss shows that may not be on you radar.

2015 Album Awards!

I don’t really fancy myself as an album reviewer (guys over at sites like Sputnik do just fine at that). However, I have a real passion for sharing music, and love the thought of putting something in front of people out there that might not have heard it yet. Because of that, and because the albums I love fuel my concert decisions, I wanted to share some of my favorite albums from 2015. Last year featured releases by countless big names in the industry – names like Trivium, Sevendust, Three Days Grace, Halestorm, Shinedown, Marilyn Manson, Five Finger Death Punch, Lamb of God, Bullet for My Valentine, and on and on. However, many of these releases landed somewhere on the scale between mediocre and very good. None of them, however, really stood out as impressionable.

However, 2015 was definitely not void of spectacular albums. As I looked back at my catalog and reviewed countless other “top albums of 2015” lists to make sure I didn’t miss any albums, I had a more difficult time than usual whittling down to the top 5 albums. In fact, I couldn’t, and so what you’re left with below is 5 really great runners up, and one album of the year.

Hope you enjoy!

Concert Review: Atreyu

Congregation of the Damned Tour
Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN
11/19/2010

Marcus and I have been wanting to take a road trip to Minnesota to visit our friend Robby for the past several years. It just so happens that we were able to do it on a weekend that there was an Atreyu concert! Boom. Totally worth the 9 hour drive!!

The History:
Atreyu has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Their albums have all been really solid, and I like the energy that comes through their music. Embarrassingly, another reason I love the band is that their drummer is a primary singer in the band. Since singing and drumming are two passions of mine (even though I’m not a drummer, and I’m a mediocre singer at best), it draws particular interest to this band for me. Their drummer, Brandon Saller, is really quite good at both vocals and drums (more about that later). In addition, I love that the band has incredibly diverse music, and has songs that are very hard and fast hitting, as well as slower, more melodic hard rock songs. It’s refreshing to me when a band can be more than one dimensional, as so many are today. (I like to call that Nickleback syndrome).

Unfortunately, the first several times I saw Atreyu live, they were kind of a disaster. Back in the 2006-2007 timeframe, Atreyu wasn’t very big yet, and mostly played early at festivals on side stages.