ROCKSTAR MAYHEM 2013

Five days after being at the Comcast center for warped tour, I was back again for Mayhem. It was a hot one as the combo of sun, humidity had the heat index at 103 degrees. In the pit, it felt way worse. Here are my thoughts:

• I would guesstimate that there was 100,000 people at Warped. For Mayhem, there was maybe 20.000. There are many reasons for this, but I cared less as I had room to move around and have a little space. Everything was obviously easier with less people, notably smaller lines for the bathroom, closer parking and closer access to the front stage.
• The security clowns were a joke. At warped, people roamed freely. As for me as press, I was checked for credentials time and time again but wanna be toughguy security staff that were old, bald wannabe mall cops. Without going into details, access to backstage and the bands I cover were impossible this time around. All interviews were organized in advance so I was held without interview access. Really lame and only the bands lost out.
• Rockstar was kind enough to have a tent that let concert goers get some shade from the sun and also get small free samples of energy water and other beverages. They could not leave the tent but hell it was great on a triple digit day.
• It was a great setup this time around. Only one band was playing at any given time, as opposed to 103 bands sharing 9 stages last week. From 1-6, only two stages were used and they were adjacent to open another so there was no wait and always music live. One stage, the Jager stage featured 30 min sets from Huntress, battlecross, butcher babies, JFAC and Machinehead in that order. Butcher babies were quite heavy and seeing two female vocal screamers was cool. JFAC was heavy as always and Machinehead was awesome and was clearly the most notable and best sounding band of the day. As they played, the pits erupted bigger than earlier in the day and we watched the metal mulisha three dudes ride their Honda CRF 450 motorcycles in the air above the set. Downright awesome. Halo was the song of the day as the crowd sang and the solos shattered us all.
• The Musicians institute stage was great too. We got to watch attika 7, born of Osiris, motionless in white, emmure and Bodom. BOO was intense man, as was the heavy emmure set that was 30 min of aggression. Motionless was the best band of the day I absolutely loved their energy and interactions with the crowd. They even did a brief cover of Mother by danzig. Bodom was kickass as expected...my fave band arguably. They promoted their new album and were so kind to the fans and thanked us endlessly.
• I did not get a chance to really see the Sumerian stage, but it was placed in a shady wooded area wherein local bands played for the most part and sounded good. As for the main stage, it was moved to the theater for the 4 main bands. I loved amon amarth who came out in a Viking wooden ship. They were cool. Although I missed most of the mastodom, FFDP and Zombie set, I am not really a fan of these three bands. We had some crappy seats and we get kicked out of better ones by the cowardly security clowns so after awhile the idea of getting treated like a 2nd class citizen who was asked to pay 9.75 for crappy beer and even more for fried food was enough to head out early and get some pitchers of beers and wings at a few pubs and watch the MLB allstar game.
• There were free samples of beef jerky being passed out and people stocked up but I passed with eating warm jerky in the heat. It was a pretty calm crowd. I don't know if it was the cops on horses, the heat, a weekday or whatever but people weren't too drunk and I didn't smell to much greenery. There was a waterfall hose thing happening and people were going under it to stay cool. Pabst was selling beers and giving out some cool swag too.
• Lastly, I get why the 4 bands made the main stage, but how does Bodom or Machinehead not play at night as opposed of new medicore band FFDP? Mastodon is neat, but cmon Bodom and machinehead are awesome bands that have been around a lot longer.