This Metal Monday is brought to you by Lazerfest
, where I spent over twelve hours yesterday watching twelve bands play on two stages with my friend, Audra.
The lineup included Dead Horse Trauma, Mindrite, New Medicine, Violent Soho, Red, Halestorm, Drowning Pool, Skillet, Papa Roach, Seether, Hellyeah, Three Days Grace and Godsmack. But also my very favorites: Five Finger Death Punch, Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie.
And since Metal Monday is usually a tribute to my t-shirts, I guess I will mention that I wore my Brutally Frank/Midwest Psycho shirt. But more importantly...
I got to see Alice Cooper.
The one and only. And he was totally perfect, with stage theatrics, costume changes, props and all of his biggest hits. Out of all the shows I've seen, I feel so lucky that I got to see Alice. Legendary. So good.
And there were the girls.
Lzzy Hale and the girls from Skillet rocked our faces off.
You can't
not love metal girls.
And I can't really talk about the whole experience without mentioning that there were 25,000 people there. Twenty-five
thousand. A sea of people, no matter where you tried to walk. It was the biggest Lazerfest ever and people were in line for hours after we had been let in. They actually put out a Lazerfest warning on Facebook to tell people that there were no more tickets, and no more parking. Vendors were running out of food.
And the porta-johns? I won't even go there.
When we got there, we were queued through these massive lines which were more like packs, and then people would break out of their 'line' and just start running towards the next funnel through security or whatever was next. I don't have a pic that adequately shows what I'm talking about here. It took a couple of hours to get in and a couple of hours to get home that night.
It was cloudy kind of cold all day, but thankfully we dodged the rain until the very last couple of hours, and even then it only sprinkled. Whew.
But anyway, back to the show. Rob Zombie!
I have seen Rob Zombie back when it was White Zombie. I have seen him six times. Maybe more. But he is always my favorite. (I have a lot of pics because their stage show is KILLER.)
I jumped and pushed my way right up front, and even though it might seem like the crowd was stationary in these pics, I can assure you it was rough. That pit was
moving. So I ended up moving back a bit halfway through.
On board with Rob for this tour is the legendary John 5 (from Marilyn Manson) and Des Moines' Joey Jordison of Slipknot, who I was super stoked to see.
I saw his hand go up when they first came out and was like, 'DUDE, there's Joey.'
Sorry ... I'm friends with his sister. So it's extra exciting. And how much fun must it be to play with Rob Zombie?!?
So yes, it was a great time. An incredibly long day but super rad, for sure. And a crazy good end to my metal weekend. (Hope yours was just as fantastic!)