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Ok, so here I sit in my recliner; tired but slightly refreshed after a shower. I had a really fun night at the Carnival Of Sevendust (did I just give something away?) and I can't wait to put all my thoughts into a review. One of the fun things we at Shockwave tried tonight was a live blog from the pit, so I got to play around tweeting all throughout the show. It was interesting. Some of the tweets came thru to facebook, but I'm thinking there is a limit to how many can be sent or something cause eventually they stopped coming thru and only people following on twitter could get them. I totally planned on leaving at 3pm for the show, cause I was gonna stop on my way there and eat and all. Well if you have read any of my articles I usually miss the first band cause I never seem to get anywhere on time. Luckily even with my stop for food, I still managed to get there almost in time for the start of the show.

 I'm not entirely sure how many songs I missed, but I think I only truly missed one song, cause I heard 10 Years singing "Change my attempt, good intentions...." as I crossed the parking lot to the show. Thank goodness, cause I haven't seen these guys in quite some time and was curious what they would be like with another cd under their belt; and a different look and musical feel. I have to say, what nice scenery walking to the gates. Somehow it doesn't register in my mind til I get to a festival that there will be hordes of hot chicks, scantily clad (what a pleasant surprise my forgetfullness affords me. makes up for some of the not so pleasant surprises I get from forgetting. like the awkwardness waking up next to someone I met last night and.....never mind). So while getting an eyeful I made my way down to the pit to catch the rest of 10 Years performance. They were right on target for a band opening this type of show. There was a lot of talent to follow, and they got a good start to the tempo of the evening. They got people moving, and involved. They got the rock music flowing in everyone's veins (at least everyone who was there. seemed like a lot of folks came in a little later). The singer totally did half the set in a parka. Yes, like a winter coat even tho it was 100 degrees out. Finally he realized the snow had melted, and removed the jacket. Fans of shirtless rock stars everywhere had something to cheer about. They did have the use of some background vocal tracks, which I'm not a fan of, but they also did some back-up singing, so I guess I can let it slide. And they went crazy during the last song. Jesse Hasek (singer) crowd surfed, and Ryan Johnson (guitarist) took off his guitar and beat on a cymbol with an ax. I mean if you can't get points for that kinda stuff, then I don't have any idea what I should be looking at out here. These guys I believe are on performance enhancing drugs tho, cause the drum stick the guy next to me caught just about broke his hand, and would have knocked someone out had he not caught it (I mean really the beating the drums with an ax probably should have been a red light too). The ringmaster might wanna give these guys a pee test.

Next up was Sevendust. I was really looking forward to seeing these guys. For one, I love them (really, I make out with cardboard cut-outs of them nightly.....ok, no I don't). I've been jamming their newest effort, Cold Day Memory. And Shockwave just interviewed Lajon for our July issue. So I was giddy with excitement (that's so untrue, I will never be giddy, but I did wanna see them). The crowd started to get a bit rowdier before they even came out, and I was assuming this would be a nice, rough time. What I didn't realize until after Sevendust was killing it, was that this was a Shinedown crowd. Had it been a Sevendust crowd, all hell would have broken loose. As it was, it was kinda hectic right where I was at, but the rest of the crowd was tame (like I've seen rougher crowds at Spice Girls concerts tame. did I just admit I went to a spice girls show? seriously, it was to get laid. which actually didn't work out the way it was supposed to. ugh, fine I saw the spice girls and didn't even get any butt out of it, you happy now?) Anyway, people really don't know that much Sevendust. I'm not going to go into why, cause that would be in the May edition of Steel Side, but they ain't on the radio, and it's not cause they aren't talented enough. So it was a rather mellow crowd. Lajon and company (who I am pretty sure all go the gym together) rocked out some of my favorites, new and old, in a well laid out set. The only real issue with the set was that this should have been the Carnival of Sevendust and they should have played for two hours to screaming, chaotic masses. But I'll settle for the great performance I got and make sure I catch them the next time they headline a show around here.

At this time I decided to take a walk around the lawn and appreciate the scenery some more (shout out to my new friend Alexandria that I got to meet while I was wandering, and to my buddy Gary who I ran into around this time also and has is playing an awesome show at ram's head on August 5th). How refreshing. Next up was Nirvana. Kurt Cobain came out in a dress.......wait, it was Muddle of Pudd, and it was Wes Scantlin (singer) that had a dress on. Now I know everyone is gonna say that oh, Puddle of Mudd was really heavily influenced by Nirvana, and they sound like them, and Wes wants to be Kurt. But I have a totally different theory. I think that these guys just knew how gay they were gonna sound following Sevendust, and decided he might as well put a dress on, cause there was nothing to save them anyway. They played most of their hits, the smack my ass song and "Blurry", which got all the 14 year-old girls screaming. "Can ya take it all away....," the idiots moshing to this song was what needed to be taken away. Look the fact of the matter is this, they didn't do too bad. And the crowd really enjoyed hearing more music from the radio that they knew. But for one they skipped the song I really like by them, "Away From Me". For two they have a couple of songs I just can't stand like "Psycho" and "She Hates Me" (maybe this one hits too close to home). For three, there is no way that these guys should ever follow Sevendust. It's hard to follow a heavier band and sound any kind of good. But they did as well as they could with it. They got the crowd going. They kept the tempo of the night, which was rockin out. And one of my favorite things, they aren't afraid to play a cover song (which every band should do), as evidenced by their version of "TNT". So, kudos to these guys for keeping the night going and being a pretty decent performance in spite of all that.

I decided I needed a jumbo hot dog before the next band took the stage. Wow, and when they say jumbo, they mean it. Glad mine is so pretty, or I might have been jealous (also a good thing I don't prefer the dudes, cause I was struggling to get this thing eaten). Ah, Chevelle. I was pretty excited to see them too. Another of the harder bands on the bill. The pit area went nuts when they started playing. Finally some crowd surfers and a couple of mosh pits opened up. The alcohol must have finally been kicking in. The show was really in full effect when I saw a bloody guy leave the pit, and smelled someone smoking the good stuff (no, the good stuff is not weed; it's really good weed). Let me take a moment here to explain something I saw in the crowd that needs to be addressed: to all you 200 plus pound men, you have no business crowd surfing. No one wants you crashing on their head. If we drop you don't get mad, cause you're a moron. Oh, and I shouldn't only pick on the guys. Ladies, I love you all, in all shapes, sizes, and colors; but for real if you are 200 plus pounds, you don't need to be asking all of us to pass you around overhead either. Ok, back to the band. I thought they did an awesome set. Just like Sevendust, Chevelle picked a great set of songs to perform. A nice mix of the hits, and some deeper tracks from the cds to appeal to the fans. The only real drawback to the set wasn't really anyone's fault. Chevelle's music is heavy, and melodic in it's way, but it doesn't really have a beat that I know what to do with while watching it. It's mostly not fast, and the groove just doesn't lend itself to moshing, or anything else I can think of. But really it was a lot of sound from just three guys and a really tight performance. It would be hard to say these guys stole the show, but them and Sevendust surely should have been the headliners (someone will set that up next year and be rich. they better not call it Carnival of Sevendust).

And last but not least, the headliners of the night, Shinedown. Brent Smith (singer) came out in top hat and cane, like a ringmaster and they proceeded to rip thru "Sound of Madness" and "Devour", two of my favorite songs by them. And right about here is where the night took a turn downhill. It's rock music right? And what do we do with rock music? We burn out, not fade away. Well, the rest of the performance totally ruined the rock tempo of the day. I mean horribly ruined it. The show just seemed to slow down to a crawl. The songs got mellower, and the banter between songs bordered on ridiculous. Shinedown was on stage for about an hour and forty minutes. And Brent probably talked for forty minutes of that. It was bad. And not always talking about a whole lot either. He did proclaim that a 'show' could be seen on any night of the week, but what he was putting on was an 'event.' Well I tend to disagree. I believe an event has things beyond just music going on. And this was a concert with no other attractions, which is a show. But even without his inaccurate words, he just bored me. I did have some highlights during this point, like watching drunk people fall down on their way out (I was apparently not the only one who thought he was dragging out the show, there was a steady trickle of people throughout their whole set on their way to their cars). I also got to meet Lajon who just happened to be walking right by on his way somewhere (I introduced myself and told him that I was from Shockwave Magazine, to which he said "I love you guys". helps that we just interviewed him, he might not have remembered us if not). So that stuff was pretty cool. But all the while Shinedown had made the horse stare down the barrel of a 45, pulled the trigger, and now they were beating that poor dead horse to death (can you beat a dead horse to death? maybe you beat it to life? they were trying to make something happen they beat it so long, that's all I know). I've seen them twice before and really enjoyed them both times. And the sound of the music wasn't bad. But getting thru his yapping to get to the next song was painful at times. And on top of that they followed four bands that brought their A game and kept the place rockin all day long, and now they wanted to finish with slow, melodic tunes. There is nothing wrong with that music, but they need slow, melodic opening acts if that is the plan. They did their hits, and a bunch of others. I was just let down with the whole pace and tempo of their show. It seemed so anticlimatic. I liked it better when Brent was just a simple man, and not an over-spoken rock star.

Seriously fun day. Great bands. Great atmosphere. Maybe I was a little more interested in seeing a couple of bands, and a little less interested in seeing some others. And possibly that could affect my opinion some. But I tried to be fair in what I saw. Beyond Shinedown sucking the life out of the show, and not seeing boobies all day long, it really was an awesome 'show.' I wanna thank my publisher for hanging out all day. And I wanna thank everyone that came out to support rock music, and all those who played along at home via facebook and twitter. I'm sure there is a million opinions on this show, so let me hear yours so I can tell you how wrong you are.