"Fuck me, my neck hurts."
So a few months ago my brother was in a depressed mood and one of the things he was depressed about is all the musicians who've died that we never got to see and the general ephemeral nature of life. He'd read that the new Godsmack album is going to be the last, and wondered how long they'd continue as a band, and since they're his favourite band I think he was having a bit of an existential crisis about it. So I suggested that we go to Rock Fest this year since they were headlining, and I bought us tickets.
He hurt his back at work so bad on Tuesday that he had a cardiac event and they had to call EMS, and I took him to the ED in the morning because he still was feeling off, and they prescribed some muscle relaxers and told him the cardiac issues are probably just palpitations caused by the pain. As an ED provider (insofar as clinical social workers are "providers"), I have seen what happens when things go wrong with benzos and I spent the last few days meticulously checking in on him and generally being a pest.
I was a bit worried he might miss out, and we decided to stay home on Thursday. He was feeling better Friday, so we decided to make the drive. Being a compulsive worry wart, I watched him like a hawk all day long and made him drink lots of water and rest frequently. We brought one of his work friends along. I was kind of glad he was at another show Saturday. Don't get me wrong, I like the dude and it's always fun times when he visits, but he was being a little on the obnoxious side all night and he wanted to move around a lot more than we really did between acts. Saturday ended up being a lot more laid back for both of us, which is good when one of us was recovering from a back injury. We spent most of the day lounging in our lawn chairs near the top of the hill where we had a pretty good view of the stage. Drunk white women complain-bragging about dudes half their age trying to fuck them led to us relocating for Godsmack's set because they were being about as annoying as middle aged white drunk people tend to be.
Anyway, it was a good show and I got the sense that he felt a little better on an existential level than he has for a while after we left. But fuck me my neck is sore today. It started with Slipknot yesterday, because it was Slipknot and they were playing a show in the upper midwest and we were in the crowd and the crowd was going insane and there was lots of headbanging involved. All in all a good time.
Anyway, I have some thoughts about the weekend:
Thursday
Wage War
Hahahaha these guys all look like high school faculty and that is freaking awesome. The one guitar player looks like the janitor who moonlights as the coach, he has a really good voice and plays really well. I am so fucking glad normal looking people can be relatively successful making rock music these days, it gives me hope that a fatass like me might be able to form a band someday.
One-sentence summary: I thought this band was decent and might have to check them out again sometime.
Ice Nine Kills
I didn't know anything about this band and wasn't expecting much from them. I guess I kind of judged them by the name. They actually surprised me a whole lot. Are they schticky? Oh hell yes. Do they seem self-aware about this and lean hardcore into their schtick in a very sincere way? Definitely. This was a really fun band with a lot of great energy and a definite appreciation for the audience. One of their songs was about "It" and featured a bike horn that cracked me the fuck up. Another one featured a hilariously cheesy guy in a shark suit. I sensed flavors of Alice Cooper and Mr. Bungle. With that said, because they give me flavors of Alice Cooper and Mr. Bungle, I doubt the PRF would like them much.
One-sentence summary: Horror-movie metal with operatic vocals and major theatrical elements that impressed me in a way I was not expecting.
Falling in Reverse
So I don't really know jack shit about this band, but their frontman almost immediately struck me as a colossal douche, which I suppose might be his way of getting attention? The audience went batshit for this band (and the women in the area we were standing in were pretty much Beatles screaming the whole time) but he spent the time pretty much berating them for being a shitty audience, and I guess he made a post to the same effect the next day. Their songs all sounded pretty much the same to me and at the end I wasn't sure if I heard a bunch of different songs or one hour-long song.
One-sentence summary: Did they get their songwriting style from Lacuna Coil?
Slipknot
Did not disappoint. Probably not the kind of band the PRF really enjoys, but I like them. True story, I used to look down on them because most of the people I knew who listened to them were shitty edgelord types. Eventually, one of those edgelord types made me watch the video for Psychosocial, and once I tuned him out and actually listened to the music I discovered that they were pretty good. I think a lot of us fall into the trap of disliking music because the fans are annoying, so I'm kind of glad I've grown just a wee bit beyond that for the most part. Anyway, speaking of Psychosocial, the crowd went from "quite enthusiastic" to "absolutely batshit crazy" when the band started playing the main riff. Good times. I happily jumped the fuck up.
One-sentence summary: It was Slipknot playing a July show on home turf, you're going to get your money's worth.
Saturday
GWAR
Another true story, I've read a lot about them and I know a lot of metalheads are super into their schtick, but I've never really listened to them and have never seen them live. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I laughed my ass off. The people in the pit were obvious for the entirety of the rest of the day because they all ended up purple. They were pretty bold for hardcore mocking the supreme court's decision on equality and affirmative action in the middle of rural Wisconsin: "We're going to eliminate student debt for minorities by making sure they can never get into college anyway, which is great because then they'll probably be less likely to get raped."
One-sentence summary: These kids might be onto something with their rock and/or roll music.
Sleep Theory
This was one of the side stage acts that was on between main stage acts, so we didn't go to see them but their performance wafted over to us as we sat in our chairs and bullshitted while the breeze picked up, some clouds formed, and the heat and nuclear sunshine abated a wee bit. I am going to leave you with several of the one-sentence summaries we came up with:
- Uhh, I think these guys' greatest ambition is being the background music at K-Mart
- Are they called Sleep Theory because they make me want to take a nap?
- This is hardcore rock and roll for dorky Christian kids that say "make love" unironically
- Based on the "sensitive female chord progression," I am going to presume they're playing an Adele song, but I don't listen to Adele, so meh
- I think the audience is cheering because they're done
Highly Suspect
Hahahahahahahahaha at some point in their set I asked my brother, "oh, crap, is this where the hour-long Pink Floyd style jam breakdown starts?" And he looked them up and they started out playing Pink Floyd covers. They seemed like a group of genuine, down-to-earth people whose music just didn't resonate with us, which is okay, because lots of people in the audience seemed to like them and it seems like they're doing pretty good for themselves. Again, we had several one-to-three-sentence summaries:
- The music is highly suspect, all right
- There were two ways they could have gone with this riff - the Diamond Head route or the Imagine Dragons route. They chose the latter, and that was unwise.
- Now they're going to rap, because of fucking course they are
- Didn't they just play this song? Or is this just more of the same song?
- If you have to try this hard to sound cool, you're probably not cool
- Some bands cuss a lot because it's just what fits. Some bands cuss a lot to convince us they're cool. This band is the latter.
- (During a portion of the performance where they were making string scratching noises): This is the best thing they've played all day
Papa Roach
I've never really liked this band, and I still don't particularly care for them. With that said, they do put on a really good show and their sincere appreciation for their fans really shows. Minor nostalgia for my late teen years and what was playing on rock radio circa 2003-2008.
One-sentence summary: I can definitely appreciate them, but I still don't really want to listen to them (I guess that's the same way I feel about Taylor Swift).
Godsmack
One sentence summary:
They were awesome.