Mayhem Fest - Day 1

Hearing that Korn and Rob Zombie are on the same bill may give you flash backs to ten years ago when they toured together, this time however it is as the co-headliners of this years Mayhem Festival. Kicking off in San Bernardino, California, the 25 date tour will go throughout the United States until August 14th and as usual features 3 stages of bands. The main stage this year has Lamb of God and Five Finger Death Punch along with Zombie and Korn. In its 3rd year, Mayhem Festival is turning out to be one the definitive metal fests, especially since it came about while Ozz-Fest is in its waning years.
This year's show was certainly worth battling the heat as it has been in years past. The two smaller stages the "Silver” stage and the "Jägermeister” started bright and early in metal-time at 1:50pm with Winds of Plague being the first band to play on the Silver stage, followed by Sangre on the Jager stage at 2:20pm. The set times alternate so two bands aren't on stage at the same time. If you have the stamina you can end up seeing 9 bands play in 3 hours including Shadows Fall, Hatebreed and 3 Inches of Blood . And, as if your ears weren't already bleeding from that, the focus then shifts to the main stage at 6:30pm when Five Finger Death Punch goes on.
It was interesting to see Rob Zombie follow FFDP's and Lamb of God's stripped down sets with his fairly elaborate stage set-up opening up with "Superbeat” off his Hellbilly Delux album. Zombie had the horror movie images and flashing fire effects necessary to accentuate his chicks-and-hotrods brand of metal, almost like watching one of his music videos live. Some highlights were "More Human than Human” and "Thunder Kiss ‘65” (which featured a 5 minuet solo in the middle by renown guitarist John 5) from his White Zombie days and some new songs from his Hellbilly Deluxe II album released a few months back. One being "Mars Needs Women” with the extremely chant-able chorus "mars needs women, angry red women!” and "Werewolf Women of the SS” which bares the same title as his mock movie trailer from Grindhouse, which was shown in the background during the song.
Korn had an equally visual spectacle for their show which isn't as usual for them as it is for Zombie. Two large oil rigs on fire adored either side of the stage, an assumed reference to both the bands new single "Oildale (Leave me alone)” and the entire tours Boycott of BP Oil. Korn opened with the aforementioned new song, and played more of their very promising new material from their upcoming new album "Korn III Remember Who You Are” which comes out today July 13th throughout the set mixed in with hits like "Falling Away From Me” "Freak on a leash” and "Got the life.” A highlight was definitely the encore where the band paid homage to their early days, with Jonathan Davis coming out playing his bagpipes for the intro to "Shoots and Ladders” then playing "Blind” and "Clown” also from their first album.
Nothing about this show felt rehash even though the two headliners had toured before, they both played fresh material and their hits stand the test of time, fitting right along side the newer bands.Tickets are still available for many of the dates so please check out http://www.rockstarmayhemfest.com/ for more info.