Louder Than Life

If We Blame it On Anything, Let’s Blame it On the Rain: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day Three)

/ Rev. Joel / 5 Comments

Note: this is Part Four of a multi-part series about Louder Than Life 2024. I’m not sure how many parts there’ll be, but it seems like it’ll be five at least. Here are the first two. There are supplemental parts also.

By the time we woke on Saturday morning, the wind had diminished significantly, but we were still concerned about the rain. There was a 100% chance of rain the entire day, and the chance of the rain continuing on Sunday was still quite high, though by then it had dropped to a much less intimidating 60%.

We were soon greeted by some good news: the day was set to go on as scheduled, albeit with a couple-few changes…

  • First, and least important to us: two of the smaller acts from Day Two were rescheduled for Day Three (no disrespect intended two whoever those two bands were, but as neither band was on our short list, this news had no impact on us).
  • Another change, this one much more significant to us: “due to weather and travel issues”, Falling In Reverse would no longer be performing.
  • If you’ll recall from Day Zero, we do not like Falling in Reverse.
  • Their music is like razor blades all over my face, and not in a good way.
Here’s an example of razor blades all over my face in a good way. Musically speaking, you understand.

But anyway.

  • The final change, this one much more exciting for us: Till Lindemann decided to stay in town for whatever reason (maybe it was just in case someone else had to cancel, maybe it was so he could get into some weird shit, I don’t know and I don’t wanna know), and he was going to fill the turd-shaped hole left by Falling in Reverse. I suppose if anyone is gonna fill a turd-shaped hole, it might as well be Till Lindemann. And, forgive my crudeness, but fill that turd-shaped hole he did, my friends.

I’ll talk more about Till Lindemann’s turd hole later, though.

One hour after that announcement, I received the following email:

I hadn’t even though about the soundboard experience since the last email I got from DWP!

Not to get too far ahead of myself, but one thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post, where I talk about the passing of my mother-in-law Susan: Susan was born in Louisville, and was Louisville through and through, but both sides of her family were from The Old Country (Bavaria). If Susan had been any more German, she would’ve been terrifying. One of the most-German things she loved was Rammstein. She used to blast them on the stereo while she worked out, and/or worked in her sewing room.

What this means for our purposes is that when we found out we’d get to watch Rammstein’s frontman and his solo band perform one of only thirteen US shows in 2024 from a (relatively) exclusive location within the festival grounds, it seemed pretty obvious that we were gonna be experiencing that with Susan.

But again, this hasn’t happened yet. In fact, we haven’t even left the hotel room yet…

I quickly confirmed our receipt of the notice, and asked whether we’d be allowed to leave the area early in order to get over to the Revolver Stage to catch Body Count’s set. I was assured that we could leave the area whenever we were ready, and with that newfound peace of mind, we proceeded to get ready to head out for the day.

We’d already missed every chance of seeing Local H, which was a bummer, but with a 100% chance of rain, we knew the day was gonna be a slog, so we weren’t in a major hurry to get out in it anyway. I did wanna see CKY, but they also weren’t crucial for me, and Sheila wasn’t as into it, and didn’t really care one way or the other.

If you only know one Local H song, this is probably it.
Here’s the other one you might know. I’m pretty bummed we missed them, but those are the breaks.

After a frustratingly slow shuttle ride to the festival grounds, we approached the gate as CKY started to play “Sporadic Movement”. As we passed through, Sheila headed straight for the restroom, then made her way to the Top Shelf tent in an attempt to stay out of the rain. I jogged as gingerly as possible, hopping around puddles, banging my head, and kind of skip-moshing, Scott Ian-style, across the middle of the mostly-empty area in front of Main Stage 2 toward the barricade that divided us from the area in front of Main Stage 1, where they were playing.

They came to a stop at almost the same time I did, and then they tore into a kick-ass rendition of their best-known song, “96 Quite Bitter Beings” just as I was beginning to realize how much I was already sweating, due to the high humidity, and also the raincoat, plus the light exercise, as well as the fact that I sweat more than almost everyone I’ve ever met.

This was a pretty cool way to start my day. This is not my footage. I was standing about 20 yards behind the person who filmed it, and maybe another 20 yards to the right. I just made 20 yards up out of nowhere. I have no idea how far it actually was, but not too far.

They finished their set with a cover of “All My Friends Are Dead” by Turbonegro (with members of Crobot), and it sounded great, even though I don’t know the song.

Also, just wanna mention that I really wanted to see Damnage, but their set was at the same time as CKY’s, so it really wasn’t feasible. Once again, those are the breaks.

Kurtis Blow wants you to know.

I very much wanted to check out Unity TX on the Decibel Stage next, but I was already dripping with sweat, so instead I met Sheila in the tent to try and dry off a bit, then we headed way, way back to the Loudmouth Stage to watch San Francisco, CA thrashers Hemorage play what I’m pretty sure was their first ever festival show. They were fuckin awesome.

Not a good picture or anything, but it gives you a good idea of my POV.

They self-record and release their own music, they make their own merchandise, and for a stretch of time, they just drove around the country, parking and setting up their custom-built, DIY van/mobile stage, playing shows wherever the fuck they decided they wanted to play a show. And people started showing the fuck up.

They also played Aftershock this year (another Danny Wimmer Presents event, and the one that usually competes with LTL with regards to overall lineup I like most), and they deserve every bit of exposure and recognition they’ve been getting.

Here’s a short (9-10 minute) documentary about the band. You should watch it. Even if you don’t like the music, surely you can get behind the positive message. I think a lot of us could stand to receive a positive message right about now.

Anyways, Hemorage were fuckin rad, and they were so unbelievably gracious and hyped to be on that stage. I sincerely hope I get to see them again as soon as possible, and I hope that you get to see them as soon as possible, too.

Holy smokes, what a band! Also not my footage.

At some point during their set, I realized that my rain coat was useless; I was already completely soaked, and it was really only making me sweat more. I walked back to Top Shelf while P.O.D. kicked off their set on Main Stage 2, put my raincoat in our locker, and met Sheila inside the tent to take a load off and stop getting rained on for a few minutes. We enjoyed some snacks and drinks, chatted with some friendly strangers, did some people-watchin, and watched P.O.D. absolutely own that stage.

There went the boom. This is not my footage. I was inside the tent, remember?

Regarding P.O.D.: I liked their song “Alive”, from their breakthrough album Satellite when I first heard it, back in late summer 2001. I was working at a corporate music store in the mall at the time, and it was on one of the mix CDs we were approved to play in store. The song ticks a lot of boxes for me, and it was a right place, right time kinda situation. One time I heard it when I was high on the pot and I experienced pure bliss. I was also familiar with “Youth of the Nation”, the single they released after “Alive”, and I’ve been known to enjoy it as well, although not as much as “Alive”.

My point is, I don’t dislike P.O.D., but I also had no intention of going out of my way to watch them perform. I was an idiot, frankly. They put on an amazing show, and while they might’ve played from 2:05-2:35, they had that crowd moving like they were a Six-o-Clock Band. (a “Six-o-Clock Band” is a band that plays the main stage starting at or around 6:00 PM., which also happens to be the fourth band from the top of the billing – the president pro tempore to the presidency of the main headliner, if you will. Examples of past 6:00 bands include Run the Jewels, Ice Cube, Megadeth, and Chevelle, who we’ll get to shortly).

One of the perks of the Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP tent, along with delicious food and drinks and not getting rained on, is that is has TVs spaced all around playing a live feed of the main stages, which comes in especially handy when you want to be present for a performance, but you don’t want to get rained on.

What I’m saying to you is that we stayed in the tent while Filter played over on Main Stage 1.

Filter sounded great, and I really would’ve rather been watching them from outside on a slightly overcast day instead of on a TV inside a tent, but break it up, break it up, break it up, because those are the breaks.

I can practically feel the dampness in this video. This is not my footage. By this time I was on my way up to the Skybox, which you can see in the background on this thumbnail. It’s the structure toward the left, above the person in the chartreuse flannel.

We also wanted to watch The Armed over on the Decibel Stage, but the rain was picking up, and we still had miles to go before we slept, so instead we went up to the Upper Decker, which is what I like to call the new Top Shelf Skybox, just for a change of scenery (and also because it was kinda cold inside the tent, what with the air-conditioning and the wet clothes). We ended up hanging out up there for most of Sleeping With Sirens‘ set. I knew absolutely nothing about Sleeping With Sirens prior to our pre-fest research, but their name, along with the time period when I first became aware of them, made me assume they were a metalcore-ish, emo-esque band. Turns out I was pretty much right. I liked them more than I thought I would, even if I didn’t know any of their songs.

This is angsty, y’all. Also, it’s not my footage. I was in the Upper Decker, remember?

I didn’t take any pictures of Sleeping With Sirens, but I did take a couple of pictures of the crowd from the Upper Decker.

Here’s one of them.
Here’s the other one. Fuck, was it ever wet.

I found out later that The Armed brought Frank Turner out for a song, and I really would’ve rather watched that on a slightly overcast day, instead of not at all, but here we are.

I wasn’t gonna let rain keep me away from everything, and Better Lovers on the Revolver Stage at 4:10 was one of those (not every) things. I got a spot on the rail pretty much right in the center of the space between the Revolver and Decibel stages, and witnessed an unbelievably good and tight 30-minute set from the relatively new post-hardcore “supergroup”.

This is Better Lovers. They were tight.
ALLso Better Lovers. I’m ALLways excited to see another ALL shirt in the wild.
Fuckin tight! Not my footage. I was a bit to the right of the person who filmed this, as my photos above will attest.

When Better Lovers finished, I moved back and found a tiny bit of real estate along the side edge of the ADA-platform that was both not occupied and not 100% mud so I could watch Joey Valence & Brae on the Decibel Stage. We caught their set at Louder Than Life 2022, and they were a lot of fun, so we were definitely looking forward to seeing them again. They did not disappoint, but the rain very much fucking did, and even though we were both reeeaaally looking forward to Three 6 Mafia after them, we had to retreat to the tent before JV&B were finished.

Just excellent. This is not my footage. I was quite a bit farther back, but pretty much straight back.

We ended up sitting in the tent while Dropkick Murphys played on the Main Stage 1, and they were fine.

And listen: I was a full-on, 100% bonafide Dropkick Murphys Super Fan (DKMSF) back in the day. I first heard “Bar Room Hero” on the Hellcat Records compilation Give ’em the Boot, and if you’re ever gonna know a single thing about me, you should know that I’m a sucker for gang vocals and singalongs. “Bar Room Hero” has em both by the truckload.

Do or Die, their Hellcat debut, was easily one of my most listened-to CDs from 1998 until around the spring of 2001.

Fuck, I even bought a DKM windbreaker when I saw them live in Cincinnati, for cryin out loud! I can’t imagine how much I paid for that thing, adjusted for inflation. Certainly more than I could afford at the time.

It’ll be nothin but pride that kills him.

What I’m saying is: there was a significant stretch of time in my life where, if I wasn’t sad, I was listening to Dropkick Murphys. They were one of my absolute jams when I was 22 years old.

Shake the hand that shook the world.

Here’s the facts, though: Dropkick Murphys doesn’t sound like Dropkick Murphys anymore. I mean they don’t sound a n y thing like they used to.

And don’t misunderstand: I don’t think they’re a bad band by any means. Like, I enjoy “Shipping Up to Boston” well enough, and “Rose Tattoo” is a good song and all, but how does a band with a back catalog like theirs not play a single song from prior to the year 2000? Are we really meant to pretend that “Road of the Righteous” and “Caps and Bottles” don’t exist?

I mean, come on.

And frankly, having seen both Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys in the past year, there really is very little difference at all between the two anymore, and that difference seems to get smaller all the time.

This is good and all, but I wanna hear “Skinhead on the MBTA”, man. Also, this is not my footage. I’m still inside the tent.

Anyway, the whole time DKM was playing, I kept thinking about Three 6 Mafia, but I didn’t go watch Three 6 Mafia because I was too tired, and that’s a lame ending to that story, but sometimes stories have lame endings.

They eat so many shrimp he got IODINE poisinin, y’all!

Chevelle played Main Stage 2 next, and we remained in the tent, and they sounded great, and that’s that. I hope you weren’t expecting more.

This is my favorite Chevelle song, and I couldn’t find any versions from Louder Than Life that I was happy with, so you get the official video instead. It’s much like suffocating, you know.

L.S. Dunes played over on the Decibel Stage at pretty much the same time, and I wanted to watch them, but there was still the whole non-stop rain thing, plus the Soundboard Experience that I mentioned earlier was pretty much nigh at this point, so we didn’t wanna venture too far from our base.

Speaking of the Soundboard Experience: we arrived outside the Top Shelf gates at approximately 6:48 PM, in anticipation of meeting our DWP rep at 6:50 for our Till Lindemann Soundboard Experience (In Memory of/In Conjunction with Susan). We stood aimlessly for a couple of minutes until eventually, there appeared a couple of people in DWP gear. I approached them and asked if they were our Soundboard Experience liaisons, and it turned out they were not at all; they were just a couple of schmoes who did not work for DWP, but were sporting DWP gear for whatever reason. A wrong place, wrong time kinda situation.

A minute or so later, another couple started hanging around near us, and I asked if they were there for the Soundboard Experience. They were, and we stood, couple-to-couple, not talking amongst ourselves, for another couple of minutes, until our for-real designated DWP rep showed up, almost 10 minutes late.

I’m just gonna add this: I’ve never worked in the entertainment business in any real capacity, but I’ve been in the service industry for over 30 years now, and no matter how mad I might wanna be about their tardiness, I can only imagine the kind of delays and hold-ups they must’ve experienced trying make time across those wet-ass festival grounds to meet us. She was a pro.

Our liaison led us around the front of the GA area on the Top Shelf side, along the same route that crowd surfers are ushered back out, and eventually we broke off in a different direction, toward the middle of the GA crowd, between Main Stage 1 and Main Stage 2, until we came to a stop directly in front of the sound mixing tent at precisely the same time that Till Lindemann himself took the stage. It was pretty wild.

Once again, this is not my footage. It was recorded pretty close to where we were standing, though.

It got wilder. The videos on the screen in back of the stage ranged from super close-up footage of vaginal lips flapping in a breeze to super close-up footage of pills shooting out of buttholes to footage of Till himself getting his mouth sewn shut, and it was so fuckin weird and perfect and German, and so many people didn’t even almost start to appreciate it, and all I could think about – other than the fact that Susan was both stoked and horrified for us – was how fuckin pumped I was that Falling In Reverse cancelled.

Suddenly, I remembered Body Count, and at pretty much the same time, Sheila had to pee. It was a total coincidence that this happened during the song “Golden Showers”. We were ushered back to the Top Shelf tent, and Sheila visited the terlit, and then we hauled ass over to the Revolver Stage to find Body Count halfway into “There Goes the Neighborhood”, and things only got better from there. Their set was a bit shorter than in 2022, on account of they weren’t headlining the second stage, but it was still goddamn amazing.

Also not my footage. We were way back and to the left of this.

We stayed in the vicinity for the beginning of Mastodon‘s set on the Decibel Stage. They kicked off with “Blood and Thunder”, the first song from their 2004 slobberknocker of an album, Leviathan, which they were performing in its entirety.

It’s a concept album about Moby Dick, which explains the Moby Dick footage at the beginning. Also, this is not my footage. We were standing in pretty much the same spot we were for Body Count.

They sounded great, but the rain was once again being a bit of a dick, plus we needed to sing Mötley Crüe songs in each other’s faces, so we started the long journey back toward the main stage area while Disturbed played on Main Stage 2. They’re good at what they do, but they’re not for us.

Mötley Crüe  performed as expected. Vince was out of breath before “Primal Scream” was over, and then they played “Too Fast for Love”, and things only got worse for Vince from there, but then they played “Wild Side” and “Shout at the Devil”, and we had a great time singing in each other’s faces, and then I did a high kick during “Live Wire”, and suddenly the only thing I could think about was going back to the hotel. In an effort to maintain decorum, I won’t say why the hotel suddenly became so crucial to me, but I will say that I am a 47-year-old man who’d been drinking whiskey and eating cheese and fried food in the rain all day, and my high kick made getting to a toilet quite an urgent matter indeed, and by this point in the day even the fancy-pants Top Shelf VIP bathrooms were so lousy with mud (and worse) that I simply could not bear the thought of letting my shorts touch my body again after dropping them on that floor.

What I’m saying to you is that I didn’t get to sing “Home Sweet Home” or “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S)” or “Kickstart My Heart” in Sheila’s face because I almost pooped my pants that night.

Vince really does sound so bad. Also, this is not my footage. Also, I suppose I could’ve saved some time by issuing a blanket “none of the footage included herein was recorded by me” type statement, but here we are.

We missed most of the Crüe’s best songs, but that’s alright, that’s okay, let’s turn the page. We were gonna live to rock another day, and what a day it would prove to be.

I hope you’ll check back soon to read more about it, because it was a real humdinger.

Thanks for reading.

Ready to Rock if You Wanna Roll: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day Two)

/ Rev. Joel / 9 Comments

Note: this is Part Three of a multi-part series about Louder Than Life 2024. I’m not sure how many parts there’ll be, but it seems like it’ll be five at least. Here are the first two. There are supplemental parts also.

The big story going into Day Two was the weather. Hurricane Helene was rampaging up through the southeast, causing untold devastation throughout North Carolina and elsewhere, and Louisville was expected to get some incredibly heavy sustained winds, with gusts up to 80 mph. Like every other outdoor music event I’m aware of, Louder Than Life is a “rain or shine” event, and we knew for certain that rain was going to impact us on Friday and Saturday (at the time, I was seeing chances as high as 80% on Sunday, as well). The wild card in this situation was the wind. I won’t pretend to understand anything about the logistics of putting on a multi-day music festival with an estimated 4-day attendance of almost 200,000 people, but I do have a basic understanding of how insanely powerful and damaging wind can be, and I know that there are some big, heavy things set up at an outdoor music festival – things like speakers, tents, screens, and stages, to name the obvious.

Here’s a picture I stole from wikipedia of Breaking Benjamin performing on the main stage in 2019. I certainly wouldn’t want any of that shit blowing onto my head.

The day started off with some sad but expected news: the opening of the gates was going to be delayed. The DWP team was monitoring the situation, and they would keep us all updated with new start times whenever the information became available. I was bummed, but also kinda relieved. This was the second morning in a row that I woke up feeling gloopy from overindulgence, and I took advantage of the delay by staying in bed a little longer, and by having a nice long soak in the tub, both of which made me feel like a new man.

The day continued on with no news (which, in this case, ended up not being good news), and we had lunch at the hotel and relaxed, hoping beyond hope that we’d get to rock ASAP. The day wasn’t quite as stacked for me as the others, at least in terms of quantity of bands, but the quality of the Friday lineup was really first-rate. It was, in fact, the one day about which Sheila was most excited. Here’s the Friday Clockwise Circle Pit-Approved Lineup, in order of start times:

  • Powerman 5000
  • Gel
  • High Vis
  • Sevendust
  • Clutch
  • Ho99o9
  • Anthrax
  • Fugitive
  • Till Lindemann
  • Juliette Lewis and the Licks
  • Lorna Shore
  • Tom Morello
  • Fuckin Slayer

Not a clunker in the bunch, and we even had to shave a couple off the final list due to overlap.

At approximately 3:45 PM, DWP announced that they were shooting for 6-7 PM start time, and that the city of Louisville had agreed to extend the noise curfew so that more bands could play. Shortly after this news broke, a schedule started to show up on the LTL fan group socials which was (allegedly) the schedule given to the load-in crew.

It was very exciting to have some potential information, even if it may not have been true. The headliner set times were a bit intimidating, and if they were accurate, Slayer, Tom Morello, Lorna Shore, Ho99o9, and Juliette Lewis & the Licks were all gonna be overlapping with each other, and Sevendust was just missing entirely.

Sometime after 6:00 PM, we boarded the shuttle along with maybe 5-10 other people, and off we went, to pick up the second wave of riders over at the Marriot. Several more people boarded the bus, then we sat and waited for the next shuttle to pull up behind us before departing, as is procedure. Shortly after that, we all heard over the driver’s radio that a Shelter In Place order had been enacted (I honestly don’t know whether it was by the city or by DWP, but either way, it was a good idea). We all sat on the bus and watched as tree branches fell onto the sidewalk and into the street. We saw several people eat shit on the slippery-ass sidewalk. We saw at least two umbrellas get turned inside out.

This is as close as we got to rockin out on Friday.

Fifteen minutes later, we heard over the radio that DWP was calling it: Day Two was officially cancelled. After watching the chaos outside (and seeing the potential schedule posted above), I can honestly say I wasn’t terribly disappointed. On the ride back to the hotel we decided to walk over to the casino and see if our middling luck might carry over into the slot machines. I was looking forward to trying my hand at Invaders from the Planet Moolah, which is my go-to machine when Lucky Larry Lobstermania is unavailable. Some jabronis (jabronies?) were parked at the Moolah machines, so I wandered around until something else caught my fancy. To make an unnecessarily long story shorter, I ended up winning 50 bucks playing Texas Tea, and Sheila brought in another 20-30.

We walked back to the hotel and went up to Al J’s Lounge, the bar in the conservatory/skywalk between the two towers, to spend our “hard-earned” money. As always, the bar hosted an interesting mix of patrons (there was a dental convention in the Galt House along with the usual dirtbags who were attending LTL). We struck up conversation with some pretty cool people, and then the requisite metal blowhard showed up and held court about what was great and what “fuckin suck(ed)”.

A few choice nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Blowhard (emphasis on the word “nugget”)(as in “turd”):

  • Metallica has fuckin sucked since 1983.
  • Ozzy (Osbourne) has fuckin sucked since the early 90s.
  • Judas Priest without KK (Downing) ain’t even Judas Priest no more.
  • He never even heard of fuckin Gojira until the fuckin Olympics.
  • Vince (Neil) is a fuckin fat fuck and needs to fuckin hang it up.

This last one is especially fun. I don’t body-shame, just as a general rule, but this guy kind of invited it on himself, so I will testify in court that if Vince Neil is a “fat fuck”, then Mr. Blowhard is an even fatter fuck.

Look at these fat fucks.

While we were chillin at the casino and, later, the hotel bar, a few pop-up shows happened with bands and artists who were slated to perform that night. Silly Goose apparently played in the parking lot for the people who had already arrived on the grounds, then played another free show later at Mag Bar, and Tom Morello and Grandson played a free show at Whirling Tiger. By the time we found out about the Tom Morello show, it was already packed beyond capacity. I guess we weren’t so ready to rock after all.

That’s pretty much all I got about Day Two. It’s less exciting than the other days, but they can’t all be RBI doubles. Tune in next time for my write-up of Day Three, which was much more eventful than Day Two, and much, much wetter than Day One. Thanks for reading!

I Don’t Care What You Do, Just Do It Faster: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day One)

/ Rev. Joel / 5 Comments

Note: this is Part Two of a multi-part series about Louder Than Life 2024. I’m not sure how many parts there’ll be, but it seems like it’ll be three at least. There are supplemental parts also.

When I opened my eyes at 7:30 AM on September 26, 2024, the first thought in my head was “ooh, Louder Than Life starts tomorrow!” If you’ve already read Part Zero (which I do recommend, if only for context)(I know it’s a bit rambly, even for me, but I can’t afford an editor)(plus I don’t want one), you’ll recall that the previous night ended just a bit fuzzily. My next thought was “wait, it’s Thursday, you dingus – Louder Than Life starts today!” And I was right. I am a dingus, and it did start today. Looks like I’m still playing fast and loose with time. Apparently that’s gonna be my new thing.

The reason I opened my eyes at 7:30 AM on September 26, 2024 was because we had an 8:30 reservation at Wild Eggs. One of our LTL traditions is breakfast at the Wild Eggs on Floyd St, and if there’s one thing to remember from Letterkenney, it’s this: you don’t fuck with tradition. Our breakfast was very good, and the service ended up being very good after a somewhat rough start. I recommend Wild Eggs. The one in New Albany is also very good.

Here’s a picture from our walk to Wild Eggs.

“In walks Barbarella, set to stun!” – Clutch

The reason we had an 8:30 reservation at Wild Eggs is because we wanted to get to the festival grounds ASAP after the gates opened so we could see Soul Glo. We ended up running late getting to the shuttle, so we arrived at the entry gates as Soul Glo started playing “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)”, which I’m pretty sure was their opener, and boy howdy, what a way to kick off a show!

Don’t take my word for it.

I’m bummed that I missed most of it, but the rest of the set was excellent. The energy on stage was high, and the crowd grew steadily while they played.

This is Soul Glo. They are a very good band.

We went over to the Top Shelf VIP section to get some drinks and snacks, and to go up onto the viewing platform to see what it was like before most of the tables were taken up. They added a Skybox this year – basically a second story with another bar – and the view from up there was pretty cool, but I don’t have any pictures from up there until Day Three. Here’s a panoramic photo I took from the main level on Day One.

I’m not sure how visible they are, but the Revolver and Decibel stages are way in the background almost dead center. The Loudmouth Stage is near the left.
Just to give you a bit of scale. The main stages are to the right, obvi.

I’m sorry I said “obvi”.

Anyway, we hung out up there while Finger Eleven played on Main Stage 2, which is the one on the right in those pictures. The main stages used to have proper names as well, but they didn’t do that this year for some reason. The band sounded fine. They were kinda boring to me, but they played both of the hits I remembered from whenever they were hits. Here’s one of them.

I was surprised to learn that this song is from 2003 (definitely assumed 2001), and also that this band is Canadian.

Next stop was the Decibel Stage way back there in that middle circle to post up for Touché Amore, who were my number one Absolutely Cannot Miss Once I’m Inside the Gates band of Day One. We’d actually planned on spending a lot of our time at the Decibel, Revolver, and Loudmouth stages over the course of the weekend, which is not uncommon for us; there’s always a ton of cool shit on the side stages. There are plenty of main stage bands we wanna check out, but the main stage is also where things like Staind happen, and man, what a disappointment that band is.

Anyway, we arrived right before Slothrust took the stage, and they were very good, though I don’t really remember much about them, on account of the fact that Touché Amoré were setting up just to the left of this picture, which is one of the two pictures I took during their set.


Here’s the other one. It’s Touché Amoré soundchecking. I forgot to mention earlier that I saw Jeremy, the vocalist (the guy in the hat and the white t-shirt), watching Soul Glo’s set from the side of the stage earlier, and I thought that was cool. They’re about to wrap up their current tour together. I’m bummed I couldn’t make it to any of the shows.

Rapture was soon to ensue, even if they didn’t play “Rapture”.

Touché Amoré was amazing. The crowd was disappointingly small, but we were into it, and they were playing at exactly the same time as The Warning, and that certainly pulled people away from from the Decibel Stage.

Talk about a motherfucking rollercoaster of emotions! By the end of their all-too-short 30-minute set, I was a hideous blubbering mess. Sheila gave me a tissue, and a security dude ran up and asked me if I was okay, and I nodded and snotted at him, and then Sheila said “he’s okay, he’s just emotionally overwhelmed right now”, and the security guy said “do you want a bottle of water?”, and I nodded and snotted at him, and he handed me a bottle of water, then Sheila said “thank you”, and I snotted at him and said something resembling “thank you”, then we headed back to Top Shelf to relieve our bladders and re-up our snacks and beverages.

It was time this whole time.

A quick aside here: every single interaction I’ve experienced with stage security at Louder Than Life has been positive. They do good and important work, and they do it well.

The next band on our agenda was Brutus, and I don’t remember anything about them, but I must’ve liked them, because in my journal I wrote “Brutus was cool”. Sheila just indicated that Brutus was amazing, and I believe her.

Actually, I just remembered why I don’t remember anything about Brutus: I was way over on the far end of the Reverb Stage so I could be on the rail for Militarie Gun.

Ian dedicated this song to “anyone who’s on drugs or trying to get off drugs”. I wish there’d been that many people watching them at Louder Than Life.

I’m glad I made that decision – Militarie Gun was SO MUCH FUN. They played an exceptionally tight 30-minute set, and the energy was high, and I’m all up in there dancin and singin along, and then they’re done, and I have to high-tail it across the back 40 to the Loudmouth Stage so I can get on the rail for KNEECAP (spoiler alert: I’m also glad I made that decision).

Here’s Militarie Gun soundchecking.
Dig that sweet Melvins shirt!

KNEECAP is a hip-hop trio from West Belfast, Northern Ireland, and they are fucking incredible. They’re one of the bands we learned about through The System, and I’m still bummed I had to miss Bob Vylan to see them, but if their set time hadn’t been changed that morning, I would’ve likely missed at least one song from Militarie Gun (and not gotten my spot on the rail).

While I was booking across the grounds, I spied a dude walking in my direction carrying a “FREE HUGS” sign. At about 10 paces I pointed at him, and he nodded, and we walked up to each other and had a fucking awesome hug. It was the perfect way to bridge the gap between bouncy non-political punk rock songs about the human condition and bouncy political hip-hop songs about the human condition.

KNEECAP blew my goddamn mind. Just a phenomenal performance, and I’m so glad I got to see them. If you like hip-hop at all, I recommend looking into them. Even if you don’t like hip-hop, their story is pretty fascinating, and they also give extremely entertaining interviews. Below is the only footage I could find of them from LTL2K24.

I was on the other end of the stage when this happened.

Here’s the song they were playing in the clip above, if you’re interested.

The clip below is called “Stupid questions Irish people are always asked, answered by KNEECAP”. It’s apparently age-restricted, but I cannot encourage you enough to click the “Watch on YouTube” link, which is also linked in this sentence. It’s a hoot.

Here’s a picture of one of the speakers just to the right of the stage. The cover vibrated off within seconds of KNEECAP’s set beginning. One of the security dudes tried to put back, but it just fell right off again.

“Bass! How low can you go?” – Public Enemy


This picture isn’t very exciting, but you can get a decent look at all three members, and it gives you a good idea how close I was.

l-r: Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, DJ Próvaí, unknown security dude

For what it’s worth, Sheila says that Bob Vylan’s set was also amazing, and I believe her. Here’s a picture I took when DJ Próvaí came out into the crowd with a microphone at the beginning of “H.O.O.D.”. This picture happens to be the lead-in to the short clip above. I like the way the clouds look.

We didn’t get to see much of PUP, but what we saw was very enjoyable, and I’d like to see them again , but in a smaller venue. Also, side note: there were several bands in attendance this year who stylize their names in all caps (PUP, KNEECAP, HEALTH, etc.). Just something I noticed.

Next, we watched Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg plow through 22 Ramones songs and 1 Joey Ramone solo cover in 40 minutes on the Decibel Stage, and I am not exaggerating at all when I tell you it was one of the most fun experiences of my life. The band sounded great, and the crowd was awesome, and we were all havin a regular ol cretin hop.

Meanwhile, King Dingus of Dipshit Island (that’s me) failed to notice that onstage, with Marky Ramone, were none other than the legendary Tommy Victor (Prong) on guitar, and the legendary Craig Setari (Sick of It All) on bass. To be fair, I did have my glasses safely tucked away in a case in the pocket of my cargo shorts, which made seeing anything more than 30 feet ahead of me with any real clarity something of a challenge.

We were a to the left of this angle, and the crowd we were in was much more fun this this buncha duds.

After their set, we started back toward Top Shelf so we could refuel for the walk back to the Revolver Stage for Sum 41, who were allegedly playing their last US festival date ever. We’re not necessarily fans of Sum 41 per se, but we were interested in checking them out, and the fact that they overlapped with Five Finger Death Punch, who are not for us, made it a no-brainer.

As we began the walk, I noticed Sheila was chatting with a couple of dudes who looked kinda like me without a beard (but not so horrific). I slowed my roll so they could catch up, and she went on to tell me that they were from Germany, and introductions were given all around, and they were fuckin awesome dudes. They were gonna buy drinks and head back over to watch Sum 41 also, so we told them we could bring them bourbon from Top Shelf if they wanted to walk over there with us and wait outside. We walked together and laughed together, and then we left them outside Top Shelf, and when we came back out, we couldn’t find them. It was too dark, and the crowd packing in for 5FDP made our search futile. I wish we’d been able to hang with them a little more, but such is the nature of festival attendance. If either of those dudes happen to read this: know that you are awesome.

On our walk to and from Top Shelf, The Offspring were playing on the Main Stage 1, and I was frankly surprised that they sounded so good. I like some of their songs (and Smash is absolutely a staple of my life), but they more or less lost me at “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”, and I never really bothered with them again after that, even though that song is pretty much just “Come Out and Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)”, Part 2.

I will begrudgingly admit that I enjoyed myself when they played “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”. Life is full of contradictions, and I’m not made of stone.

Sum 41 was blast, by the way. I don’t know that many of their songs, but it almost didn’t matter. I sang and danced and headbanged and air-guitared and smiled, and I’m glad I did it (that seems to be a recurring theme so far this weekend).

I know this song is goofy as shit, but I also know it’s fun as fuck. All hail your simile master.

After their set we headed back to Top Shelf to sit and rest. We heard the last two-and-a-half songs from 5FDP as we walked, and we ordered drinks and found a table and took a load off. Slipknot was the only thing left. This was the third time I’d been at an event where they played, and the first time I was gonna actually see them play. I am by no means what you would call a Slipknot fan, but I generally like the way the sound. I used to own their second album, Iowa, and I liked it well enough. I think I got rid of it in the Big Downsize of 2003, before I moved to Austin, TX, but that’s not important (like the rest of this is).

I also really like “Wait and Bleed” from their eponymous first album, plus I just always assumed that the odds are pretty good that a band consisting of somewhere between seven and fifteen members (I think there are nine) who all dress in terrifying slasher-film-inspired costumes will put on an entertaining show.

I was right. I watched most of their set on the CCTV feed from inside the Top Shelf tent, but I’m okay with that, because I’m 47 years old, and I was tired, and we still had three more days to go. Plus the beginnings of the rain that would make Saturday such a wild ride had started to fall. I did get a second wind (probably more of a sixth or seventh wind, really) when they started to play “Wait and Bleed”, and I jumped the fuck up (ha!) and ran out of the tent and into the crowd, where I danced and raged with strangers in the rain.

This video cuts off before the song is finished, but it’s the best looking and sounding clip I could find on YouTube.

We left shortly after “Wait and Bleed” finished, partially on account of the age and tiredness and the having three more days to go, but also because of the fact that the band, who were touring on the 25th anniversary of their first album, weren’t playing any songs written after 1999. This meant that I’d definitely already heard the only familiar song I was gonna hear for the rest of the night.

The shuttle ride back was apparently uneventful, which I feel like is what you want out of a shuttle ride. Day One was officially in the books, and it was also one for the books.

Thanks for reading, and look out for Day Two, coming soon to an unimportant blog near you.

Are You Ready to Go? ‘Cause I’m Ready to Go: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day Zero)

/ Rev. Joel / 9 Comments

I’m finally sitting down to write about Louder Than Life 2024, but I’m not actually gonna talk about the festival itself yet. Naturally, my first instinct is to start with Day One and continue chronologically, but there’s a fair amount of backstory that helps every day of the festival make more sense, plus it’ll be easier to move forward if I cover some if it now, so it seems like starting before the beginning might be a better idea. And I’m aware that “starting before the beginning” may sound like nonsense, but time is clearly an illusion, and this is my blog, after all, so I suppose I’ll start wherever I doggone well feel like starting.


Louder Than Life 2024 officially began on September 28, 2023, approximately one week after Louder Than Life 2023 ended. On the 27th, we received an email telling us we were on the Early Bird List, and that in just two days, we would be among the First People on Earth to get the chance to purchase tickets to a 4-day music festival where we had no idea who would be performing. We were pumped!

Listen: I spent one football season in elementary school making Monday Night Football bets on the bus, and I had a pretty good run overall, even though I knew almost nothing about football. As an adult, I enjoy playing slots occasionally; I even won 200 bucks one time, and that was pretty neat. And one Sunday night several years back, I even tried my hand at blackjack, craps, and roulette when the table minimum was $5 (I did not do well). But if you’d told me even six years ago that I’d ever gamble on something as big as weekend passes to a four-day music festival without knowing a single band in advance, I’d have called you dadgum liar.

The thing is, when Danny Wimmer Presents puts on a festival, you know the lineup is gonna be solid. It’s always a mixed bag, but for every steaming turd like Falling in Reverse or Ghostmane, you get a delicious morsel like Clutch, Suicidal Tendencies, Green Day, Cypress Hill, or Pennywise. Occasionally you’ll get one of those rare French chocolates wrapped with edible gold, like Metallica playing two unique sets on two nights, or one of only three reunion shows of the year by Fuckin Slayer. And even when there are steaming turds on stage, there are other stages to check out. And even if all the other stages have turds steaming on them at the same time (uncommon), there’s other stuff to do, and the people watching is just aces.

Anyway, the next day (9/28) I got another email telling me that extra-special fancy-pants packages were now available, so we took the plunge and splurged on “The Luxury Package”, which – in addition to admission to all four days of the festival, access to the exclusive Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP area (which we enjoyed very much in 2023), and 5 nights at the Galt House Hotel (our preferred hotel when in Lousville) – included, and I quote:

  • Downtown shuttle pickup at your hotel: all 4 days
  • Dedicated fast track entry and re-entry
  • Access to Welcome Party
  • Watch a performance from the soundboard
  • $50 Louder Than Life merch voucher
  • Artist-signed festival poster
  • Louder Than Life mini-guitar
  • Commemorative lanyard

End quote.

Considering we were planning to get TSVIP passes, stay at the Galt House, and use the Pegasus Transportation shuttles anyway, it seemed like a big ol no doi for us. Plus we were able to pay it off in installments! I’ll get to most of the perks later, but a couple of them came into play before the fest actually started, and that’s what we’re here to talk about this time (more or less).

A quick aside: Our accommodations were fuckin brilliant. The Galt House is always at least very good, and most times it’s great. The staff is friendly and helpful, the restaurants and bars are great, it’s close to lots of cool restaurants, shops, museums, and live performance venues, and it’s very easily accessible by automobile. I cannot recommend it enough if you’re staying in downtown Louisville. I digress.

Look, I know I said earlier that LTL2K24 officially began on September 28, 2023, but I was being dramatic. For us, it actually began on February 21, 2024, when the full lineup was released. We have a System when the lineup gets released, see? I’ll make a list of all the bands, and on Saturday nights over the next few months, we’ll spend a chunk of time watching videos from all the bands. We’ll usually start with either the newest song or the song with the most plays on YouTube, and we’ll work our way through the lineup over the course of a month or two. When we’ve made it through all four days, we’ll go back through and watch a second video of each band, this time focusing on older songs when possible/as needed. After we’ve finished a second run-through, we’ll go through the whole list once more, this time watching live performances from each band.

The System isn’t perfect, but it’s getting better each year, and it’s helped us discover some really kick-ass bands and artists in previous years, like Ho99o9, Amigo the Devil, Mannequin Pussy, and Gnome, to name a few.

This year I fine tuned The System a bit more. We assigned a letter grade (A-F) for each video, and then a couple of weeks before leaving this year, I went through and made a short list of bands who averaged a B- or higher, double-checked each one on Spotfiy (one C-/D+ band almost made it through – yikes!), and made a playlist with two songs from each band. Then the day before, I mapped out a guideline schedule for each day so we could keep track of who was playing where and when without having to consult the app, thereby draining our phone batteries.

Here’s an example.

This ended up being somewhat handy, but there are always last-minute changes that’ll muck things up, like for instance Jigsaw Youth and KNEECAP‘s times being pushed back after I made this schedule, due to Veil of Maya dropping off the festival on the morning of Day One. And a cursory glance at said schedule will reveal lots of overlapping set times, so we ended up having to make difficult choices, like for instance I had to decide between watching KNEECAP on the Loudmouth Stage and watching Bob Vylan on the Decibel Stage. Spoiler alert: I chose KNEECAP, but that hasn’t happened yet in this timeline, plus I haven’t even actually started talking about Day Zero yet, so I’ll save that for the next post.

Fast-forward to September 13, when I received an email about our Soundboard Experience. Sheila and I had both forgotten about that, so it was a very exciting email to receive. Imagine my dismay when I got down to the important part:

Of all the fuckin bands…
Same, Ralph.

Look: I try not to yuck anybody else’s yums, but Falling in Reverse is easily my least favorite band that I’ve ever heard, that has also played at Louder Than Life. I just do not get the love for that band. I was sad. I responded thusly:

The next day, they responded with this:

I was even sadder. Plus it seemed like they didn’t really understand what I was trying to relate to them even though I thought I’d made it extremely clear and easy to follow, which I just found kind of disappointing. Sheila was concerned that this meant our artist-signed festival poster would also be affiliated with Falling in Reverse, but I soothed her concerns by pointing out that if we did receive a poster with Ronny Radke’s autograph on it, we’d at least be able to get a li’l money from it on ebay. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself again; there’s more to the Soundboard Experience, but it’s not Saturday yet.

Let’s move on to Wednesday the 25th, shall we?

I spent the morning getting a few last-minute supplies and gassing up and packing the car while Sheila worked a half-day. We stopped for lunch at Tumbleweed in Floyd’s Knobs, IN, and it was great as always. My “B- or Better” playlist served us well on the drive.

I’m pretty proud of this packing job. Nothing shifted at all.

We checked into the hotel, unpacked, freshened up, and had a drink and a snack at Jockey Silks, the bourbon bar in the hotel. We then made our way toward Tavern on 4th (home of the Official Welcome Party), with a brief detour to the Bluegrass Brewing Company for a pint of their delicious Altbier. We arrived at Tavern on 4th and took our place in line behind a couple we sincerely hoped we wouldn’t find ourselves in close proximity to once we got inside. They were turned away at the door because the guy didn’t realize they each needed a ticket, and therefore only bought one, so everybody ended up winning, except for them.

The Welcome Party promised snacks, and an open bar, so we got a couple of drinks and located the snacks. We were definitely glad we had a snack at the hotel bar, as the only vegetarian food we could locate were some pretzel bites with beer cheese. They were tasty enough, but we were expecting a bit more.


We ended up striking up a conversation with a couple that seemed kinda like us, but a few years older, and they were cool, but all I can really remember about them at this point is that the lady was extremely stoked to see Bob Vylan (as was Sheila), and the guy was wearing a Beastie Boys Check Your Head t-shirt. He actually appeared next to us while the DJ was playing a Beastie Boys song (way too loud, I might add). I’m aware of the irony of a dude who loves live music as much as I do being such a cantankerous old curmudgeon about loud music in other situations, but I can’t be alone in thinking that music shouldn’t be so fuckin loud when people are in a situation where talking is encouraged. Also, I’m very quickly becoming a cantankerous old curmudgeon, so it’s only natural.

I’m not all doom and gloom though, see?

We also hung out with this guy for a while. He was cool, and we never saw him again. These are the days of our lives.

This is a little blurry, but so were we.

The rest of the night is less clear, on account of the open bar, the lack of vegetarian food, and the anticipation. I know we had fun, and I know we made it back to the hotel safely. We woke up the next day ready for an adventure, and we were not disappointed, other than having to choose between KNEECAP and Bob Vylan, which I mentioned previously, but again, that’s in the future, at least relative to this story, which ends here.

Speaking of the future, Part Two of this multi-part concoction will be here (relatively) soon. It’ll cover Day One and possibly Day Two, if I can manage to keep myself on something resembling a track. Until then, go on and git. And thanks for reading.

Somehow It’s Already Been a Year: A Thing About Louder Than Life (and Also About Death)

/ Rev. Joel / 5 Comments

Howdy. I have many things to say about the Tenth Anniversary of Louder Than Life (September 26-29, 2024), and I’ll get to all of them eventually (likely not as soon as I’d like; we’ll see), but I’m gonna start at the beginning(ish), which is to say, 2019 (well, 1995 if we’re being technical).

Let this picture of me from the Welcome Party the night before Day One of this year tide you over until I get around to writing about it.

Sheila (aka Mrs. Circlepit) and I both attended our fair share of one-day festivals in our younger days, back when we were shadows of each other’s lives. My first was X-Fest ’95, followed by Lollapalooza ’96, followed by several iterations of the Van’s Warped Tour (between 1998-2001). She attended Lollapalooza ’94, Ozzfest ’98, and the 2002 Sprite Liquid Mix Tour. More recently, we attended Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival together in 2018, six days before my sweet, sweet mother passed away.

In 2014, my homeboy Dustin scored free tickets to days two and three of Rock on the Range (now known as Sonic Temple – also produced by Danny Wimmer Presents, the folks behind Louder Than Life). That was my first experience with a multi-day festival (even though we only ended up attending one day), and you can read my write-up about that on my old blog here.

I don’t wanna get too much into our first two years at Louder Than Life, because I’ve written about them before as well, but just for some background, Sheila and I attended Day Two of LTL 2019 (the day after the burial of her sweet, sweet paternal grandfather), and all four days of LTL 2021, which, while not directly related to us, had something in the neighborhood of 800,000 US covid-19-related deaths coloring our experience.

We also attended all four days in 2022 (about which I wrote very little, and which I’ll cover directly) and again in 2023 (about which I wrote a little more, but still not a lot, because I got lazy and never got around to finishing the project). I’m gonna cover both of those a bit more before I dive into this year’s fest.

After almost dying in the heat on that one day in 2019, and struggling to find a single sliver of shade that we could both hang out in over the four days of 2021, we decided to upgrade to VIP status in 2022. The promise of a shaded tent, air-conditioned restrooms, and shorter lines for some food vendors was too much for us to resist, but it turned out to be (mostly) a bust. The VIP section seemed to be oversold, and as I mentioned briefly in an old post, many of the dickheads who arrive when the gates open will claim every empty chair, and absolutely refuse to let anyone else use those chairs for any amount of time, even when all 8 of their friends are off wandering around for one reason or another, leaving all 8 of their chairs vacant, except for their backpacks, and the remaining friend’s big fat dumb feet.

Our good friends Mitch and Amanda decided to join us, and we went all out by upgrading to a fancy apartment-suite at the hotel, which is almost certainly the nicest hotel room I’ll ever stay in. It was pretty awesome. Among other things, we were on the 3rd floor, with escalators only steps from our room, so we only had to wait for an elevator when checking in and checking out!

Here’s what was not pretty awesome about Louder Than Life 2022: my dad passed away at 7:42 AM on Day One. In fact, it was the exact opposite of awesome.

Here’s a list of the things that went through my brain upon receiving this news, mostly in order, but not necessarily verbatim:

  • This fucking sucks. I can’t believe both of my parents are gone.
  • I have to go home and talk to my brother.
  • I don’t wanna go home and talk to my brother.
  • Tough shit, pal. Sometimes we gotta do things we don’t wanna do.
  • If Sheila goes with me, our friends will have nowhere to stay, because the hotel is in her name.
  • Shit, the hotel is in her name!
  • We spent a lot of money on this trip…
  • If I don’t get the opportunity to let out some of the aggression and angst that have been building up inside me since LTL 2021, I’m not sure I’ll make it another year myself.
  • Dad is already gone, so it’s not like I can do anything to change the circumstances.
  • Aside from Dad, the only immediate family I have left is a brother and a sister, and none of us really get along with each other.
  • Dad would absolutely not have understood the amount of money we spent to attend a music festival, but he would definitely not have wanted us to waste that money.
  • Maybe I can just go home for a few hours, and return to catch part of Day One, then I’ll play the rest of the weekend by ear.
  • Yes, that’s what I’ll do.
  • Here I go, then.

And so off I went, driving 2 hours back home to hang out with my brother for a while, and discuss arrangements. I stopped by our house first, to try and rest a moment, check the mail, and make a few phone calls. I eventually told my brother I was going back to Louisville for the weekend to be with Sheila and our friends (I honestly don’t know what he thought/thinks about my decision, because I’m one of the only men in my entire family who ever shares his feelings with anyone). I also told him that when our sister arrived and they went to the funeral home, I trusted his decisions, and that he could feel free to speak for me. I got back on the road, drove like hell back to Louisville, got to the hotel, changed into my festival clothes, happened to catch a shuttle that was just about to depart, got inside the gates, bought 2 Budweisers, and found my crew in front of the Disruptor Stage with less than five minutes to spare before HO99O9 took the stage and blew my mind. It was a very strange and surreal juxtaposition.

This was recorded from approximately 10 feet in front of us. As you might imagine, it was cooler in person.

Ministry almost made us permanently deaf immediately after, and we tried to watch Tenacious D‘s set after that, but the crowd was too big to really be able to see it, so we headed to the VIP section while Bring Me the Horizon played, so we could rustle up a spot for Day One headliner Nine Inch Nails. They’re one of Sheila’s favorite bands, and I’m not necessarily a huge fan, but I do like plenty of their songs, and I’d never seen them live before, so I was certainly looking forward to it. It ended up being an incredible set, and when they played “Hurt”, I cried for the first time since learning about my dad’s passing, and it felt good, even though I was sad.

I should interject here and mention that my dad and I were never particularly close. He was a very quiet man, raised to keep his feelings and emotions inside, and we didn’t have all that much in common, so we just didn’t talk much. He had a ridiculous sense of humor, which I was lucky to inherit, but aside from that and a love of Clint Eastwood westerns and silly action movies, our common ground was blood, almost entirely. That’s not to say we didn’t love each other; more like we didn’t really understand each other.

He would’ve moved heaven and earth to help me if needed. When I moved to Austin, Texas in 2003, he led the caravan on the 18-ish hour drive and helped unload all of my stuff. And when I split from my ex-wife three years later, he rented a van and drove back down to help me load it all back up and come back home. After my oldest sister died, we started to say “I love you” to each other on a more regular basis, and after my mom passed, we said it every time we talked. I was able to tell him toward the end that I appreciated all the things he’d done for me in my life, and he thanked me for saying so. But the truth of the matter is, I was always closer to Mom, and I had more time to mentally prepare for Dad’s passing, so his death didn’t have the same kind impact on me.

Anyway, the next morning, as I was approaching the front desk to ask for more coffee pods, I got a call from my brother telling me I had to come to the funeral home and sign some insurance papers, as I was the sole beneficiary on his life insurance policy. I went back to the room to share the news, then made the 90-minute drive to Bedford, Indiana, signed the papers, and drove back to Louisville again, arriving just in time to join my crew for lunch at Merle’s Whiskey Kitchen. The lunch was delicious, and we went back to the hotel afterward to catch the shuttle to the festival.

We entered the gates to the sounds of Amigo the Devil, which was the first act of the day that we were hoping to see. We watched In Flames, followed by Clutch, then hauled ass over to the Revolver Stage to catch Helmet, which is always a good time, then watched the beginning of Baroness, headed back to the main stage to the last song from Mastodon, then were treated to an incredible performance from Lamb of God. We went back to the Revolver Stage to watch a little bit of GWAR, and were planning to hang around for Slipknot‘s headlining performance, but all the driving and walking back-and-forth that day and the day before had wiped me completely out, so Sheila and I decided to call it a night, and left the grounds to the sounds of Shinedown (I’m apparently a poet, and didn’t know it).

I didn’t make this meme, but I like it very much.

The next morning the four of us had breakfast at Wild Eggs, which we had to reschedule from Day One (and which has been a Day One tradition for Sheila and me since we started attending the full weekend), then we headed to the venue in the early afternoon, arriving in the midst of a pretty electrifying performance from Airbourne on the main stage. We watched them for a few minutes, then headed back to the Revolver Stage to watch what we learned was the first ever US performance of New Delhi, India’s Bloodywood, who were absolutely incredible. They gave very Roots-era Sepultura vibes, and it was powerful.

We rested a bit, then made our way back to the main stages to watch Sevendust, Jerry Cantrell, Ghostmane (which I hated a lot)(the guy seriously kept yelling “MOOOOVE!” at the crowd while fucking beeping noises were coming from the stage), Chevelle, and as much Alice Cooper as we could possibly watch without cutting into Body Count‘s headlining set on the Disruptor Stage, way back on the far end of the grounds (right next to the Revolver Stage).

Sheila and I were fortunate to see an Alice Cooper headlining show in the fall of 2019, otherwise that would’ve been an impossible choice to make. We arrived with a few minutes to spare, secured a primo spot right on the edge of where the pit ended up being, and had our lives changed by Body Count. I was high as a kite by the time their set ended, and it was all adrenaline (plus probably some bourbon and beer). Rob Zombie conflicted with Body Count, back over on the Loudmouth Stage (aka Main Stage 2), so the only thing I got to see from his set was a full-length trailer for The Munsters, which was released 3 days later, and “Dragula”, which, due to issues which seemed to plague that stage all weekend, did not sound good.

KISS was the headliner that day, and I’ve never been a KISS fan, but they’re obviously a legendary organization, so I was still looking forward to screaming along to a bunch of their dumb songs for a while. My anticipation disappeared moments after they started playing “Detroit Rock City”. According to what I wrote in my journal afterward, “Paul Stanley sounded like he was being strangled while yelling for help.” I stand by that, but I would also add that he sounded like a cat being stepped on. I probably could’ve dealt with it and enjoyed myself a little bit, if not for the fact that Body Count had just ruined live music for me for at least the next 12-14 hours.

On the last day, we caught The Native Howl, Oxymorrons, Anti-Flag, Joey Valence & Brae, and about half of Bad Religion (we coincidentally left while they were playing “Walk Away”) before trying to wrangle some quality spots for Alice in Chains. I never got a chance to see them with Layne Staley, but I fucking love their old albums, and everything they’ve released since they re-formed with William Duvall on lead vocals has also been great, so I was pretty pumped about their performance. What I hadn’t anticipated, until it started happening, was the sheer volume of tears that would fall from me when they played “Rooster”. If you don’t know, the song was written by Jerry Cantrell, about his Vietnam veteran father, and my dad was also a Vietnam vet. Seconds into the song, I started crying. By the time it was finished, I was absolutely sobbing for the first time since my mom’s death, and my voice was almost entirely gone from singing along. It was the culmination of the entire roller coaster of a weekend, and it was exactly what I needed.

This kinda sounds like ass, on account of all the people singing along in and out of every possible key known to music, but trust me when I tell you it sounded perfect when it was happening.
Here’s the studio version, if you need a li’l palate cleanser.

Red Hot Chili Peppers finished off the night, and they were even more boring than I thought they’d be.

I’m fully aware that I haven’t talked about this year’s festival yet, but like I said last week, I can’t really write about this year’s fest the way I want to without writing about some things from the past two years that I haven’t written about yet (at least not for public consumption). I’ll get there eventually, and I’ll try to make it as entertaining as possible, but it needs context to really make sense.

To be fair, I’m not sure how much sense any of this has made yet.

As for last year’s LTL, I’m gonna write less here, since I already made two full posts about it, plus a bit of a recap of the remainder of it earlier this year (all linked above), but I need to mention that, like every year since 2019, death was intertwined with the fest, although last year it was an imminent death rather than a recent one.

My mother-in-law Susan passed away in early October last year. Susan was a fantastic human being, and she would’ve given you the shirt off her back if you needed it. Since the day I met her, she was never anything but kind to me, even when I didn’t really deserve it. She loved to feed people, and she had a great sense of humor (even if she did refuse to give Futurama a chance). She was courageous and strong through her struggle, and I never heard her complain once. Her presence in this realm is, and will always be, missed.

She was diagnosed with cancer of the endometrium in January 2019, and doctors were able to remove her uterus, and she was fine and seemingly cancer-free for almost five years, then she started having pains in her hip and leg in late fall 2022. Thanks to the wonderful for-profit medical care in this country, she was getting her pain treated, but no doctor and no amount of botched biopsies could figure out what was wrong with her until she was sent to a hospital in Louisville, where she was given the diagnosis we all knew was coming: her cancer was back, and had basically started filling up the space where her uterus used to be.

A stage four diagnosis came soon enough, she was given a relatively short amount of time to live, and we all began to wait. Every free day we had was spent visiting her, because we expected every visit to be our last. She kept on trucking, even staying alive while Sheila and I did our best to enjoy last year’s Louder Than Life. One of the last semi-coherent things she said to us was “I want you to go and have fun. You spent so much money on drugs. No, wait, you spent money on tickets. I’m on drugs.” Hilarious to the very end.

Her funeral service was beautiful and moving, and I’m sure I won’t be able to listen to Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” or Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” without crying ever again.

Having the inevitability of Susan’s death hanging over the festival made us feel weird about enjoying ourselves, but we did our best, assuming every day that we’d get a phone call telling us she was gone. Sheila and I both bawled like babies when Green Day played “Wake Me Up When September Ends” near the end of their phenomenal set that closed out Day Four last year. We drove from the hotel straight back to the in-laws’ house the next day, and every free day afterward. Susan’s body held on for 13 more days until she passed peacefully in her sleep.

During the early days of her diagnosis, an album called Stage Four by a band called Touche Amore came into my awareness. I’d heard of the band before, but I hadn’t really thought about them one way or the other until I happened upon a reddit post that encouraged me to check them out. After a particularly shitty day at work, I decided to listen to Stage Four while I drove across town to get a Culver’s veggie burger basket with cheese curds and a root beer, because I needed to eat my feelings. By the time I got home, I was approximately 3/4 of the way through the album, and I could tell it was on the way to becoming one of my favorite albums of all time.

Released in 2014, Stage Four was written and recorded following the death of singer Jeremy Bolm’s mother, Dorothy. She, too, whipped cancer’s ass once, only to find it back and metastasizing. The album is so fucking catchy and good, and it’s simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting, and I’ve listened to it well over a hundred times since that drive home by way of Culver’s, easily. In addition to dealing with Susan’s illness, it also helped me deal with all the other recent losses I’d experienced. I’ll write about it more at some point.

All of that is pertinent to this year for a few reasons:

  • This was our first Louder Than Life without the grim specter of death hanging over it.
  • Susan found a way to be there with us this year, and it was fuckin rad.
  • Touche Amore was announced as one of the bands on Day One this year, and I was finally gonna get to sing along with them.

Spoiler alert: I did, and it was amazing, but I’ve written enough for today. I’ll do a full write-up of Day One soon (along with the pre-party that was part of our package)(alliteration!), and unlike last year, I will actually finish writing about the whole weekend. Here’s some footage of a different performance from Touche Amore. I wish I could’ve seen them in a crowd like this one, but at least I got to see them.

It was time this whole time.

Thanks for reading.

News Flash, I Need News Less: Final Check-In

/ Rev. Joel / 4 Comments

We’re at T-minus 27 hours until the gates open for Day One of Louder Than Life 2024. The car is (mostly) packed, the missus is showering, and I decided to write something, if only to keep myself honest about writing more. I’ve been awake since before 6:00 AM, and I know I’m gonna have to deal with that later, but for now, I’m flyin high on adrenaline (and my fingernails, which Sheila fancied up for me last night).

The color is called Motley Blue. Dig that speedboat finish!

Part of the fancy-pants package we bought this year is access to an official pre-party this evening, complete with open bar and “light bites”. We’ll hopefully meet at least one or two cool people there, but even if all we meet are duds, we’ll still have some stories to tell, eh?

Speaking of stories, the big story going into this weekend (other than the fact that it’s the 10th anniversary of the fest) is the weather. Every current weather model shows the remnants of Tropical Storm Helene hitting Louisville square in the butthole on Friday at the very least, with chances of rain ranging between 20% and 60% the other days, depending on which weather app or service you look at. The event is rain or shine, and while I’m not stoked about standing in the rain, and I’m really not a fan of being wet for any amount of time longer than a shower or a nice tub soak, I’m determined to rock my soggy ass off no matter what. I’ve got my water-proof Merrells and a proper raincoat, plus I’ll be taking an emergency poncho and an extra pair of socks every day. I’ll come out the other side water-logged as fuck, but it’ll make for a memorable event, and at the very least, I’m off work until next Wednesday, and I can’t be disappointed in that.

I’ll finish up with some songs from a few more of the bands I’m looking forward to. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to check back later for more about my experience at Louder Than Life 2024.

Ho9909 (pronounced “horror”) are wild as fuck. This’ll be our second time seeing them (first was LTL2K22), and we were supposed to see them perform a headlining set this past Sunday in Indianapolis, but that tour got cancelled. It would’ve been amazing to see them play in the dark, but ultimately I don’t care when or where I see them, as long as I get to see them again.

I totally slept on CKY until we started researching this year’s lineup. I was aware of them – I knew that they had toured with Clutch in the past, that they are affiliated with the people responsible for Jackass (their drummer Jess is Bam Margera’s brother), and that Jess plays in The Company Band with Neil from Clutch – but as far as I knew, I’d never heard a note from them. Basically, because I never watched more than 2-3 minutes of Jackass, I never had any kind of real awareness of CKY. I’m still not totally familiar with their musical output, but I know I’m stoked as fuck to hear some of their songs live, especially this one, which I was surprised to learn that I already knew pretty well, but didn’t know it was a CKY song.

I’d never heard of Narrow Head before this lineup was released, but holy smokes, do these guys scratch every single one of my musical itches. If they’d existed in the mid-90’s, I think they would’ve gotten huge. At the very least, my homeboy Travis and I would’ve been super fans.

Picture Being Built For One Thing: A Short Thing About Louder Than Life 2024

/ Rev. Joel / 6 Comments

My vacation is nigh, and I am Honkin on Bobo with excitement, friends. Only one more clock-in until I’m off for 8 days in a row. Only 4 days until we are southbound to Louisville, and only 5 days until Louder Than Life 2024 begins. We went from “I don’t think we I can do this again” to “this is our annual vacation” in less than three years, and brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you that we have earned this particular annual vacation.

As I mentioned, re: last year’s fest, there’s no going back from Top Shelf.

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to approach writing about this year’s Louder Than Life, because as you can see from the flyer below, it’s a pretty dang big event, and on a personal level, it’s very intertwined with previous years. I think I’ve begun to figure it out, but I don’t have time to get started on it at the moment, as I have a lot to do in preparation for our trip, plus I’m very caught up in Season Two of Veronica Mars, and that show requires my full attention. I did want to write a li’l sumn sumn, though, just to hold myself accountable, and because I haven’t posted anything up on these “esteemed” pages in almost 6 months, and what’s the point of paying for the domain name if I’m not even gonna use the damn thing?

Anyway, this year’s Louder Than Life has, in my opinion, one of the strongest overall lineups in the history of the fest. The headliners get all the attention on the posters and the social media, and there are a couple of real duds on there (I’m looking at you in particular, Falling in Reverse), but this lineup is fuggin incredible, and it’s not just the bands with the prominent logos that are getting me stoked. Several of the bands I’m most excited about seeing are listed in generic white ALL CAPS.

One of the beautiful things about a festival like this is that it’s pretty easy to avoid a band if you don’t wanna see them. For example, when Falling in Reverse is playing on Saturday, we’ll be on the far end of the festival grounds, watching HEALTH, followed by Body Count, so we’ll clearly be the big winners on that day. On the other hand, one of the ugly realities about a festival like this is that you often have to make tough decisions about which band to miss because two bands you wanna see are playing at exactly the same time, or have overlapping start/stop times. I’m currently dealing with this in some capacity on all four days, and I’m sure I’ll write more about it eventually.

As I said earlier, I don’t have a lot of time to really get into this right now, but I wanted to get the ball rolling, which I figure will make it easier for me to keep it rolling after the fest. I have so much to say (about this festival and about my life in general over the past couple years), and I need to stop being a lazy turd and just say it, already, and I’m gonna keep it going this time. You’ll see!

I had to dig way too deep to find this image, and that’s just silly.

I’m gonna close with a song each from a few of the undercard bands that I’m extra pumped about seeing.

Touché Amoré has helped me work through some shit over the last year-and-a-half, y’all. They also tie into some of the things I have to say about this festival and about my life in general over the past couple of years, so you’ll definitely be hearing more about them soon. I will be a blubbering, emotional wreck when they take the stage at 2:15 on Thursday, and there’s a decent chance I will destroy my vocal chords singing along with them. This is their latest single, from their upcoming album Spiral in a Straight Line, which is coming out October 10, and about which I am very excited. The song and video both rule.

Drug Church has been helping me deal with day-to-day stuff and nonsense for most of this year, and if I have any voice left by the time they hit the stage Sunday at 4:45, it will surely be gone by the time their 30 minutes are up. Drug Church would be one of the very best bands to come from the mid-90’s if they hadn’t actually come from 2011, so instead they’re just the best band to come from 2011. This is one of their latest singles, from their upcoming album Prude, which is coming out October 4, and about which I am very excited. The song and video both rule.

KNEECAP is a hip-hop trio from West Belfast, Northern Ireland. I don’t know much about them yet, but I know that this song has not left my head since the first time I heard it, even if I can’t understand half the lyrics. I’m not 100% sure, but I think the beat might’ve gotten me pregnant. I have a feeling their live show is gonna off the hook, as the kids say.

Anyway, I really do need to get back to chorin, so that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more, though. My brain-dam is close to being breached, I can feel it. Check back in after next weekend and let yourself get swept away with my gibberish.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks, You Too

/ Rev. Joel / 2 Comments

I started writing this thing on November 24 of last year. I’m gonna be completely honest here and say that I’m most likely never gonna get around to writing about the rest of Louder Than Life 2023. Sorry if you were looking forward to that for whatever reason. Speaking of Louder Than Life, this year’s lineup has some real duds, but overall, it’s pretty amazing, and I’ll probably write about something at least adjacent to LTL2024 sometime before we actually attend the festival, but for now, I’m doing something else. I don’t really understand it, either.

I’m only super stoked on one headliner, but that undercard is stacked.

Highlights of Days 3 and 4 last year include Run the Jewels, Turnstile, Green Day (those dudes know how to close out a motherfucking festival!), The Bronx, Jehnny Beth, and the delightful couple from Australia who chatted us up before that Pantera thing. That Pantera thing sounded good, by the way, and it was cool to hear those songs live again, as they were part of the soundtrack to my angry youth, but we didn’t stay for the whole thing. Sheila said Viagra Boys were great, and I’m really bummed I missed them, but they were overlapping with both Run the Jewels and Turnstile, and I couldn’t not see all that. They were both transcendent, by the way. Another highlight was talking to a younger dude who traveled from New Zealand just to see Turnstile. He got to experience them from the center of the rail, and I was very happy for him.

Anyhoo, I deleted the part where I mentioned how I don’t write enough, and the part where said I was still gonna write about the last two days of LTL2023, and the part where I promised I would do so before the 2024 lineup dropped, and I updated the first part, and lightly edited the whole thing for clarity, spelling, and grammatical errors. Not that any of it matters.

__________________________________________

My friend Chris and I made a book! He drew comics out of three of my dumb/mostly true/pretty funny stories based on my childhood, and he made them so much funnier. It’s called Speaking of…, and it’s a Certified Hoot.* 50 hardcover copies of were made for No Dice Books, and they’re beautiful, if I do say so myself. They’re also sold out. This is one of the things I had to update. If I’d gotten this post up in a timely fashion, you probably could’ve snagged one. Apologies for my delinquency. I was really unhappy at my job at the time, and I just didn’t feel like doing a final edit.

We had a softcover second edition printed too, and at it’s also beautiful, and with only 50 copies in existence, it’s technically just as rare. Its available over at the website, and I also have a few copies available for purchase directly from me. They cost 10 American smackers, plus an extra 5 bones for shipping (unless you buy one directly from me – duh).

My God, it’s full of stars!

If you bought a copy of Speaking of…, THANK YOU! If you’ve read it and enjoyed it, you should 100% check out Chris’ other stuff. It’s all so fucking good. Witch Shit! is on its own plane. It’s so goddamn funny and silly, and I think about it all the time.

One of my favorite things in the whole world.

The nostalgia that has accompanied the publication of Speaking of… has got me thinking about my childhood lately – like more than usual, even. My childhood seems “normal” to me, but what can that really mean? Alls I really know is it’s the only childhood I had, and it’s been on my mind lately. There was an episode of Bob’s Burgers a couple of months ago about bullying, and it’s one of those very sweet episodes of Bob’s Burgers that they do so very well. The result of all this is that I was thinking about bullying, and how fucked up bullying is, and then I realized that I was relatively lucky in that I wasn’t really bullied much as a kid. There were a few exceptions, though…

The first kid that tried to give me the business was staying at his dad’s house across the road for a few days over the summer. One day we were talking in the front yard, and he threw grass in my hair. I’d just had my bath and gotten dressed to go to kindergarten registration, and I did not appreciate his turd-like behavior. I related this information to him, and asked him to stop. He advised me that he intended to continue with the grass-in-the-hair bullshit, and punctuated this statement with more grass in the hair. I asked him again, nicely, to cease with his fool-acting. He once again did the thing with the grass. I indicated one final time, in a more forceful manner, that I would tolerate no more of his nonsense.

Unfortunately (for him), he’d gone too far to turn back now. He picked one more handful of grass and threw it at me, and I completely snapped. I started yelling and slapping and kicking at him, and he tried to fight back, but aspiring bully or no, he was only six years old, so he was not equipped to understand what was happening to him, and he didn’t let it go on for long before he ran back across the road crying. He told me he was gonna tell his dad, and I think I told him to shut up, then my mom made me come back inside. I honestly don’t recall ever seeing that kid again after that summer. I’m not saying he left town because he was scared of me or anything, but if one of my neighbors freaked out on me the way I freaked out on him, I’d do whatever it took to make sure they didn’t see me again. He definitely had no idea how scared I was about the whole thing.

Once I started kindergarten, there was a kid at my table who insisted on having his box of crayons on top of the stack, and he seemed like he might’ve been up to 23 years old, so I let that one go. I have no memories of him after that, so I have to assume it was an isolated incident, but we never came to blows, and I’m fine with that. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

My third experience with an aspiring bully was this kid who lived next door to us for a while when I was in second grade. He had an older sister, and I’m not sure what his parents did for a living, but I have a vague memory of them moving in, and a very distinct memory of the dad pulling in the driveway in his new Chevette, and grinning at me with a comically large overbite as he asked me “does the neighbors like it?” in the most southern Kentucky accent I can imagine (which happens to be one of my favorite accents, by the way). I do remember that the kid was a bit of shithead, and also that I sometimes hung out with him on account of his age and proximity, and because he had this really cool book about The Empire Strikes Back that had some exclusive behind-the-scenes photos. I’m not made of stone.

Basically, he was just kind of a turd to me most of the time in general, and then one day he kept trying to run me off the road while we were riding bikes. I complained about that during supper, and my dad quickly told me I should whip his ass. My mom was not on board with that, but Dad insisted that if I didn’t make a stand now, I’d be dealing with so much worse later. With regards to my aforementioned “lover not a fighter”-ness, my friend Jeff and I decided the element of surprise would favor me, so Jeff called him over to some other dude’s house around the corner and told him I wanted to talk to him.

We started to walk away toward the house, and I grabbed him, made one wild punch that I’m pretty sure didn’t land (I figure I’d remember if it did), then I freaked out and started yelling and slapping and kicking at him until he ran crying toward the house. The only visible physical injury he sustained was a cut next to his eye from running into the tailgate of the truck in the driveway while he was crying. I have no memories of him after that, although I’m positive that they didn’t move away that night.

Apparently there’s something to be said for losing your shit and yelling and slapping and kicking at someone who is bullying you. It’s obviously not gonna work on everyone, and it’ll likely get you severely injured (or worse) if you try it on the wrong person, but I have to imagine it would end a lot of dumb, avoidable fights early. I went 2-0 with it, and retired a champion. And my overall bully average was .666, which, in addition to being metal as fuck, would be an impressive average for any baseball player. Maybe I should make a series of training videos teaching my patented technique. I’ll call it Freakout!: How to Prevent Fights by Making Your Agressor Think You’re Off Your Nut. Order in the next hour and get a free bonus video, Thanks, You Too: How to Make Any Conversation Awkward in 15 Seconds or Less.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks for reading. And seriously, if you haven’t ordered a copy of Speaking of…, or any of Chris’s other stuff, do that now.

* Hoot certification by the Clockwise Circle Pit Hoot Certification Institute of America, est. 2019.

Now I Think I’ve Seen the Light: A Sort of Review of Day Two of Louder Than Life 2023

/ Rev. Joel / 2 Comments

Welcome, chums, to the second installment of my long-winded thing about my experiences at this year’s Louder Than Life, which is generally billed as North America’s Largest Music Festival. If you haven’t already, you can read about Day One here.

Day Two was less crucial to us than days One and Four, but there were still a few bands we needed to see, Megadeth being most important to both of us. Tool was the Day Two headliner, and while I do not reside near the neighborhood of capital “F” Tool-Fandom, I do like the Tool songs I know, and I’d never seen them before, so I was looking forward to ticking them off the big list of Bands I Ain’t Seen Live Yet. Godsmack offered direct support, and they’re not really my thing, but they are very good at what they do, and their drummer (Shannon Larkin) is badass, so I wasn’t opposed to hearing at least some of their set. Limp Bizkit was scheduled to go on before Godsmack, and you may have already read or heard about the shitshow that was their set, but suffice to say we were not looking forward to hearing them.

There were some other bands we were interested in checking out if time allowed, namely Gnome, Hanabie., Kittie, and Fever 333, but none of them were dealmakers/breakers. That said, let’s get on with the day.

We made it into the gates just in time to catch the end of Gnome’s first song. We were both unfamiliar with them prior to the lineup announcement, but we always make it a point to check out at least one song from each band/artist on the lineup, because what’s the point of going to four-day music festival with over 100 bands if all you’re gonna do is take up three chairs in the VIP section and watch the headliner? (Y’all know who you are.) Gnome made our shortlist for Friday, and we definitely made the right choice. There was a much larger crowd in front of the Disruptor Stage than we were expecting, but they deserved that crowd and more.

Gnome are a 3-piece (mostly instrumental) band from Antwerp, Belgium, and the members all dress in completely regular clothes, except for the big red pointy gnome hats they wear while they play. They are much heavier than their appearance suggests; they would not be out of place on a bill with Clutch, Red Fang, Baroness, Big Business, or any other big-riffed band with grooves thicker than honey mixed with molasses. They are worth your time. At one point, a very long single-file row pit broke out. I’d never seen one of those before, and it was a hoot. Eventually, it grew too long to sustain itself, and a second line started up right next to the first one. I can find no evidence of this particular row pit on the internet, although it’s apparently a pretty common occurence at shows in Europe, and seems to have been popularized by Amon Amarth fans. (It also happened during Flogging Molly’s set on Sunday, but I’m pretty sure the Gnome rowpit was bigger.)

This is Gnome. They were awesome. And dig those apparent superfans up there.

Hanbie. was up next over on the Revolver Stage, straight outta Japan, and we didn’t stick around for all of their set, but what we saw was pretty fun. They were kinda like Babymetal (i.e., J-pop + metal), but with harsher vocals, and without the choreography. I’d see them again if I got the chance. I was unable to get any good pictures of them, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they are indeed a real band.

The sun was hotter than a bastard on Day Two, so we went from the Revolver Stage directly to the Top Shelf VIP tent to cool off for a bit, and we caught some of Wage War‘s set from the Space Zebra Stage on the screens inside the tent. We saw them briefly in 2021, and they sounded just like I remembered them, which is to say, competent. My notes from this year’s Lineup Research simply say “LTL band”, which in my notes means metalcore with the standard screamed vocals, and clean vocals on a big singalong chorus (I’ve heard at least one song each day at LTL from several bands that, while inoffensive and not completely unenjoyable, are pretty interchangable to my middle-aged ears).

There’s a stretch of time I can’t account for, from around 4:00 pm until 4:45 pm, but I’ll assume we were in the tent drinking, eating spring rolls, and soaking up the sweet, sweet A/C. Corey Taylor went on the Space Zebra Stage at 4:45, and I know we were in the tent for at least part of his set, because I distinctly recall these four dumb-looking kids in their early teens, all with real dumb matching haircuts, who were dropping food and trash all over the ground inside the tent, and who told some dude they were excited about seeing Limp Bizkit. Those kids sucked.

We did duck out of there briefly to check out Headbanger’s Hall, which is a big tent near the entrance that has different music playing, plus video games/pinball machines, and sometimes celebrity bartenders (Corey Taylor himself has been a guest bartender two years in a row), but it was smaller, louder, and more crowded than last year, so we just walked back to the TSVIP tent and got some more drinks before we made our way over to the regular VIP section to get closer to Megadeth on the Loudmouth Stage (fitting for Dave Mustaine)(haha).

I’ve written some about Megadeth before (mostly for my old blog), and I stand by pretty much all of it, but I’ll be goddamned if Dave Mustaine isn’t a consummate musician and performer, and I’ll also be goddamned if I’m gonna miss a chance to hear “Tornado of Souls” live.

We made our way into VIP to the sounds of Corey Taylor and his band playing a real tight cover of “Ace of Spades”, and soon discovered that we were too late to get any kind of decent view of the stage. No matter, though, we were close, and I could still see the big screen. They kicked off with “Hangar 18”, and it was amazing, then they played “Dread and the Fugitive Mind”, from 2009’s pretty okay The World Needs a Hero, then they blasted into motherfucking “Hook in Mouth”, and I turned to Sheila and said “holy shit, I can’t believe they’re playing this song!” (turns out that was the first time they’d played it in 13 years!), and by the time I finished screaming “HOOK! IN! MOUTH!” along with Dave and my fellow true believers, the people directly in front of us offered us their spots on the rail (“these are your people”, the guy said, and I wasted no time taking him up on his gracious offer). As with Deafheaven’s set the day before, my headbanging was fierce and mighty, and as I’ve mentioned previously, our drinks were included with our tickets, so having the rail to hold onto gave me the confidence I needed to go all out.

“Sweating Bullets” gave way to “Trust”, which gave way to “We’ll Be Back” (from their most recent album, which I have yet to listen to), which gave way to “Tornado of Souls”. During “Tornado”, I noticed a young longhair (prolly 15-ish years old) hesitantly approach on my left and kinda look my way, as if seeking permission to stand next to me. I looked at him and nodded, and he banged his head along with me, and when “Tornado of Souls” ended, he looked at me and held up his hand for a high five. I reciprocated, and he said “dude, you’re awesome” in a hushed tone, and I probably blushed, and I told him he’s awesome, and we banged our heads to “Symphony of Destruction” and “Peace Sells”, and then Dave took a break to introduce the band, and the kid said “they still have to play ‘Holy Wars’ and ‘Wake Up Dead’!”, and I said “I know, I’m so fuckin stoked!”, and then they played “Holy Wars…the Punishment Due”, and then, just like that, they were done.

The kid said “do you think they’ll play ‘Wake Up Dead’?”, and I had to be the one to break his heart and tell him they were definitely finished. We chatted a little bit about Megadeth, and he sheepishly told me he hadn’t really listened to much of anything past 1994, and I told him that if he stopped listening to Megadeth after Youthanasia, that he was doing just fine, and we bumped fists, and I never saw him again, but I take some pride in knowing that he told his friends about the kick-ass old guy he watched Megadeth with. Never stop rockin, anonymous kid, and I hope I get to bang heads with you again next year.

At one point during “Holy Wars”, I was goin at it so fast and furious that my big dumb sun hat and bandana flew clean off my head. Here’s a picture Sheila secretly took of me – you can tell by the blur on my right leg that I’m unable to stand still

Headbang stance activated. That’s my young friend’s shoe on the left edge of the frame, there.
Dig that motion.

As we headed back out of VIP, I told Sheila that while I wish they would’ve played “Wake Up Dead”, I’m pretty sure my head would’ve fallen right off my shoulders if they had. We parted ways briefly at this point; Sheila needed a pee break and a shade break, and I decided to check out the line at the merch tent, hoping to take advantage of Limp Bizkit’s set time. The line was the shortest I’d seen it so far, so I decided to get all up in it. As an added bonus, I was close enough to the back stages that I got to hear the last 10 minutes of Kittie’s set and the beginning of Fever 333’s set instead of Limp Bizkit.

While I was in line, the dude behind me was tryin to chat me up about bands I had no interest in, so I was relieved when he finally took off toward the Space Zebra Stage, his Bizkit FOMO too strong to ignore. When I finally got to pick out shirts, I asked about a Deafheaven shirt, and the guy told me they were already sold out. I picked out a Turnstile shirt, then I asked about Jesus Piece. The guy said “oh shit, are they playing?!”, and I said “yeah, tomorrow at 6:30 on that li’l stage over there by the portapotties”, and he said “fuuuuuck”, and I said “yeah, I’m real pumped for it”, and he said “we don’t have any of their shirts…maybe check back tomorrow?”, and so I picked out a Run the Jewels shirt instead, and he said “the man has taste”, and I was like

…and then I reluctantly headed back toward the main stage area to meet up with Sheila, because I also needed to sit down. The one positive thing I’ll say about Limp Bizkit is this: their stage backdrop said “Live, Laugh, Limp Bizkit”, and that made me laugh.

I know taste is subjective, but Limp Bizkit was objectively not good. If you didn’t bother to click the link way up at the beginning of this thing, Fred Durst insisted that the cameras be turned off after the second song because “we didn’t come here to be on TV”, and for some reason the camera crew obliged, leaving the vast majority of people unable to see them at all. I still had to hear them, though, and that was less enjoyable than I’d imagined. And between songs, when DJ Lethal (who, along with guitarist Wes Borland, really should know better) was spinning and doin DJ thangs and whatnot, Fred Turdst just talked and talked and talked, and he really seems to think that his whole schitck from the late 90’s is still cute and funny, as if it ever was cute or funny in the first place.

Apparently we missed out on an amazing set from Fever 333, but ultimately that’s okay, because they’ve been at LTL before, and almost certainly will be there again, and we got to rest, and rest is important at a marathon slog like Louder Than Life.

Godsmack were next, over on the Loudmouth Stage, and as I mentioned before, they’re not really my thing, but they are very good at what they do, and they sounded great, and the crowd was into them, and just about anything was preferable to what we’d just experienced. We posted up in the TSVIP viewing tent so we’d have a decent spot for Tool. I took these pictures of the crowd just before Godsmack…

Nothin much to say about this one…
Sure is a lot of people.

After Godsmack brought the house down with a rousing rendition of “I Stand Alone” (which happens to be the only Godsmack song I know), Sheila struck up a conversation with a lovely couple from New Zealand (!) who were nice enough to let us use some of their table space for our beverages. They’ve been attending Louder Than Life the same number of years we have, and like us, they make it their vacation every year (although theirs is obviously quite a bit more expensive).

Anway, Tool hit the stage promptly at 8:55 PM, and as expected, they sounded great and their visuals were top notch, but the more time passes (thereby allowing me to reflect on it more), the more I realize I found their set to be fairly boring. It might’ve been the festival setting, or it might’ve been my post-Megadeth exhaustion, or it might’ve been a combination of the two, or maybe I just find them boring live. At any rate, after “Forty Six & 2”, I found my mind wandering quite a bit during their set, and I was kinda relieved when it was over, until I realized they stopped playing 10 minutes early and didn’t play “Ænema”, “Sober”, or “Prison Sex”, and since guitarist Adam Jones said in an interview that they “might dig a couple oldies out” on their fall tour, that’s just dumb (especially when you consider the fact that they played “Ænema” at their Aftershock performance last night). Poor form, Tool. Not everybody watching you at a festival is a Tool superfan…some of us wanna hear the “hits”.

This is the best picture of Tool’s set I could manage.

After they were finished, we made our way back to the shuttle pickup spot just as a bus was pulling away, and we settled in to wait with a quickly growing crowd. A man and a woman who work for Pegasus Transportation were standing by, and they both assured us that another bus was en route, and would be there “shortly”. After a fair amount of time passed with absolutely no sign of a bus anywhere, the crowd began to express some dissatisfaction with the situation. We were assured that a bus would be there “soon”, and were told that police were re-routing traffic a different way. Long story short, the next bus didn’t arrive for over an hour, well after the last cars were out of the parking lot, and when it did finally arrive, there were enough people waiting behind us to fill up at least another bus-and-a-half.

The man (who we found out was the GM) and the woman (who we found out was their primary customer service liason) did their best to calm the crowd down, but ultimately, the fact that they weren’t just honest with us about our wait time from the outset made us angrier than we would’ve otherwise been. People were resorting to urinating (and probably more) behind bushes next to the Kentucky Exposition Center, and the possibility of a Lord of the Flies-type situation didn’t seem too far-fetched toward the end. They did better the rest of the fest, but if there’d been a repeat of that situation either of the next two nights, I would’ve quit my job to make Bringing Down Pegasus Transportation my life’s work. Luckily that didn’t happen, and I’m able to continue having a job that actually pays me.

That’s all for this installment. Check back soon(ish) for Part Three, a.k.a. the day we finally got back early enough to relax in the hotel room and turn in early. And if you like what you’ve read, why not tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit? I know I would, if I had any friends.

Awakens Ancient Feelings: A Sort of Review of Day One of Louder Than Life 2023

/ Rev. Joel / 4 Comments

Welcome party people. And if there are any party poopers reading this, welcome to you, too. Maybe you’ll have some fun in spite of yourself. Before we continue, a disclaimer: if you’re looking for a straight-up review of the festival itself, you’ll prolly wanna look elsewhere. This is, as the title indicates, sort of a review of Day One, but it’s also a review of my day. Of course, I’d be thrilled if you decided to read on anyway, but I don’t wanna waste your time. Onward…

I’m here today (finally) to start writing about Louder Than Life 2023. It was the third year in a row that Sheila and I attended, plus we were there for one day in 2019, on Guns ‘n’ Roses Day (which I prefer to think of as Ice Cube/Suicidal Tendencies/Andrew WK/Anti-Flag day, but that’s beside the point), and we already bought our tickets for next year, because despite all the annoyances and the fact that there are always gonna be some real stinkers in the lineup, we always have a good time at the fest, and in the city of Louisville.

Quick side track: I didn’t write about last year’s LTL, but it was a mostly amazing time as well, aside from the fact that my father passed away the morning of the first day, after a long bout with various maladies and a broken heart. I saw some amazing performances, and had a ton of fun with Sheila and a couple of good friends of ours, and the live music helped me process all the feelings I was feeling during the weekend, and singing along with however-many-thousand fans while Alice in Chains played “Rooster” on the last night was one of the most incredible and cathartic experiences of my life. There was also a dark cloud hanging over this year’s fest for us, but I’m not gonna write about that yet, because this thing is already long enough. I did write about LTL2021, and if you’re so inclined, you can check those posts out here and here (Part 1 also includes a little about our one-day experience that first year).

We went all out this year and got Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP tickets, because we decided last year that this festival is likely just gonna be our vacation every year from now on. I can say for certain that there is absolutely no going back from Top Shelf VIP (TSVIP). There was a large air-conditioned tent with screens showing the main stage goings on, food catered by an award-winning (apparently celebrity) Louisville chef, no charge for drinks in the tent (or on the large elevated viewing platform in front of the tent), air-conditioned restrooms with flushable toilets/urinals, and just the absolute nicest fucking people working inside the area, from the people picking up trash, wiping off tables, and cleaing the restrooms to the bartenders to the catering folks to the guys at the gate who said “welcome back” everytime we came back into Top Shelf after the first time.

A kindly stranger took this photo of us inside the Top Shelf VIP area one of the nights (Friday, I think). It’s not a great pic, but it’s a pretty accurate representation of our expereince.

Our fancy-pants wristbands also got us into regular VIP, which we took advantage of a few of times to get a little closer to the bands on the “Loudmouth” stage (the two main stages are side-by-side, and are called “Loudmouth” and “Space Zebra”; one band plays while the next one sets up, back and forth, throughout the day), and of course we had access to all the General Admission areas, which include most of the food vendors, the merchandise tent, and the other three (!) stages. The “Revolver” and “Disruptor” stages replaced the single second stage last year, and another, smaller stage (“Road Hounds”) was also added last year. The idea is to allow more bands to play, as well as to help keep the crowd a bit spread out throughout the day, which are both great ideas, but the downside is the extra stages also make it completely impossible for people to see all the bands they wanna see.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. We got into town Wednesday afternoon after stopping for pizza and beer at New Albanian Brewing Company Pizzeria & Public House across the river (excellent pizza and beer, by the way), and after checking in to the hotel, we walked over to Bluegrass Brewing Company for another beer, then crossed the street and visited Down One Bourbon Bar, both of which are worth checking out if you enjoy human alcohol beverages (the food at BBC is great, too, but I can’t speak to the food at Down One). After Down One, we went up three (see what I did there) to Al J’s at the Conservatory (formerly known (to us, anyway) as “Fishbar”), a cool bar in the enclosed walkway between the Galt House East Tower (where we stayed) and the Galt House West Tower, for what was going to be a nightcap. There we struck up conversation with a very nice lady named Ashley who was in town from New Orleans for the festival. After she left, we decided to go down to the second floor for a for-real-this-time nightcap at Jockey Silks, the bourbon bar in the West Tower.

While sitting at the bar there, a lady in a very fancy looking floral-print dress approached Sheila and said “who are you most excited about seeing tomorrow? I know y’all are going to the festival.” There were a couple of different business functions going on at the hotel that weekend, as well, and generally speaking, the two different types of people in the hotel common areas (“business types” and “festival types”) were pretty easy to tell apart, but I have to say, this lady surprised me. We ended up hanging out with her and her two male companions (311 superfans one and all), who were also all from Louisiana (she and the taller guy made it a point to let us know that they were from New Orleans, and the other guy was “just a Cajun”). Turns out they were dressed up because they’d just gone to dinner at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, and they just wanted to look fancy for their fancy dinner.

While chatting with them at Jockey Silks, one of them asked us if we knew of any “cool underground bars” nearby, to which Sheila replied “as a matter of fact, there is a really cool bar two blocks from here that is literally underground. It’s called Troll Pub, and it’s built into the ground and has secret rooms and everything.” They were immediately on board, and I had to text a buddy of mine from New Orleans for advice on how to hang with his people (his response: “lol Throwing up makes room for more alcohol. Just roll with it. BTW if they are from the wank (westbank), run.” Then he shared a video.)

For the record, our one-night pals were not like Popeye.

Anway, we woke up pretty hungover from partying with those lunatics, and were very nearly late for our breakfast reservation at Wild Eggs (which never disappoints). We made it just in time, though, and everything was delicious and perfect, and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for Day One. Side note: I wore my bitchin Bifocal Media ALL shirt to breakfast, and as we sat down, a lady a few tables over said “I love your shirt! I always see Descendents shirts, and ALL doesn’t get enough respect!” and I told her I agreed.

It’s this shirt, but in a dark gray. ALL!

Holy shit, I haven’t even really talked about the festival yet. Onward!

We caught the shuttle from the hotel to the gate and made it inside the grounds while Pinkshift was playing on the Loudmouth Stage. We wanted to try and catch their set, but we only got the last two songs. They sounded good. We checked out the TSVIP area, got some drinks, and went up to the viewing platform to check it out while Call Me Karizma played the Space Zebra stage. They were not for us, but luckily they only played for 30 mintues. The highlight of their set was seeing their frontman (who was trying really hard to look cool) accidentally spit on his own chest. We went over to regular VIP to be closer for Mannequin Pussy, which was the first band from Day One that Sheila was adamant about checking out. They sounded great, and they deserved a bigger audience, but they layed it all out for the crowd that was there.

My phone camera does not take very good pictures, but this is Mannequin Pussy. They were dope.

Toward the end of their set we began the long journey to the opposite end of the grounds to hopefelly catch some of Guerilla Warfare over on the Disruptor Stage. They’re a super high energy three-piece from Louisville who blast out a cool mix of hip-hop and metal, with some hardcore-style backing vocals thrown in for good measure. The drummer, Garrett Hood, does most of the vocals (singing drummers always fascinate me), but the bassist and the guitarist get in there and scream a bunch, too. They were tight as hell and super passionate. I’d love to see them in a more intimate setting.

I’m 99% sure the guitar player is wearing houndstooth chef pants.

We went back to TSVIP after Guerilla Warfare for a pee break and some more drinks while White Reaper (also from Louisville) played the Loudmouth Stage. They were good, but we were on a mission to get back to the Disruptor Stage in time to see Starcrawler, and we were successful. They’re kinda hard to describe, but they’re dirty and sleazy and fun as fuck, and frontwoman Arrow De Wilde absolutely commanded that crowd while jumping and writhing around, shaking her hips, simulating masturbation, spitting, cursing, and swinging the microphone around like it was her dick. Sheila said that De Wilde reminded her of a female Iggy Pop, and that’s about as good a description as any. It was a wild show (no pun intended).

It’s a very “First World” thing to complain about, but I envy people who have a good camera on their phone.

We had some time to kill, so we got some delicious iced coffees with oatmilk, had some more TSVIP snacks, and then I tried to find my friend Maggy, who I just found out that morning was coming for the day. We kept just missing each other, but I wasn’t about to miss Coheed & Cambria on the Loudmouth Stage at 4:40. I told Maggy we’d be in the VIP section watching them, then I’d try to find her. I’m not super familiar with their discography, but I’ve heard them a lot, because I always seem to have at least one co-worker who is really into them. More specifically, I’m very familiar with two of their songs, and they happen to be the band’s biggest “hits”.

Anyway, I wasn’t there to pretend to be a superfan, I just wanted to catch what I’d heard was an impeccable stage show. We secured our spots just in time for the band to kick off their phenomenal (albeit too brief) 10-song set, and the weather was perfect, and the sound was perfect, and for 45 minutes, everything was perfect (except for my shitty phone camera), and they only played one of the two songs I know (“Welcome Home”), but I didn’t even care that I didn’t get to hear “The Suffering”, because I’ll definitely go see them next time they’re anywhere near me on tour, and you should, too.

Thank the gods for the big screens.
This one has some elements of a pretty cool shot, at least.
Here’s one that I like.

After Coheed’s set, I finally found Maggy, and we got to talk for a few minutes, but then as 311 began I had to haul ass back over to the Disruptor Stage for L7, because fuckin duh. I don’t really know any 311 songs, but I probably would’ve watched some of their set if there wasn’t a band I’d rather see going on simultaneously (although the little bit I heard did sound very good, and I hope those maniacs from New Orleans and their Cajun friend had a blast).

Long story short, L7 was fuckin great (duh). They haven’t lost a step, and the crowd was very into them, and I’ll tell you hwat, when they played “Shitlist” and then flowed straight into “Pretend We’re Dead”, I thought I was gonna lose my mind. Like Coheed & Cambria before them, their set was only 10 songs, but it was flawless.

For some reason, Suzi Gardner is absent from every photo I took of L7, but I swear she was there. She even sang lead on the first song.

San Francisco, CA “blackgaze” legends Deafheaven immediately followed L7 on the adjacent Revolver Stage, and I was pretty pumped about seeing them. I’ve been aware of Deafheaven since 2013, when they released their divisive second album, Sunbather, but I never really bothered to listen to them until I saw that they were gonna be at LTL this year. I don’t really get into black metal all that much, with a few exceptions, but I still wanted to check them out, as I wasn’t sure when I might get a chance to see them again. I listened to a few songs and I was interested enough. Then a couple of weeks before the fest, the October issue of Decibel Magazine arrived in my mailbox, and featured Sunbather as its (then) newest inductee into their hallowed Hall of Fame. I played the album while I read the HOF piece, then I played it again, and I was officially stoked to see Deafheaven.

Anyway, as soon as L7 finished up, I took about 10 steps the right, secured a spot on the rail, and waited patiently along with what seemed like not nearly enough people. Then I rememberd that it was Thursday, and a lot of people probably still had to work and whatnot, then I remembered that Rancid had started playing on the Space Zebra Stage 10 minutes prior. I wanted to see Rancid, even though Tim Armstrong sounds and purposely looks like brain-damaged hobo (especially when he’s not actively playing his guitar – seriously, I always expect his pants to just fall around his ankles when I see him on stage). Rancid played an important role in my musical development when I was in my late teens-early twenties, and while I haven’t really listened to anything from them since their second self-titled album (from 2000), it would’ve been cool to hear “Ruby Soho” and “Old Friend” and “Olympia WA” and a lot of their other old bangers, but I saw them a couple of times back in the good old days of the Warped Tour, so I opted to stay put for Deafheaven while Sheila went to check out Rancid (but not before snapping some pics of Deafheaven for me, with her superior camera).

See?

Deafheaven came out to the strains of Jimmy Scott singing “Sycamore Trees” from the final episode of the original run of Twin Peaks, which was very fucking cool, and the band started in with some feeback, and frontman George Clarke came out and held his microphone stand up in the air, then the riffs began, and for the next 50 minutes, I was transported away from all my cares and worries and anxieties (although I was very glad I had that rail to hold onto, because I definitely would’ve ended up on the ground from the sheer force of my head bangery). One of the security dudes in front of the stage was lowkey into the sounds that were coming from behind him, and I couldn’t tell whether he was already a fan or if he was becoming one, but either way, it was kinda cool to see.

Fucking beautiful.

After Deafheaven I high-tailed it back over to Top Shelf to meet up with Sheila for Weezer and found her with “My Name is Jonas” already in progress. I have mixed feelings about Weezer, and rightfully so. It’s kind of a cliche at this point to say that they peaked with their first two albums, but it’s also not incorrect. Their second self-titled album has some good songs on it, and I bought Maladroit at K-Mart the day it came out in 2002 and didn’t hate it, although I’m pretty sure I haven’t listened to any of it in about 15 years, and “Dope Nose” is the only song I can remember at all.

Side note: in a fun twist, Sheila was actually the cashier who rang me up that day (before we were married, obviously).We were acquainted on account of her sister worked with me at Burger King, and also because her best friend Chris and I were cool with each other. Our friend Amy once said that we were “shadows of each other’s lives for so long, it only made sense that we’d end up together”, and as is often the case, Amy is not wrong.

Anway, I was talking about Weezer, and how they have no business sounding so goddamn good in 2023. When I found Sheila, she tried to get me to come closer, but I declined, not wanting to get in front of the group of people who were already packed in behind her. Next thing I know, the group had made a path for me, and one of the dudes yelled “Joel! Get the fuck up here, goddamnit!” and who am I to refuse such an enthusiasitc invitation? We got to sing along together to the final refrain of “Jonas”, then we spontaneously began to dance and sing along with “Beverly Hills”, much to my self-disappointment. They followed that up with two songs I didn’t know, but which still had enough of a groove to dance to, then their breakout hit “Undone – The Sweater Song” began, and we temporarily lost our minds, then they flowed directly into “Only in Dreams”, which was just incredible, then another newer song, then “Island in the Sun” from their mostly-okay-but-not-nearly-as-good-as-the-first-two third album, which is also their second self-titled album (out of, if I’m not mistaken, six self-titled albums), and around that point we began to be consumed by the hunger.

“Island in the Sun” faded into another newer song, so I decided to take that opportunity to empty my bladder and go find us some pizza. I got about 50 yards outside of Top Shelf just as “Say It Ain’t So” began, and that was a stone cold bummer. That’s been my favorite Weezer song since the first time I heard it, but at least I could still hear it loud and clear for the entirety of my walkabout, and I got to sing along to it with a bunch of enthusiastic strangers as I walked through the crowd. I got us some pizza from a place long since forgotten and made my way back as the band played another song I didn’t know. We scarfed down our pizza and enjoyed the absolute hell outta “Surf Wax America” and “Buddy Holly”, then got super amped for Foo Fighters.

I saw Foo Fighters once before, when they were touring for 2005’s In Your Honor (Weezer was actually the opening band then, oddly enough), and they were just brilliant. It was the first time I’d been to a show in a venue that big (the former Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX) in a lot of years, and the sheer volume of the band and the crowd together solidified me as a legit fan. Subsequent less-than albums caused me to walk back a bit of my fandom (I’ll never forget the proufound sense of disappointment we experienced while watching them perform “Shame, Shame” on Saturday Night Live in 2021 – shame, shame, indeed), but I was still pumped to see them again, because while every song may not be a home run (or even a sacrifice bunt), when Foo Fighters play a kickass song, they make that song kick some serious motherfucking ass.

They started off with “All My Life”, and the crowd was real into it. They followed up with two newer songs, but I didn’t know those songs, and I’d had several drinks by that point, therefore I do not remember those songs. “Learn to Fly” was next, and it was glorious, and then there were two more newer songs (including one from their newest album), and then “Times Like These” (which is one of my favorites) then “Generator” and “Breakout”, and then band introductions (and what a band!) coupled with snippets of cover songs, and then “My Hero”, which I have to assume made nearly everyone in attendance cry along with me, and that rolled right into “This is a Call”, which caused to me to lose my mind for approximately the 15th time that day, then another newer song started, and Sheila said “I’m really sad about this, but I have to go.” I responded “but they haven’t played “Best of You” or “Everlong”!”, to which she replied “you can stay if you want, but I have to go. I’m so tired.”

And while I very much wanted to stay, I left with her, because truth be told, I was also tired as fuck, plus I didn’t wanna risk having to sit next to a stranger on the shuttle back to the hotel. By the time we got out of the restrooms and began our walk toward the gates, the band had started to play “Shame, Shame” for some reason, and what seemed like about half the crowd suddenly decided they also had to go. That song really is a turd. So we ended up missing “Monkey Wrench”, “Best of You”, “Everlong”, and a couple of others, but that was okay, because it was only the first day, and while the next two days were overall less exciting for us than the last day, and while we’re pretty well seasoned at the festival thing at this point, we still needed to rest up. A four day music festival is a marathon, goddamnit, not a sprint – especially for a couple of middle-aged goobers like us.

Besides, someone was obviously gonna record the songs we missed and post them on youtube.

That’s all for Day One. Keep an eye out for Part Two, which will hopefully be finished in a day or two, and may end up including Day Two and Day Three together, although knowing me, it might only include half of Day Two (I’m starting to confuse myself), because as you almost certainly know by now, I can be a bit long-winded. Thanks for reading, and if you wanted to tell a friend about my nonsense, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I’ll close out with a few pictures from Day One that didn’t really fit anywhere else.

Those are the main stages in the middle there, “Loudmouth” on the left and “Space Zebra” on the right, and the Top Shelf VIP viewing platform just to the right of the stages.
The festival grounds are enormous. The li’l black box just left of center, to the right of the big tent, is the “Road Hounds” stage, where I found Jesus (Piece).
If you squint and use your imagination, you can kind of make out the “Disruptor” and “Revolver” stages toward the left side of the frame, way in the back, there.
I like how the Running Man in the bottom left corner appeared between this picture and the one before. I’m not sure where he was hurrying off to, but I hope he made it in time.