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.

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!

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.