Metal Shop
We Came As Romans
I arrived just in time to see blessthefall hit the stage, and it’s obvious they love their jobs. Throwing gallons of sweat-energy into the eyes of the thankful crowd, the vocalist offered up the rules to his favorite game, “Stage Dives and High Fives”, wherein the goal is to reach the stage, and the prize is to slap palms with a shirtless tattooed sweaty dude with a microphone. Logically, a substantial majority of the winners were neon-haired and female, revealing the true winner of his own game. He followed up with a mention of their new record which he assures is much better when enjoyed naked.
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Emmure came out swinging with the audible equivalent of a 40oz in one fist, and brass knuckles in the other. Some of the more fragile winners from the last set were mysteriously absent for this set. The guys played well and put their backs into it, but I’m afraid I was left without any truly memorable moments to write about.
We Came As Romans run a tight ship: they were musically precise, stage volume was kept low for in-ear monitoring and the front-of-house mix was clear and strong, the guitar tech was always three steps ahead of every instrument change, and the lighting was right out of a venue twice the size. The guys ran and jumped around the stage so efficiently I began to wonder if their movements were choreographed; confidently running up and down the drum riser stairs forwards and backwards, they fed more energy into the packed house than both of the previous bands combined. There was only one piece missing – and I hope I was reading them wrong – but they seemed to forget about each other for most of the show. Band relationships can be tricky, and maybe it was just a bad day, but it appeared from the outside like each member of the band was in his own bubble, focused on delivering his best performance, but remaining disconnected from his brothers on stage. Perhaps this is the cost of being part of such a well oiled machine.
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Fear Factory destroyed the Masquerade on September 4th with an amazing set. Fear Factory was one of the first bands to pioneer industrial metal. It was great to see them back in Atlanta after a long absence. Fear Factory is on tour promoting their new album Genexas, which lead singer Burton made sure we pronounced correctly (ha). Their show was great and I found myself singing along while I took pictures of the band. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact I could hardly SEE the band. Once again the Masquerade didn’t bother to turn up the stage lights for the bands. This of course makes it very hard to photograph. Nonetheless, I still really enjoyed watching this band play some of my favorite tunes live like Shock, Edgecrusher, Damaged, and Demanufacture!
The 2015 Rockstar Mayhem Fest visited Atlanta on July 26th, with amazing bands like WhiteChapel, and Slayer!
When I walked into Aaron’s Amphitheater at Lakewood it was like a ghost town. In past years, the Mayhem Fest is usually packed with people, but this year was different. The entrance I walked into had no venders, no food venders, and no people hanging out between band sets. I walked clear across to the other side of the venue to find a much smaller side stage than the previous years.
After seeing, maybe a 1000+ people watching the side stage bands, I knew the Rockstar Mayhem was coming to an end. Also, the beloved Metal Mulisha motorcycle stunt riders were not present at this year’s Mayhem Fest. As for the bands, some of them just were not for me, while a few were amazing to see perform. It was a sad sight to see the Rockstar Mayhem Fest scaled down to almost nothing, but I still had a good time taking pictures.
Enjoy the pictures for the last Rockstar Mayhem Fest. Hopefully, some brave soul will pick up the torch and revive the festival!
Victory Records Stage
Check out pics from the Main Stage on the next page!
Metal Shop
Friday @120 Marietta: Metal Invasion
Pathfinder Promotions and 120 Tavern and Music Hall Present MARIETTA METAL INVASION a night of Hard-hitting, in-your-face heavy Metal
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