Big festival = Long blog. Be sure not to miss Korn at the very bottom!!! There are photos of each band along the way.
The full line-up this year was:
Witchburn
Like a Storm
All That Remains
Chevelle
Duff McKagan's Loaded
Hinder
Five Finger Death Punch
Queensryche
Korn
Witchburn took the stage while I was doing my first meet and greet of the day. Local Sabath-y band lead by the amazing Jamie Nova on vocals and Mischa Kianne on lead guitar. Add Jacy Peckham and Dana Sims on bass and drums respectively and you have a Seattle force to be reckoned with!
Like a Storm started off their set with an intro using a didgeridoo. I loved seeing those rockers salute their home of New Zealand with that instrument. They were super nice guys too and enjoyed the radio interview. They made their way into the VIP bbq area and continued chatting with the fans for quite a long time.
I was a little confused by All That Remains visually. They are all over the place with their look but I always like it when a band is just themselves and not what a label might want them to be. I was even more surprised - and impressed - when it ended up being Jeanne Sagan that does the death metal parts! Again, they were really nice back stage and had fun with the fans.
Chevelle - I'm sorry, but they bore me live. The don't move much and they just don't do anything with a big stage.
Loaded - I love them. I love everything about this band. They rock hard, they are really nice and down to earth guys. They promote their hometown of Seattle. They have a good time playing and are grateful for it every day. Duff is quite the doodler as you can see by the photo of him using Isaac as a piece of paper.
Hinder - Sadly, this is a band that I wanted to shoot, but I was back doing meet and greet photos when they were on stage. I did get to see them do their radio interview though. I also had a little chat with the drummer at the meet and greet about his hair. It happens to be about as wild as my son's hair. I told him that my son had asked to get his head shaved once so he could just start over. Cody said if that's all it took, he'd be all over it!
Five Finger Death Punch - Talk about an electric band on stage! They are anything but boring! They commanded the stage and the crowd. They are very proud of the military and thanked the military fans in the meet and greet very warmly. I have to admit that I have a HUGE crush on Chris Kael. I don't know why, but I usually end up having little crushes on the bass players more than anyone else. Gotta love Jason Hook wearing custom Fox FFDP shirts.
Queensryche - QR actually played twice today. They had a VIP acoustic show an hour before gates opened then the actual show later. I'm not a fan of rock opera type bands. I do like to see QR perform though. They put on a good show. Parker Lundgren ads some youth to the lineup. They rest of the guys still have "it". Full set of photos is here.
KORN - I had never seen Korn live. Holy cow! I had no idea what I was in for!!! I'm going to start off by thanking Fieldy for the AMAZING camera time that he gave me. I know I'm not the only one who got face time with him on stage, but I'm glad I'm one of the one's who did!!!!
I was disappointed with the meet and greet though. They do not come out as a band to meet people. They come out one at a time and sign. Then each one does a group photo with the fans except for Jonathan. He comes out and signs, but there are no photos allowed. Full set of photos is here.
