KISW's Pain In The Grass at the White River Amphitheater 08.27.2011

Big festival = Long blog. Be sure not to miss Korn at the very bottom!!! There are photos of each band along the way.

KISW's yearly festival Pain In The Grass was a star studded affair this year. The lineup always starts with a local band. This year, Witchburn got the call. I had the duty of photographing the fan/band meet and greets so I didn't get photos of some of the bands from the pit. Unfortunately, I didn't get to photograph Witchburn or Hinder. I did get to see the Hinder guys though when it was their turn with the KISW faithful.

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.

September 2010 Concerts: Queensryche and Uproar

September 2010: Queensryche and Uproar!

Queensryche @ the Puyallup Fair:

This was a first for me, I've never seen Queensryche do a full show. I did see their acoustic set with Loaded a year or so ago. I hadn't been to a show at the Fair in many years. I was happy to see improvements to the outdoor venue. Our seats were on the floor so I wasn't able to see if there were improvements in the grandstand seating area.

There was a opening band - Tesla. Now I wasn't really familiar with the band back in the 80's. But I found I did know a couple of the songs more than likely from MTV. My 80's were filled with Wave and Punk for the most part. They were very energetic and I did enjoy seeing them.

When Queensryche took the stage, I was stunned at the size of the drum kit. Holy cow that sucker was big! Cymbols, drums and gongs just over his head too! I'm really unfamiliar with most of their songs but was able to sing along with the masses to ‘Silent Lucidity’. I was really moved when their Native American dancer took the stage. I happen to be 1/3 Native so I'm always affected by those types of performances. Highly recommend seeing them live if you haven't already. It is a good time.

Uproar - Post Falls, Idaho:

We were able to check into our hotel early so we could freshen up a tad from our drive over to the Spokane/Post Falls area. I do have to say that the organization of The Knitting Factory staff at the venue left A LOT to be desired. I'm not sure if this was the first time they put on a show at the old greyhound track or not, but they need to figure things out QUICKLY. We didn't have tickets waiting for us. Ours got lost or dropped along the way. Mike did have one ticket to use to get in and a little while later he came back to give me a ticket. This got us in the door, but it didn't get us backstage to meet up with Halestorm. We did find them at their booth doing meet and greets so they found a couple of extra wristbands for us. Yeah! We could go backstage now.

The second stage had a familiar band playing second - New Medicine. We had seen them play the actual Knitting Factory with Halestorm a few months earlier. Opening the show was a band from Canada called Hail the Villian. We liked them a ton. The lead singer knew how to engage the crowd and keep them engaged their entire set. New Medicine then took the stage. They are kind of a modern twist on Linkin Park/Green Day. Just a fun, fun band. After them came Airborne out of Australia. Holy Cow!! I understand the meaning behind their name. Their lead singer likes to go to the air. He climbs the speaker stacks, he climbs the rigging for the stage, he gets on the shoulders of his crew and walks around the crowd playing his guitar. Pure mayhem! In a good way ;)

Headlining the second stage was Hell Yeah. This band scared me. Well, not the actual band, but the reaction to the band from the crowd. People were really into this band in a drunk and disorderly way. The way that makes me move back and watch from afar. This was when I decided it would be a good think to go backstage and get on the bus with Halestorm.

Time for the main stage!!!! I was able to go on stage for Halestorm and watch from Joe's side of the stage. This was the first time the crowd was calling for the band by name to get on stage. Arejay was so excited! Halestorm killed it of course. But then again, I love them and am totally biased.

After Halestorm was finished, we went back to the bus with them. I missed Stone Sour play but I knew I could just catch them tomorrow in Auburn. There was no way I was going to miss Avenged. I made my way down to the stage. I had to stay back cause they use so much pyro. Their opening song was Nightmare. They have quite the dramatic entrance. One of their stage hands is up on some rigging with a noose around his neck pacing (yes, he has safety gear on as well. He 'jumps' from the gear hanging above the center of the stage when the band comes out and starts the song. He hangs there seemingly lifeless through the whole song, which isn't a short one. A crew of fake EMTs come out and lower him down to a strecher and whisk him away. There were some screams from the crowd when he 'jumped'. I was one. My favorite song is ‘Afterlife’ so I stayed out until after that song before I made my way back to the Halestorm bus. I’m not a fan of Disturbed at all so I didn’t go back out for them.

We visited for a bit more before we headed back to our hotel room to get some sleep. We were leaving early to drive back home then over to the Uproar show at the White River Amphitheater in Auburn.

Video  Uproar, Post Falls, ID

Uproar – Auburn, WA

We almost didn’t make it on time. There was a pretty gruesome motorcycle accident on the pass on the way back home.

Same bands today but a different location. Again we were with Halestorm early and I got to watch them from the side stage. Mike was covering this show for KISW and we had good seats. Once Halestorm was done, I made my way to our seats to catch Stone Sour for the first time and Avenged Sevenfold again. I really liked what I saw in Stone Sour. I’m not really familiar with Slipknot other than knowing Corey Taylor sings for both bands.

It was fun seeing the reaction to A7X’s intro now that I knew what it was like. I was looking around the theater to see facial reactions. This band never ever disappoints me. This is the 3^rd time that I’ve seen them and I plan to see them even more!!

I’m still not a Disturbed fan (They didn’t convert me overnnight) so I went backstage with Mike and Arejay. Arejay was getting Mike to take promo’s for him. Some turned out amazing!! They are really creative when they get together.

 Video: Uproar, Auburn, WA