COLUMBUS – Every little punk in the ’80s at some point had a devilock haircut, the single-fanged extended widow’s peak that draped over the face like a trojan helmet.
Fast forward 40 years, and deep in the crush of the mosh and dancing on the slimy plastic flooring laid over the grass stadium were kids with devillocks, as the band that made it famous, The Misfits, closed out Friday night’s Sonic Temple Music & Arts Festival.
There were 120 bands scheduled to rock Ohio over four days, and it would be hard to find an act on that list that wasn’t influenced by The Misfits.
But make no mistake, this was no retirement tour, as Glen Danzig, Jerry Only and Doyle [Wolfgang von Frankenstein] were reunited and looking to provide some punk power to Historic Crew Stadium.
Before we do a deep dive into the set review, a couple of general notes about festivals overall.
Think about a power bar on a video game or your phone battery. On Day 1, the porta-potties are clean and smell nice and are dry and the bar is all the way full.
Then mix sun, fatigue, alcohol, a little drugs, more fatigue, audio escapism, no parents, and by day four, dear god, you have to open four doors until you find a port-a-john that doesn’t have trash stuffed down the urinal tube and mini pools on the floor.
If someone falls in the mosh pit, everyone picks them up instantly.
If someone is crowd surfing, hands go up to usher them across the mass of participants, safely.
There’s so much sharing and no violence or fights or drama and it’s all a rock n’ roll utopia, until the human being is alone, in a plastic box–then it’s back to savagery and caveman stuff.
Last year, I taught my then 16-year-old son how to crowd surf and it’s great how festival culture has transcended generations long after Woodstock in ‘69, Jamboree in the Hills in the 80s, Lollapalooza in the 90s, and Bonnaroo and Coachella in 2000s.
For the uninitiated, in the general admission floor in front of the stage, 3-4 people will gather around someone that “wants to go up.”
They hoist the rocker up, and then the others that are around will yell, “Up!” That signals the crush to either put their hands up or get kicked in the head, your choice. Remember kids, keep your legs crossed when you are crowd surfing.
Also, and this is not body shaming, but rather an issue with gravity and strength, if you think you are too heavy to surf, you probably are and are just gonna get dropped on your face.
As you glide across hands, security in yellow jackets will stand half way up the metal barricade and point to the Point Break-person atop the crowd and eye-follow them until they reach the fencing, where inertia shoves them into the waiting and secure arms of the event staff.
They set you down, you run around the barricades and back into the swarm on the floor.
Leading up to The Misfits on Friday were the lesser-known amazing acts of Gel, Chisel, Scowl and Terror, along with classic metal gods Anthrax.
When Sum 41 came on stage, with a giant inflatable skeleton guy flipping off the crowd, it didn’t take long for the festival goers to buy in and get a circle pit going.
Quick note on band-lead crowd instruction that I witnessed over the festival weekend: On one hand, it is really amazing to see a sea of arms, moving left to right in perfect unison, to the beat of the song — or clapping together to different rhythms.
But every band can’t do that or you deal with diminishing returns. The evolution has become dividing the crowd.
The lead singer tells this side to say “hey” and that side sayd “oh.” Or this side can mosh harder than that side, or scream louder, or get lower. And we all couch down and explode after the breakdown.
Before the alternative or goth kids chime in about lame “stadium shows” and orchestrated movements, remember gatekeeping how to enjoy live music is a pretty ridiculous concept.
The hardcore kids watch the ska scene skank and feel it’s too dance-y, lacks passion and violence.
The punks observe the hardcore shows and wonder if they are at a ballet, with repetitively picking up change off the floor/starting the push mower and little spin kicks and punches where 95% hit air and all the genres wonder how does non conformity look so rehearsed and uniform, per genre?
Atreyu followed Sum 41 and they have an amazing name (RIP that horse that died in “The Never Ending Story”) and metal/hardcore ballads. They lived up to the decades of hype that has followed them.
The Misfits played a mix of newish and old, with highlights being Where Eagles Dare, Bullet, Hybrid Moments and ended with Last Caress. It was insane how ripped everyone in the band still was, decades later, ragging biceps and extended necks echoing the strength of the music.
The encore wrapped with We are 138, showing what the Ramones proved long ago; you don’t need a bunch of lyrics and endless guitar solos to make a hit.
It’s simply impossible to touch on hundreds of bands that played over the weekend, and no review can really translate and showcase all the fun that is involved in a music fest.
However, a real quick overview from Saturday featured: Mike’s Dead, Breaking Benjamin, Living Colour, In Flames, Slaughter to Prevail (listen to this band right now if you haven’t), Sleep Token and Pantera, who headlined Inkcarceration last year in Mansfield.
On Sunday, punk rock legends Bad Religion accentuated the afternoon along with Of Mice and Men, Helmet, L7 (ahhhh, ahhhh, Andres!), Architects and Limp Bizkit.
A fan in attendance wondered if Fred Durst, now with a white beard, ever gets tired of playing Rollin’, 30 years later? And you know he doesn’t.
311 is another band that you really probably needed to see “back in the day,” but they are still providing entertainment — even at a fest geared towards the metal and punk crowds.
Clutch and Slipknot closed out Sunday and the fest, with the reminder that there’s so much to a live show–what you bring and how the crowd reacts.
There’s an infectious nature to the crowd as unified exhilarations and expression coexist in a metal harmony.
Some tough guy in a black shirt wants to punch me for writing that line — sorry, what I meant to say was Sonic Temple freakin’ ruled, dude (sign of the horns hand gesture)!