This is a timeline stream of consciousness report from the last day of Inkcarceration Tattoo & Music Festival, located in the heart of hardcore, aka the nicest prison town in the U.S.A. — Mansfield, Ohio.
12:20 p.m.: Fight from Within, Redemption Stage (RS) — hard kinda grindcore gurgle, pretty cool. Mid set it blasted Montell Jordan’s, “This is How We Do It,” and all the metalheads sang along.
Matching Hawaiian shirts, specially made for Ink with festival logos. Double-bearded vocal assault, like the band, “Blood Brothers,” which had two singers.
Living by a hog farm, I’m glad that Fight From Within made the pig “kill sound” cool via its vocal tracks. One of the lead singers was being carried on a fan’s shoulders like a chicken fight in a swimming pool.
12:45 p.m.: Bless the Fall, Yard Stage, first half of its songs, so fast and clean and hard, and then the singing started. What makes a metal person think, ‘Now’s a good time to add a little 7th grade choir into the mix?’ JK, it was entertaining, especially since one of the band members was wearing a Columbus Crew jersey (old logo, but still).
1:10 p.m.: While walking around, witnessing: stuffed animal heads as helmets, endless face paint of jokers, clowns, corpse paint and fake blood. The different colors and style of mohawks, a Jesus cosplay crowd surfing (cross your legs!). So many black bikini variations. A young lady smoking a blunt with a tattoo from the movie, “Saw,” where the character was wearing a reverse bear trap in her mouth and, pop goes the weasel. Viking-looking men in black leather kilts, no shirts, long braided haired and vein-filled muscles. A woman with half her head literally shaved, the other half long enough for a side ponytail. Lots of sunglasses that had heart-shaped lenses, shirts with a general theme of blood and gore and humor, like the massively overweight guy’s shirt that said, “trophy husband,” and my personal favorite, “show me your ***** if you hate racism.” Couple of different people with sharpies where you can sign their skin. Hacky sack circles where they could never keep it up in the air for more than two seconds ‘cuz some stoner was not paying attention and the bean sack hit him in the face, as he mumbled, “Oh my bad, bro.” Different degrees of skin burn.
Just don’t see the day drinking like you used to. People evolving to the now-legal-in-Ohio weed and not fighting the endless alcohol lines and having to piss and feeling double drained the next day. And avoiding DUIs.
The only truly gross thing I saw all weekend was the hoarding of seats in the VIP area. When I run a festival, the VIP area will be decided based upon tax return, where those that make the least, get the most.
1:15 p.m.: Brand of Sacrifice, RS—heavy and fast open, big pit formed early, lead singer with dreads and flak jacket, so much moshing, dust covering the crowd like a fog machine. No middle gate dividing the crowd at the RS, so one giant pit could form.
“The cardio isn’t over,” yelled the lead singer, trying to motivate a crowd that had perhaps skipped both legs and arms day. And cardio day.
1:25 p.m.: Behest of Serpents, Infirmary Stage (IS) — Loved the black metal influence, little bit of Mayhem mixed in. If AI generated an amazing metal band — sleeveless plain black shirts and cameo cargo shorts, long hair (where possible).
1:45 p.m.: Into the prison, the blocked walls thicker than an English castle, for fresh tat viewing and free-standing cell block gazing. Imagine how the inmates would have reacted 40 years ago, to a pic of what their penitentiary had become.
People picking and pointing to a design in a book, then permanence with a pen. It used to make me feel better to say, this tattoo has “meaning” behind it, but it’s all relative and subjective and why are you gatekeeping tattoos? “I have a carrot tattoo ‘cuz my pet gerbil that died liked to eat those.” Is that really any more significant than anything else?
The smell of tattoo ink mixed with blood and some fear and anxiety pheromones floating through the newly constructed shop. Brick walls, even the ceiling — a room like most prisons, that was centered around containment not worrying about the contaminants.
2:05 p.m.: Pit Crew interview. Bunch of beings all wearing varied purple uniforms with an eye logo. What is their purpose, who are they?
“We’re just an extended family of live music enthusiasts, this is our drug, this is our therapy, this is our family reunion. This is what gets us through our day-to-day life,” Pit Crew founder Spoon Foy said.
“Where it originated was in the mosh pits, was taking care of each other, making sure we’re picking each other up, making sure everyone gets a chance. We run girl pits, we run kid pits, we run handicap pits where we’ll do circle pits for our wheelchair family. Like we make sure everyone that wants to have a good time gets to have a good time and gets to stay safe.”
2:15 p.m.: Ten56, Infirmary — agro English hardcore, right balance of ‘80s punk with progressive bars and double bass belts. Start of set, lead singer was off stage, waiting for a dramatic entrance, but was behind a see-through curtain.
Lead singer: “The person next to you, no matter the the size or age, kick them in the ******* face.” Followed by separating the crowd for a “wall of death,” the “Braveheart” storm across the line and bash into the enemy. But he told the crowd to go on the “count of four.” Not exactly sure how they do it in the land of biscuits and queens, but we go on three in the U.S.
2:55 p.m.: Sleeping with Sirens, Yard, you have to give the singer credit, he can hit some high notes that would make Adele blush. Light metal kinda punk, nice little hybrid homogeneous for the neurons.
After you crowd surfed, security would filter you down a long, skinny, gated-on-both-sides corridor, through the heart of the audience, with festival attendees high-fiving you for you having successful conquering of the crowd wave. As you walked, security would give you water, and even a little boy around 10 was handing out homemade bracelets with different band names on them. I want to hang out with that kid when he grows up and thanks, bruv, I got a Chimaira bracelet that I will proudly wear to local metal shows.
3:40 p.m.: — Stabbing Westward, Redemption, see the awesome interview Source Engagement Editor Brittany Schock did with them!
4:15 p.m.: Dropkick, Yard. The warm-up tune was, “The Foggy Dew,” the song Connor McGregor walks out to in the UFC by Sinéad O’Connor.
Dropkick opened “for Boston” and soon thereafter led into, “The boys are back, the boys are back, the boys are back and looking for trouble!”
A wheelchair crowd surfer. But it goes sideways, no pun indeed. He falls out of the chair, but into the hands and the ever-bending and adjusting wrists of the crowd, who usher both down the mash and over the rail, disappearing into the net-like arms of security.
When I interviewed lead guitarist Tim Brennan a couple weeks ago doing a preview for Ink, he said his ability to play various Irish instruments actually got him involved with the band in the early 2000s. And there he was, playing a piano accordion between guitar riffs.
“He realized I could play a handful of different Irish instruments, and so then he went back to the band and was like, ‘I’ve got this buddy, we’ve been playin’ music together again, and if we need somebody to do any of that weird stuff, I’m sure he’d do it,'” Brennan said.
“They asked if I would go on the Warped Tour with them in 2003.”
Most Dropkick Songs you intrinsically clap along to.
I experienced the first Dropkick tour for “Do or Die” in the ‘90s while in high school, and classmate Bill Stowe got me and “the 419” on the guest list.
Ken Casey (who then was “just” the bassist) was at a Cleveland bookstore and so was (randomly and coincidentally) Stowe. He approached, said we were going to the show, and Casey gave us all free tickets out of nowhere.
Mike McColgan was the singer, The Business opened along with Cleveland infamous legends, Cutthroat. Now Casey was every part of the band, acting as lead singer at Ink with Al Barr still out.
Casey with green Adidas “gazelle” shoes. It’s just like the Bouncing Souls once sang, “No one can beat us, we drink beer and wear Adidas (sambas, soccer shoes).
One thing Dropkick should note – we know the band is from Boston and we know that Boston is in the state of Massachusetts. (Yes, I’m a Cleveland sports fan that has issues with that city.) Don’t fret; I asked Brennan a question about playing at the Ohio State Reformatory and there’s no way he would respond by talking about New England (smile face).
“In the town that I live in, in Massachusetts, there’s an old state mental hospital there, that’s been closed down now for 20 years … that’s where they filmed, ‘Shutter Island,’ and a bunch of ‘Knives Out’ and things like that,” Brennan said.
“I love that type of stuff. It thrills me to no end to know we’re going to be doing that [playing Shawshank prison].”
Here’s the full video of the Time Brennan interview with Source Media.
Pretty amazing that, decades later, and with festival timeframe restrictions, Dropkick still played two songs off its first album, “Do or Die.”
First, according to Casey and “by request” was, “Skinhead on the MBTA.” (There is a “skins” subsection of punk, which originated from the working class, tight stone-washed-jean and boot-wearing working class of England in the ’60s and ’70s. Which, eventually evolved into the Boston street punk sounds of the Bruisers and Ducky Boys, All Systems Go, etc. Not to be confused with racist skinheads.)
“Rose Tattoo” – such a fun song to sing in unison with tens of thousands of people. I wish my scars were as romantic as they are portrayed to be in the ballad. Citizen C.I.A. followed and as you could expect, on the day President Biden dropped out, things got political.
Dropkick is very pro-union, so it was no surprise that Casey had a message of aggression for Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, before playing a pro-union song with the lyrics, “we’re the first ones to die, the first ones to starve.”
It should be noted that there was no down time between songs, no musicians catching their breath.
The show concluded with, “Shipping off to Boston.”
5:10 p.m.: Shawdows Fall – classic old metal with even more pace and desire to tilt your brains equilibrium.
For the end of the day and headliners, it is probably better to switch to visual storytelling, as aided by Source Media freelance photographer, Rob Stroul. His galleries and more content will be published throughout the week, including: Erra, Parkway drive, Of mice and Men, Bad omens, Skillet and Shinedown.
