Ice Cream Man

At the Susquehanna Center in Camden, N.J. we attended the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. In total they were three stages. The Jagermeister stage, the Extreme stage, and of course the Main stage. The Jagermeister stage featured Beyond the Sears, Red Fang, Kingdom Of Sorrow and Unearth. The Extreme stage featured Straight Line Stitch, All Shall Perish, Suicide Silence and Machine Head. And the main stage featured Trivium, Megadeth, Godsmack and Disturbed.
Three bands stood out to us on the Jagermeister and Extreme stages. Straight Line Stitch, who had a hot female lead singer named Alexis Brown. Her vocals really kicked some major ass! She’s truly a diamond in the rough. Suicide Silence had such a great stage presence! The hard hitting drums along with their thrashing guitars complimented the rough edgy vocals! And Unearth, with their mixture of classic metal vocals and guitars meshed well with their more contemporary metal rhythm section. This made for an awesomely dark and unique sound! We highly suggest you check out all these three bands when you have the chance.
While traveling from stage to stage one of problems we had with the show was that some of the bands kept asking the fans to crowd surf and to create a circle pit. This is something this writer is not a fan of. Shouldn’t these things just happen naturally, shouldn’t the fans be inspired by the music? However, all bands played great despite the ungodly heat. That alone takes a lot commitment and a high level of showmanship. And for that we’d like to thank all the bands who came out and played their hearts out. On a sad note, the band In Flames unfortunately had to cancel due to a family member’s serious terminal illness according to the flyers that were posted at the Susquehanna Center. Our thoughts are with In Flames and their families during this sad and undoubtedly stressful time.
As the sun started to set and the heat finally gave up, Trivium was the first to hit the main stage. Trivium’s undying ferocious sound caused the first spontaneous circle pit and crowd surfing. They played a fantastic set. After a bit of anticipation we looked to the stage and became gitty as we saw a poof of strawberry blond hair walking out from behind the curtain. It was none other than Dave Mustaine of Megadeth! The metal veterans played their various classic hits as well as some new songs. The highlight of the night was “Sweating Bullets”! It threw the crowd into a frenzy. Megadeath as a whole was awesome but Dave Mustaine is just an amazing front man and unstoppable guitarist! After Megadeath destroyed, Godsmack took the stage. Lead singer Sully Erna started off by taunting the audience to create mayhem. Calling them explicit names in which the fans gobbled up and began to roar. The highlight of their set was the drum battle between drummer Shannon Larkin and lead singer Sully Erna. By the end of the battle even the audience members who we not Godsmack fans before were now converted. Last but definitely not least Disturbed came out full throttle. They were only band to have pyrotechnics and a full screen background and riser. The screen was blanketed with varying images of religious symbols and insane asylums to coincide with their new album Asylums. Disturbed really ended the festival with a bang! The Rockstar Mayhem Festival was by far one of the best festivals we’ve been to so far this year! We can’t wait to see next years line up. We just hope next year the summer heat is not as cruel.