WJRR 101.1 Earthday Birthday 25

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WJRR 101.1 Earthday Birthday 25 – Music and Relationships Rule the Day

Central Florida Fairgrounds, Orlando, FL, USA, April 21, 2018

By Barry Nadler

Clouds covered the sky and it was threatening to rain. But, to the good fortune of the crowd and the bands performing, the rain didn’t come. The clouds and breeze kept the heat away also. This made for a very pleasant festival experience.

At one moment, the woman sitting next to us was discussing her family vacation they had just gone on and the next, she is acting like a teenager again, bouncing and singing to every song Seether played for their full set. Mind you, this woman was in her mid-forties. But, that seemed normal for this crowd. The average age was probably mid-twenties to mid-forties.

At one point, we were walking around exploring the various artist vendors and at another point, we were singing along with Three Days Grace or All That Remains or Shinedown or Nonpoint. At another point, we were chatting it up with a friend who is a stilt walker. At yet another time, we were popping into the Thirty-Six Black tattoo parlor tent to say hello to an older friend, Tom Huestis (ex-frontman for local favorite band, SoulSwitch. This band performed on the main stage the previous year).

This show has an interesting personality. Nostalgia can successfully intermingle right next to musical artists that are

WJRR 101.1 Earthday Birthday 25 (credit: Barry Nadler)

current and in the midst of releasing new material. In my personal opinion, nostalgia is not a bad thing. Part of the fun of seeing a live show is being able to join in the crowd as the mass of people sing along to music they are familiar with. There is a comfort to hearing songs like “Machinehead” or “Comedown” by Bush and “Animal I Have Become” or “Riot” by Three Days Grace. We know these songs and have been hearing them on the radio for years. On the other hand, it can be exciting to hear new songs by familiar artists like Shinedown, who just released their new album “Attention! Attention!” and are touring to support that album.

Where it gets interesting is when you put that alongside artists that may be newer or lesser known, like Red, Fozzy, Starset, and Dead Girls Academy. There are also bands that have been around for a bit, but aren’t as mainstream, such as 10 Years and Powerman 5000.

As a participant in the festival, I really don’t think I would enjoy a festival full of artists that I was not familiar with. This is probably an age-related thing. However, I probably would have been totally fine if the bill was just a bunch of bands that I had grown up with and enjoyed seeing. For a successful festival, I think it is important to have both aspects, because the discovery of new artists is fun for participants.

One of the things I have seen at this festival that I have not seen at other festivals I have attended were a body painting booth for women. This means that there were women everywhere that were walking around topless – but painted…obviously. However, it still is eye catching and interesting for people-watching. If you are bringing smaller children (and there were plenty of them there), expect to have to explain this to them.

The other thing that comes with a festival is various mosh pits and crowd surfers. This festival, like the others I have attended, have this in spades. If you plan to try and muscle into the middle of the crowds expect that this could become part of the experience, as well.

This year, there was a noticeable lack of local artists performing. Last year, there were at least four or five top local rock artists represented in the lineup. This seems like an important oversight this year due to the fact that this is Orlando’s primary rock festival and it is hosted by the main Orlando modern rock station, WJRR 101.1. This station even has a show on Sunday nights focused on local rock bands, called Native Noise. Represented this year were two local rock bands. Meka Kyoto, frontwoman of Meka Nism, was asked to sing the national anthem. They are currently promoting the release of their most current album “The War Inside.” Notably, she is the first human to sing the national anthem at this festival. In the past, it was a guitar player playing the anthem. She killed it with her mix of operatic vocals and metal growling at the appropriate times. The other local band Nirvanna, a Nirvana tribute band, opened the main stage. This addition of a 90’s tribute band should have been everyone’s clue that this was a festival whose main acts were going to lean towards the nostalgia direction.

Like last year, there was an acoustic stage. However, last year, this was where you were most likely to find the local artists. This year, the acoustic stage was for various national acts that were also performing during the main portion of the festival. This year, you could find 10 Years, Nonpoint, Dead Girls Academy, and Blender on this stage. I did not take the time to check out this stage due to my wanting to focus on the two large stages.

Like last year, there seemed to be a pretty solid representation of the fans of the local music scene. Being a part of

Shinedown (credit: Barry Nadler)

this community myself, I ran into people I knew at every turn. This meant fans, as well as members of other local bands. When I was backstage, waiting to meet up with Meka Kyoto, I also ran into a few other members of Meka Nism. I know I saw people from at least three or four other local bands wandering around as well. As people were waiting in line to enter the festival, the members of Felicity were handing out free tickets to their upcoming show.

Something I had not seen before had to do with how the attendees of the festival paid for food from the seven or eight available food trucks and food booths. The operators of the festival required the attendees to purchase “funny money” or “Bucks” at a large tent. You could not purchase food from the various food trucks with regular cash or debit card. You needed to use the festival’s “bucks.” I assume this had to do with how the festival made sure their payouts were correct…but it was different than anything I had seen at a festival before.

From a musical standpoint, I took the time to check out Nonpoint, Red, All That Remains, Fozzy, Three Days Grace, Bush, Seether, and Shinedown.

I have never really been a big fan of Bush or Seether. They have their hits I know, but there was never enough in their catalog of music to really attract me to their style that was popular in the mid 90’s and early 2000’s. However, I was impressed by how popular these bands actually were with the crowd. At one point, Gavin Rossdale, of Bush, came off the stage and wandered down the middle path to sing with the crowd, who loved it. The woman and her friends that were next to us for most of the day were proof to the popularity of Seether. Her and her friends knew all the songs! They were jumping and singing. They were even sporting Seether wristbands.

The big surprise for me was how much I enjoyed Fozzy. The lead singer is Chris Jericho. He is known for his time as

Fozzy (credit: Barry Nadler)

a professional wrestler in the WWE. Given that I was never a fan of the WWE, I didn’t really give his band much attention. However, recently, their song, “Judas,” caught my attention. I realized that he had taken much of what he learned during his WWE years and applied it to his rock band’s show. This, for me, was the most fun of all the artists. He had smoke cannons and a fire extinguisher type of fog gun he was blasting repeatedly. As a photographer of the show, there was an added treat. Typically, a show photographer gets to shoot three songs in the photo pit. As we were leaving, we were greeted by the tour manager who hurriedly directed us all to head onto the stage and the band proceeded to intermingle and perform facing all the photographers, with the large crowd behind them. It was a unique opportunity that many of the photographers, including myself, were happy to have been a part of.

The other bands I was truly looking forward to seeing were Three Days Grace and Shinedown. Neither of these bands disappointed. I happen to have a personal story with each of these bands, which made it more fun to see them again.

In the early 2000’s, I was taking a break from the music scene and that’s when both of these bands hit. So, I sort of missed them when they were all over the radio. I knew the music in passing, but the band names all meshed together and I couldn’t tie any of them to a specific song.

Last year, I was introduced to Three Days Grace, at Welcome to Rockville (a rock festival that happens in Jacksonville, FL). I knew that I had a song or two of theirs that I knew, but I found that I actually knew many of their songs and was actually a fan of this band. My wife’s favorite song, “I Am Machine” is actually a Three Days Grace song. Given that I was not familiar with them the first time I saw them, it was exciting to be able to see them a second time with a better feel for their catalog of songs. Along with her favorite song, they also had “Pain,” “Animal I Have Become,” “The Good Life,” “I Hate Everything About You,” and “Riot.”

The first arena show I photographed was two years ago. On that bill was Sixx AM, Shinedown, and Five Finger Death Punch. I was not familiar with Shinedown and was totally blown away by the quality of their sound, the catalog of music they had, and the classy level of their show. I appreciated the fact that Brent Smith would take the time to shake the hand of all the photographers. So, I was excited to see them again with a knowledge of their catalog behind me. Brent again shook all the photographers’ hands. Their set did not disappoint and as you would expect, it contained a few songs from their new album. I was really looking forward to hearing “Sound of Madness,” “Cut the Cord,” “Diamond Eyes,” “Unity,” and “Second Chance.” They were all in the setlist.

One thing I found to be a little unnecessary and obnoxious was that at least three bands (there may have even been a fourth band) closed out their set with a power chord that was left hanging in the air and near a speaker to create feedback. They let this loud ringing play for about two or three minutes after the bands left the stage. I get it when it happens once for impact and as an exclamation point at the end of a big show. But, for several bands to do this as part of a larger show, it got to be more than was needed. As a side note, I was at another festival the next weekend and I never heard it happen once. So, it is not something that is because it was a festival.

The evening closed with a firework show matched to Shinedown’s closing song, “Devil”.

Comparatively, this is certainly a smaller festival than Welcome to Rockville (a three-day festival in Jacksonville, FL, with 90,000 people in attendance) or Ft. Rock ( a two-day festival in Ft. Lauderdale, FL). I would recommend this festival as good starter festival or the first in a series if you plan to attend one of the others in the state. You can expect an attendance crowd of about 15,000 people or so. Overall, it was a good show and well worth the price of admission. I really enjoyed the unique mix of nostalgia and newer artists.