I made in around 5pm just in time to catch Hellyeah close out the side stage, I’ve liked this band since I first saw them a few years back, their always great live.  As the guys come out the crowds starts in with the screaming and yelling. They open up with “Hell Yeah” quickly followed by “God Dam” both of these are hard hitting songs that open strong and don’t let up till the last riff. Watching Chad Gray perform during these two songs it’s a wonder this guy hasn’t blown out his voice, he doesn’t give any half ass efforts. Gray spits out lyrics with grinding yells that you can feel just from the look on his face

After the songs were over Vocalist Chad Gray  spoke to the crowd for a minute before going in to a song from the new album “Stampede” called “The Cowboy Way” right after they were done we made our way out of the stage front and I watched for a few more minutes as the guys played on. As I said before Hellyeah is always great live they bring the mixture of all the bands these guys came from Mudvanye, Nothingface, and of course Pantera.

Next up was Hailstorm, not a big fan of theirs but these guys (and girl) hold a special place for me. Not trying to get all mushy on you guys, they just happened to be the first band I ever covered when starting this whole HMR thing. So was kind of cool to get to see them again and see how they have grown as a band. When I first saw them the one thing that grabbed me was front women Lizzy Hail, This girl has got a voice on her.

They opened up there set with the song “It’s Not You” that starts off with Lizzy singing solo belting out the line “I’m in love with somebody” over and over again in this almost soulful bluesy voice that just carries throughout the pavilion until she hits the chorus line “And it’s not You”. They played a decent set I just still wasn’t that in to them as I watched them play. The only other track that caught my attention was a song called “Taste of Poison” but again was more for lizzy’s vocals than anything else.

Then it was Stone Sour’s turn on stage, as the lights went dim the blasting drum roll and fast riffs of the opening of “Get Inside” could be heard as front man Cory Taylor ran on stage delivering the opened yell of the vocals. It’s been a while since I have seen Stone Sour and with their new album “Audio Secrecy” that just came out I was interested to see what they would throw out to the fans. Most of the set was older stuff from previous albums like “Inhale”, “Idle Hands” and “Made of Scars”.
They played a solid set that did include a few new tracks that were kind of hit and miss, a few were a little softer than I like, but I had already read that the new album was going to have that more melodic feel to it, so it was to be expected. Taylor is another vocalist I enjoy watching he really puts it out there jumping on to amps and slamming his feet down as he screams lyrics so hard it looks like it hurts. While Taylor does his thing it’s always awesome to watch guitarist Jim Root, you bring a guy in that plays metal riffs and leads on Slipknot tracks and its hard not to watch him.

This is where the night got interesting, we walk up to the stage front for Avenged Sevenfold’s set and their stage manger is there and tells us “watch out for the fire”, Now I have been to my fair of shows and have cover plenty of shows that have some fire or other type of pyrotechnics in their set. So I wasn’t expecting much more than I have seen at other shows, before they even come on stage we see a guy in one of the lighting rigs messing with something next thing you know BOOM something blows up and the guy comes swinging down hanging by a rope around his neck over the stage.
Having seen the old “the stage hand got hurt” routine a few times I knew what was up, but it’s still fun to watch some of the younger kids with that look of horror on their face for a second before they realize its fake. While the guy is still swinging around here comes Avenged Sevenfold and opens up with “Your Nightmare” as the song is being played there is a few pyro torches going off here and there nothing big, yet. They start in on the next song and next thing I know there is flames everywhere, stage sets are on fire, flames shooting up from all over. By the time we got done with photos, most everyone at stage front and in the pit were dripping sweat.

As I watched the rest of the set there were a few songs I knew, never been much of an Avenged fan but the set was good and kept people watching as things were constantly blowing up or catching of fire. There was also a somber moment as the guys thanked all the fans for their support while the band had gone on hiatus when their drummer “the rev” died last year. I have had many friends tell me Avenged was a great band, still not a huge fan but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy their set.

To close out the night was Disturbed, who were somewhat of a disappointment. Being that their supposed to be a headliner they just didn’t put on that great of a show. They opened good but after a few songs things just kind of blended together and had the same sound and feel to it. At one point during the set they did this montage of like six songs, they would play a few chords from a song and then switch to another, then another and then another. I have seen a few bands do this and I hate it, it’s like dude people paid to see you play your music not just 30 second snippets of songs.
They played some new songs from the latest album “Asylum” which in all honesty sounded the same as most of their other songs. It’s a good and bad thing when a band has such a distinct sound, on the one hand you heard it and know who it is, on the other hand when you have a distinct sound it also means you got to try to mix it up a little or else all your music starts to sound the same. When Disturbed first came out I liked some of their songs and thought they would become a decent band, but since then they have seem to do nothing more but replicate the same songs over and over again…