But luckily the winds were keeping the smoke to the north and also kept the grounds pretty cool. I had heard from a few friends at the venue of how bad it’s been over the summer with the heat and fans and staff passing out. I made my way to the second stage which started up around 2pm for the early fans so there were plenty of people were already there by the time I was walking up to the stage around 4:30pm to catch the last act of the day for that stage Sevendust.

Sevendust has always been one of my favorite bands to see live due to the fact as I see them as one of the hardest working bands onstage. Don’t get me wrong there are tons of bands I love to see live, but there are those that come out and play and there are those they come out and give you a show. Sevendust is without doubt one of those bands who puts on a show. As soon as the guys got on stage people were already screaming, bottles and shoes flying through the air and crowd surfers just itching to take flight.

It took about 5 seconds for front man Lajon Witherspoon to hit the mic asking the fans “you know who we are” before going in to their hard hitting song “Face to Face”. The only way I can think to describe it is it’s like the opening scene of the movie “Gladiator” where right before the battle he tells the army to ‘unleash hell’. That’s pretty much what happened Sevendust started cutting the hard opening riffs and Lajon screams out the opening lines and then the drums hit and all hell breaks loose, Band members running all over the stage, people flying through the air and coming over the barricades.

The rest of the Sevendust set was a blur, but as I said before they are a band who definitely puts on one hell of a show. By the time I left the side stage area they had opened the main stage up and people were taking their seats. Opening up the main stage was a band called Escape the Fate. I watched them for a little while but couldn’t get in to their sound, they sounded like an emo band that decided once the emo fade went out they should be a metal band.

Before the next band played, they had the Miss Uproar contest up on stage. A Parade of about ten girls came walking out as band members from the tour were on stage as judges. They narrowed it down to two girls, one who had the crowd’s men yelling for her, and another that the judges seem to like. In the end the judges picked their favorite while drawing boos from the crowd.

Next up was Bullet for My Valentine, a band I had heard a few songs from before and liked the sound they had. They remind me of a mix of Slayer and Iron Maiden They play fast and hard and don’t let up with killer guitar work and screaming vocals but can also go in these melodic tones that only seem to be the launching pad for the next musical assault, Which is one thing I have always liked with some metal bands.

When a song starts and it has this soft sweet sound that quickly turns into an onslaught of guitars and drums. For being a Welsh band they seemed to have a pretty decent following at the show. They played a lot of the newest stuff from their Album Fever, such as the title track “Fever”, “Your Betrayal” and “Pretty on the Outside” also touched some older tracks such as one of my fav’s “Hand of Blood”.

After Bullet’s set, Seether was up. Seether has been a band I always feel disappointed by. When I heard their first album ‘Disclaimer’ before it was re-done by the record label they had this grainy sound almost like an old Nirvana sort of early Settle grunge thing.  I dug them and thought front man Shawn Morgan had some good vocals. So when the album was re-released the sound difference was very noticeable, everything was very clean sounding and tuned. With the Release of their second album it was again more tuned and clean but found a few songs that I still liked.

Their last two albums I feel like they have become like most pop rock bands now a days and become slaves to the record label. They started their set with something I hadn’t heard before, I’m sure something new.  But their second song “Gasoline” is one of the songs that drew me to them, I love the opening riffs and how the lyrics describe the deranged thoughts of some girl’s stalker as he watches her and the things she does. Most everything after that was newer stuff that I just can’t get in to like “Rise Above”, “Fake It” and their newest on the radio which I can’t stand “Country Song”.

Next up was Three Days Grace, another band I have never cared for too much. Even though I wasn’t in to them, seemed like a lot of the fans were as they went through their set of radio hits likes “I Hate Everything About You”, “Break” and “Riot”. I kind of just sat back semi watching their set, but more watching the crowd react to the band. As I waited for their set to be over they started playing the song “Home” a song I will admit that I thought was ok when I first heard it, About mid way through front man Adam Gontier started talking to the crowd, shining a spot light on them trying to get everyone up and screaming as most bands do.

But then the guitars riffs changed and I keep thinking man that sounds like something I know, well it was, but not something I was expecting. Once the guitars got in to full swing Adam goes into doing Emenim’s “Lose Yourself” from 8 mile rapping away with the band kicking in during the chorus. As he got towards the end of it they went back in to “Home” and finished out the set.

To finish the night off and my whole reason for wanting to come to this year’s Uproar festival Avenged Sevenfold.  As I said earlier in my review, there are bands who play and bands who give you a show. With that being said I am for the most part a very visual person, yes I love music but when I come out to see a band I hate seeing them walk out and just stand there and play. I love the stage theatrics and lighting effects; there are even some bands that I will go see because of the show they put on rather than the music they play.

Avenged sevenfold was a band I never use to listen to, I have had friends who just love them and tons of people I’ve talked to at shows who rave about them. So when we covered last year’s Uproar I saw they would be playing and figured well I’ll get to see what the big deal is. I can say they were a big surprise for me, their show was awesome. When I saw they would be this year’s Uproar Headliner I couldn’t wait to see them again. Before their set, the crew covers the stage with a huge black curtain.

As the lights go dim the crowd noise is deafening a few plumes of fire go up behind the curtain only making the crowd louder as they waited.The curtain drops as the band comes out and jumps into “Nightmare” with lights and pyro going off all over the stage, fans still screaming and yelling along with the chorus which sounded pretty awesome tens of thousands of people yelling out “It’s your fucking nightmare“ that was followed by “Afterlife” which again had the fans going insane.

Avenged Sevenfold is one of those bands that gets a hold of a crowd and doesn’t let go, their set was what I expected it to be fast, hard and full of fire.They seemed to have cut back a little from what they did last year, seemed like the entire stage was in flames at some points. This year there were only a few flame blowers but maybe it’s just the kid in me I just love when band uses fire. Avenged finished out the set with “Almost Easy” to a standing ovation.

I made my way out the back and headed home before the masses were let loose in the streets. Although this is only the second year for the Uproar Festival I have enjoyed them both and hope they stick with it and make it an annual tour, in the light of what seems to be less and less touring from bands on their own, and the very few of the festival shows that still are around these days.