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A festival for the heaviest rockers
By ALAN SCULLEY
08/15/2008

On the surface, the Rockstar Mayhem Festival and the Vans Warped tour seem to have little in common, other than the fact that both tours are organized by Kevin Lyman.
The Warped tour, now in its 14th year, showcases acts across the spectrum of modern rock. The Mayhem Festival, which is making its inaugural run this summer, is purely a heavy metal festival. It's headlined by mainstage acts Slipknot and Disturbed, and features nearly a dozen bands, many of them playing the second stage. These support acts include Mastadon, Underoath, Black Tide and Airbourne.
Lyman said both tours have one important objective.
"It's about developing artists," he said in a phone interview. "Warped Tour has developed artists. We develop artists. Labels are having a harder time doing it, so these festivals need to go in conjunction with what's going on with the labels. They need the help to develop artists."
Lyman said the success of the Mayhem Festival will hinge on whether it can help a support act reach mainstream popularity.
"If we can break a band off of the second stage, it's a success," he said. "If we can't, then it's not a success."
Fans, of course, will probably judge the Mayhem Festival by whether it rocked hard. And the lineup suggests the crowd will go home happy.
Disturbed and Slipknot are major stars touring behind new CDs. Meanwhile, buzz bands such as Black Tide, Underoath, Airbourne, Mastadon and Dragonforce figure to deliver strong opening sets.
The festival is rounded out by metal veterans Machine Head, and the newer acts Suicide Silence, Walls of Jericho, The Red Chord, Five Finger Death Punch and 36 Crazyfists.
The arrival of the Mayhem Festival comes at a time when a void had opened up for major metal tours during the summer.
Ozzfest -- which had been the king of traveling metal festivals -- didn't return, and instead was a one-day event on Aug. 9 in Dallas. The Sounds of the Underground Tour, which focused on emerging metal acts and medium-size venues, also didn't resurface.
That left Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution as the only major hard rock tour making a return this summer.
Lyman, though, resisted the notion that Mayhem is essentially filling the void left by Ozzfest.
"When I put the Warped Tour out in '95, some people said that because I had worked on Lollapalooza, I was trying to rival Lollapalooza," he said. "I really am not. When I do something, I see something or get a feeling of 'Let's go try to do it.' It might not work. It could shut down tomorrow if some problem happens, but we'll see."
In the case of the Mayhem Festival, it was actually an interest from sponsors, record labels and bands that put the wheels in motion.
With Ozzfest going away, record labels late last summer came to Lyman asking him about slots on the Warped tour.
"I started getting calls from a couple of metal labels, saying, 'We need more bands on Warped,'" he said. "I said I can't keep putting all the bands they need to break, or help them with their label (on Warped). There's got to be a home for metal music."
Not long after that, Rockstar Energy Drink -- which is a main sponsor of another Lyman-organized tour, winter's Taste Of Chaos -- approached him with the idea of backing a new tour.
There was also an inquiry from representatives of Disturbed and Slipknot, saying the two bands wanted to tour together this summer.
Another big piece of the puzzle fell into place when Live Nation, the promoter for most of the country's outdoor amphitheaters, indicated it would like a metal festival added to its slate of summer concerts.
"We worked very creatively with them," Lyman said of Live Nation. "We worked for four months on making a very fair deal with them. It was a very good thing."
According to David Draiman, lead singer of Disturbed, it was easy to commit to doing the Mayhem Festival, considering the players involved and Lyman's reputation for putting together well-organized events like Warped and Taste of Chaos.
"He (Lyman) seemed to have sort of stepped up to the plate with the right talent and the right situation and a good environment and a good vibe," Draiman said. "That really has everything in the world to do with it ... It's going to be a nice, comfortable tour."