timesleader.com



Mayhem on the mountain enjoyable
By Rory Sweeney rsweeney
Friday, August 8, 2008



MOOSIC – Just walking from the parking lot, it was obvious what kind of show the Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain was hosting on Sunday afternoon. Drums thumped incessantly, the singers growled and screamed, guitars wailed and band after band ground out a head-banging rhythm.

The Rockstar Mayhem Festival started flooding the mountain with heavy metal music early in the afternoon and didn’t give up until well past nightfall. In fact, the festival was designed to leave its hardest punches for last, saving wildly popular metal acts Disturbed and Slipknot for the end.

Disturbed took the stage shortly before 9 p.m. and tore through its catalog of hits, to the delight of the roughly 10,000 fans in the audience. They eschewed all stage props except for a nonstop light show and a drum-set platform with sloped sides that allowed the band members to walk around on it.

As they have before, the band saluted military personnel serving overseas and started a “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” chant that lasted for about 15 seconds.

Lead singer David Draiman closed the set, saying, “Much respect to you, Scranton. You (people) are crazy.”

The band has a healthy following in this area, evidenced by the sea of fans that filled the seats and lawn at the main stage. Earlier in the day, the lawn area had been full, but not packed. When Disturbed played, it was impassible.

Plains Township resident John Filippini had come up with three other friends to enjoy an evening of music. They spent much of the afternoon in the parking lot hanging out, but he caught the Disturbed show and said he enjoyed it.

Some fans, like Paul Canavan, showed their affinity for bands in truly fanatical ways. For most of the day, Canavan, from Clarks Summit, donned a homemade white mask with several-foot-long tentacles that hung from it like dreadlocks. He said it took him a few hours to craft the mask from duct tape and paint the dreadlocks. The mask was in honor of his favorite band, Slipknot. Though that band played last, Canavan said it wasn’t too hot underneath it.

He said 36 Crazyfists and Five Finger Death Punch also had memorable shows.

The festival is fun for bands. Members who had just finished their sets conversed with bands preparing to take the stage, telling them that it was a good crowd. David Roads, a guitarist with Australia-based Airbourne, said the bands sometimes hang out and chip in money for barbeques.

He said it can also be a grind. It’s just airports to airplanes to venues every day, he said, and there’s not much time to get creative on stage because the sets are only about 30 minutes. Bands just play their best-liked songs and then hit the catering tent, he said. But there is one benefit that fans would surely make any sacrifice for: “You can catch Slipknot every night if you want to,” he said.