September 10th was the biggest day for Blue Ridge Rock Festival with headliner Slipknot closing out the night and a great day of music all around. Walking into the festival grounds, the weather was overcast and there was a forecast of rain for later in the afternoon. Many of us were already at the media tent getting ready to photo the first bands of the day. While we were waiting, we received a notification from the festival media contact on reminders or more like restrictions. The email stated that our access only allowed us into the media lounge and photo pits only. The issue was they received complaints that photographers were hanging out in the Rockstar Lounge and using their bathrooms and watching sets from the Rockstar Viewing Lounge. Personally, my issue with this is the way they laid out the stages, our fastest way to the photo pit for the Monster stage was through the entrance to the Rockstar Lounge. Otherwise, we’d have to walk all the way around to the Zyn stage and then walk across to Monster (more on that in Day 4 review). I think what really bothered me about this restriction was at other festivals the media has covered we’ve always been allowed into areas like Rockstar and to watch the sets from there as well. But, our media contact said, “People paid good money to view shows from there.” The place that for the most part was empty throughout the festival. The restrictions didn’t stop there.
We were told we had to stay in the GA area after we photographed our 3 songs and couldn’t stand off to the side during the sets. We had our hands slapped for some photographers taking water from security coolers (that were using the same waters we were getting) on Friday when it was brutally hot down by URW. Instead, our media rep told us we had to walk back up to the media lounge to get water. And they told us we needed to stay off the production roads being used by staff golf carts to get around. To be fair, I understood this one as they wanted to keep the roads clear for staff. Media had used the road as it was a flatter path for traveling over walking the grounds and that hill.
It was disappointing and a lot of us headed out for stages feeling less than stellar. It was less stellar when media members came back from the stages informing us that Sion and Lacuna Coil weren’t at the show. Both bands canceled with no heads-up from the festival. This wasn’t exactly a good start to the day. The next artist I had on my list was down by URW, so I grabbed my gear and made my way over.
I knew this band was going to perk up the vibe of the day as it was Butcher Babies. The dual vocalist team of Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey belting out heavy metal is bound to get anyone rocking. When the band hit the stage the crowd was screaming and Heidi and Carla brought their A-game. The two work so well together and both are fantastic vocalists. Guitarist Henry Flury rips on the guitar and the crowd was crowd surfing and moshing their hearts out. I really loved it when Heidi and Carla encouraged the crowd to surf up to them and give Heidi and Carla a high five. The band has always been so crowd friendly, which is one of the reasons I love them so much. Butcher Babies kicked ass that day.
I decided to stay at URW for the next few artists as it was a great selection to photograph and watch. Next on the stage was the deathcore band Chelsea Grin. The fans are URW nearly lost their minds the moment they stepped onto the stage. The band was supposed to be at the festival in 2021, but unfortunately had to cancel due to COVID-19. So the fact they were invited to return for 2022 excited the fans and Chelsea Grin blew it away. Hard, heavy, and engaging the fans to keep them moshing and surfing. I could completely see why they were invited to the festival and they were absolutely worth the wait.
Following them on the URW stage was another of my favorite bands all the way back from 1991. That band is Powerman 5000. The rock band out of Boston recently toured with Rob Zombie, Mudvayne, and Static-X on the Freaks on Parade Tour and were phenomenal. And they were just as good in their performance at Blue Ridge that day. Throwing down some of their great classics like “When Worlds Collide” and “Invade, Destroy, Repeat”, the band had the crowd rocking out hard and they didn’t miss a beat. An absolutely fantastic set from them.
Now, things were starting to get dark overhead and the raingear started to come out from those in the media and fans who were prepared for the weather. As we were waiting in the pit for the next band, a fan up against the barrier said, “I really wish it would open up on us for like 10 seconds and cool us off!” It didn’t take more than a minute before the skies opened and poured down on everyone. The media members literally took shelter under the stage for a few minutes until the rain lightened up. It was pretty funny to see all of us huddled underneath the stage. It was then time for a band I always love to photograph, Mushroomhead!
Their unique style of metal plus their costumes and masks absolutely make them a fan favorite to see live. But, I always found their stage setup to be top-notch with their choices in stage lighting plus their water drums. These are drums that literally have water sitting in the middle and every time the drum is struck, water flies up from it. With the rain coming down and the water flying up, it made for some pretty cool visuals. At one point, one of the vocalists decided to come down into the pit and throw himself into the crowd for some crowd surfing. Mushroomhead is always a wild ride and you never quite know what will happen next, but you’ll always get a great performance from the band. After the second song, it really started to downpour again and we all dove back under the stage for shelter. One of the band members saw us go under and reached out his hand trying to grab us. When the third song was done, we all ran out and trekked back as fast as we could to the media area.
By the time we got back to the media the majority of us were all taking shelter from the rain. The majority of people didn’t look happy and I asked what was going on. Someone asked if I hadn’t seen the email so I checked my phone. An hour before, while I was photographing Powerman 5000, our media liaison sent an email notifying media that festival management and Slipknot security decided there would be no pit access for any of the photographers, videographers, or media. And none of us would be allowed to photograph or video Slipknot from anywhere at the festival. It was no wonder media members were mad, we just lost the opportunity to photograph the biggest headliner of the festival. At the same time, the email notified us that Sion and Lacuna Coil were no longer on the bill. You know, the bands that were supposed to play hours earlier in the day.
This was not only disappointing, but this was also upsetting, especially for those of us who covered Blue Ridge Rock Festival 2021. Last year on Saturday night, their headliner was Five Finger Death Punch and it was on September 11th. Five Finger Death Punch is a huge supporter of the military so media sensed they would do something special and we’d hope to catch it during their set. Instead, 5 minutes before they were to go on stage, all of the photographers were turned away by the tour manager saying no media with no warning. Our media representative that year, who was not a festival staff member, went down to the pit to fight for us to get access with no luck. So once again, we were now being turned away a second time for Saturday’s headliner, which is always the biggest on the festival lineup. And our media representative seemed very happy and pleased to update us about it.
Granted, considering how bad security had been about keeping guests and non-media members out of the pits, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. At the same time, wouldn’t you want your media guests to praise how great the headliners were at your festival? And when you bring in a band like Slipknot, don’t you want people who didn’t attend the festival to see and view pictures of the bands including the headliner? Apparently, Blue Ridge Rock Festival didn’t believe that was necessary. This same situation happened to me earlier this year when I was covering Innings Festival Florida in Tampa. The Lumineers were the headliners on Sunday night and they immediately turned away media with no reason or warning to the festival producers. When we notified our media liaisons at Innings Festival, they immediately told us not to leave and got The Lumineers tour manager to figure out why we were being turned away. The end result? We got access to photograph The Lumineers. I would have believed Blue Ridge Rock Festival would have fought for us, but considering the email stated “we’ve been updated by fest mgmt. and Slipknot’s security team”, it didn’t seem that was the case.
With the headliner off the table and the rain coming down, a good portion of us waited out in the media area. When it seem to finally lighten up, I headed over to the Monster stage to catch another great rock band in Skillet. Their songs are great, but nothing is better than seeing this band live. Vocalist John Cooper constantly gives the crowd and media poses and moments to capture. His wife Korey Cooper is wild on the guitar. She’s constantly moving, dancing, and just the energy is amazing. And with songs like “Rise”, “Monster”, and “Awake and Alive” Skillet once again made their mark at Blue Ridge Rock Festival.
At the end of the night, we had either Tenacious D or I Prevail. The sad part was both artists were overlapping, which I felt was one of the biggest mistakes of the festival. Tenacious D was a huge band for Blue Rock, but I Prevail has a special relationship with the fest and had one of the biggest crowds last year. Plus, the festival promised something really big for their appearance in 2022. So scheduling these two over each other was a crime. It was a tough choice, but I decided to cover Tenacious D.
The rock band of actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass united in 1994 to form Tenacious D and their comedic rock was nothing but stupendous. And the crowd that was there for them that evening was nothing short of massive. Unfortunately, the pit was also the same as we had the majority of media plus guests inside the photo pit. Security cleared everyone out twice before media was able to get back in properly and even then we still had uninvited guests in the pit by the URW stage. But, that was all forgotten for a few minutes the moment Jack Black strode out on stage with a massive light globe in his hand for the song “JB JR RAP”. And from that point forward it was nothing but fun, laughs, and fun rock. And the crowd surfers were coming over like crazy, so by the time the third song hit, we were more than ready to bail out of the pit. And of course, Tenacious D closed out the set with their most popular song “Fuck Her Gently”.
And that was a wrap on Day 3. Needless to say, there were some excellent music during the day, but the weather and festival restrictions really put a damper on the day overall.
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