Carolina Rebellion, the heralded rock ‘n’ roll festival, took the excitement and head-banging to another level this year, adding an extra day which inevitably attracted thousands of more rebels to Concord N.C. for the sold-out festival weekend. Ecstasy (figuratively, but most likely the recreational substance as well) filled the air as thousands lined up at the crack of noon Friday to barrel through the gateway to hard rock bliss and paradise.
63 bands, over 90,000 fans and 32 hours of rock ‘n’ roll euphoria.
Pabst Blue Ribbon cans began to litter the grassless acres and white smoke, whether it be cigarettes, vapes or marijuana began to fill the sky as the second afternoon brought modern hard rock and metal in Saint Asonia, Parkway Drive, Sevendust, Trivium and Anthrax. Bullet For My Valentine took the Rebellion stage by storm and gave the audience a reason to mosh.
Their nearly two decades of experience showed as thousands of fans leaped off the ground in elation while the scorching sun burnt their limbs. Even the VIP tent harbored a few fans that strummed along with Bullet For My Valentine on their self created air instruments.
A Day To Remember gave the masses a performance to remember as lead vocalist Jeremy McKinnon toyed with cameras and enticed the audience into multiple mosh pits and an overload of crowd surfing. Their diverse set consisting of the lesser-known tracks off their first albums mixed seamlessly with the songs off their most recent album, Common Courtesy.
Lamb Of God increased the intensity on the Black stage as the sun began to set. Randy Blythe’s ear piercing vocals had even the casual fan enthralled in his performance.
Five Finger Death Punch caused crowd surfers to overly-infiltrate the photographers’ area in front of the stage during their hardcore set. Shinedown’s fans waited patiently on the other side of the festival area, which felt like it was zip codes away by 9:45 p.m. on day two.
Upon arriving late, Shinedown took the crowd back to 2008 with The Sound of Madness and even sprinkled their set with a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover, in case the audience didn’t get enough the night prior. Brent Smith displayed his true showmanship as he conversed with the audience between sets and evidently thoroughly enjoyed rocking out with his partners in front of a record-breaking crowd.
No comments