By this point in the summer I felt that I had a firm grasp on what to expect at music festivals. There was the friendly “everybody love everybody” atmosphere at Boston Calling and the teen angst rebellious atmosphere at the Vans Warped Tour. So when I arrived at Mayhem Fest in Mansfield, MA; I felt like I knew what to expect….boy was I wrong.
At Mayhem Fest, anything could and did happen. From Body Count and Law and Order star Ice-T telling the whole crowd to “eat a hot bowl of dicks,” to Korn bringing eight year old kids on stage to head bang during their set, Mayhem Fest was by far the most unique festival I had ever been too. There were guys on dirt bikes going off jumps and doing flips and a giant circle pit where hundreds of people ran around in a huge circle throwing fists. Let me tell you something, if the North Korean’s aren’t scared of us yet then they would be shitting their pants if they saw 3,000 people pumping their fists in unison to a Mushroom head song.
This festival was broken up into two parts. During the afternoon, three stages were set up in the field outside of the amphitheater where a rotating schedule kept bands playing all afternoon long. By 6pm, the main show was about to begin inside the Xfinity Center.
Trivium opened the show with Asking Alexandria right behind them. Both put on amazing performances and really got the crowd going. Then Korn took the stage and absolutely brought down the house. Front man Jonathan Davis knew just how to play the crowd and rocked that whole arena.
At the end of Korn’s set I was left wondering how the show could get any better than what I had just witnessed. Then all of a sudden the whole arena turned pitch black, the giant curtain on stage parted and a 30 foot tall skeleton king appeared with flames shooting from beneath his throne. Two screens appeared behind him, showing images of damned souls stuck in a cage grasping at the bars. A single guitar riff rang out amongst a chorus of cheers. It was the opening to Avenged Sevenfold’s newest song “Hail to the King” and with a burst of pyrotechnics, they all took the stage. This was the start of an hour and 15 minute long set that traversed almost all of their albums.
This event was hosted by the good people at Rockstar Energy Drink who really know how to throw a kick ass party. With a combination of a killer line up and great atmosphere, there was no way Mayhem Fest was going to be anything but a success.
Special thanks to TMRZoo.com Photo Journalist Eric Gesualdo for this great coverage. You can see the rest of TMRZoo.com’s photo coverage of Mayhem Fest Boston 2014 here.
