HVYMTLMOM.COM - R-Mayhem073008

Mayhem West Palm Beach 7/30/08

...after the drive back to Orlando, I stayed at my son's apartment and couldn't sleep with the awesomeness of the Tampa show still ringing in my head (and my ears!). But my son kept me company....and he transferred all of the photos & videos from my cameras to my external hard drive that I brought with me so that my memory cards would be empty and ready for the next Mayhem. After just a few hours sleep, I headed to West Palm Beach.

I got there around 11, which was still pretty early. I went searching for some food since I knew there wouldn't be anything I could eat or would even want to eat at Mayhem. So I hit up a grocery store and an ATM. By that time, my friend Ginelly who was also on her way down with some friends (from Melbourne) got there. I saw some people right away that I knew and got a poster from one of them (thanks Serj!) and put it in my car right away since I know just about every WPB concert gets rained on! I asked security about backpacks & cameras and was very happy that they would be allowed "this time"! While we were hanging out before gates opened, Greg from The Red Chord came by. I told him I really wanted to see them in Tampa, but the timing was bad (had to keep my spot up front for MH at the other stage). Luckily this time they'd be playing first, so there was no way I would miss them!

When we were lining up, those of us with early entry bracelets (that bought pre-sale tickets) got in a line to one side. I turned around to see a woman that I had met the day before in Tampa in line! Small world, huh? As it turns out, Ginelly had met them (their whole family was there) at a Stone Sour concert months ago! So there was plenty of conversation as we waited for gates to open. Awesome family! They came all the way from Puerto Rico for the FL Mayhems. And when they finally let us in, amazingly enough security didn't check any of us! We just went right in. After a quick bathroom break, we headed to the second stage area to see what kind of configuration they had. In Tampa, the stages were side by side, but here they were facing each other at opposite ends of the parking lot. Well, not really a parking lot, but if you've been to Ozzfest here, you know where the second stage area is!

I went straight to the Hot Topic one so that I could be up front for The Red Chord. They didn't disappoint-as brutal as I remembered from Ozzfest!
I got video of their wall of death:

and a bunch of photos....some favorites:

After that, although they said they'd be at the Jager tent and I really wanted to meet them, I headed straight for the Jager stage instead. I wanted to get a good spot for The Autumn Offering and of course they were awesome as always! I should have taken some video, but only got photos:

Just before their set was over, I headed to the Jager tent, hoping to find The Red Chord still there....but they had just left and people were lining up to meet The Autumn Offering so I got in line too. I got a poster signed by all of them and had them all sign photos I'd taken of them at Revolution last year. Matt (the singer) wanted to keep his...but I gave him my card instead so he could take whatever he wanted from my site.

Next was 36 Crazy Fists. They were good too. I only got to see a side view from the Jager stage the day before, but this time I was up front. Got a few pics:

I didn't want to miss the Machine Head's signing so I headed to the Rockstar tent. Ran into some friends there and made some new ones. I was really disappointed that Robb wasn't there, but got some of my stuff signed (my Supercharger flag, setlist that I forgot to get signed the day before, and a poster). The girl in front of me asked if she could go around to the back of the table for a photo and Adam had her sit on his lap. When it was my turn, he motioned for me to come back there. I'd have been fine with a pic from behind the table, but he wanted me to sit on his lap too! I told him I would probably break his leg but he insisted and I complied. I could just see the headlines on Blabbermouth: "fan sits on Machine Head bassists leg and breaks it, causing him to miss the rest of the Mayhem tour". It would be a repeat of the Black Tyranny tour...although he broke it while dirt-biking then!

Walls Of Jericho was next. They're growing on me, especially with the newer style of her vocals. I still can't picture myself ever listening to them on cd, but I'd go see them again. This was when the crowdsurfing really began for the day. There were quite a few during their performance.

I was getting a bit anxious because I wasn't ALL the way up front and 5FDP was going to be on soon! I needn't have worried, As soon as WOJ was finished, people were leaving, probably to meet them. I worked my way up to the railing and met another big 5FDP fan. She was going to film their performance for her boyfried who was overseas in Iraq. They did yet another, high-energy awesome show. The crowd was pretty wild, but I managed to get a video of Way Of The Fist "lets shake the pillars of Hell, Florida!":

It began to rain more during their set, but we didn't care. They were awesome and that's all that mattered . I'm sure the pits were crazy but I was so squished I couldn't physically turn around to see! Because of the rain, I was a little hesitant to take too many pics, but managed to get a few:

It really started pouring after their set but as far as I was concerned, there was no choice but to just wait it out in the thunderstorm. There was no way in hell I was going to give up my prime spot for Machine Head just because of the possibility of getting struck by lightning! Luckily I had other die-hards to keep me company, including Al who I had met at the Devildriver meet & greet a few months earlier...he ended up right next to me at the railing (small world indeed!). The lightning was pretty brutal at times. Later someone said it struck near the stage that Underoath was playing on. Some of the people were worried that Machine Head wouldn't get to play, but I assured them if The Haunted could play in a thunderstorm at Ozzfest here a few years ago, Machine Head would do it too! We were all relieved when those first few notes of Clenching The Fists Of Dissent started playing. I decided to video their entire set, no matter how it turned out, it would be a great memento of the day. It was still raining, but it didn't even matter to me that the camera might be ruined, I wanted to try it anyway. Clenching, then Imperium (I fucking LOVE that song!) and then the surprise: Blood For Blood, followed by Halo and then of course Davidian. Brutal set as always! I was so glad that I decided to film it (more about that later). Al got a drumstick and I ended up with one of Adam's picks and was hoping for a setlist, but they were already gone. It was then that Alan threw me the prize piece of my music memorabilia collection.....the top of Robb's mic! I was ecstatic-didn't stop smiling the whole night!

They were shooing us away from 2nd stage, so it was time to find Ginelly who had been doing other things while I was having an awesome time in the rain LOL. We walked around, purposely missing Dragonforce again. I was too hyper to head to our seats anyway! After some drinks (thanks Danny!) and hearing that Dragonforce left the stage, we went to the pavilion to find our seats.

We were really close-about 5 rows behind the pit, and the pit at WPB is very small. The view was actually better than we had the night before. We could see the whole stage and everything that Disturbed & Slipknot were doing. I didn't take any photos because I knew my camera wouldn't have been too great from the distance. I concentrated on doing videos with my other camera instead and got quite a few....or so I thought. Both bands were ok, they may have been better than ok, idk...I really couldn't say, because I still had Machine Head on the brain and couldn't think of much else!

Once the show was over we decided to hang out a bit longer and wait for traffic to clear. At one point we were sitting by the fence where the buses are parked inside. The gate opened and Sid from Slipknot came out. Haha he looked a bit surprised to see all of us there (maybe 20 people or so?) but he was nice, signed shit for everyone, posed for pics, etc. Ginelly went with me to all three Mayhems and oddly enough this is the only pic of us together, wtf???):

after Sid left, we left too. Yet another awesome day spent with great music and great people! Annnndddd we would get to do it one more time for Mayhem Atlanta!!!!

BUT there was one bad thing that happened that day....my camera that I was using for videos died as did the memory card (R.I.P.) For some reason only the 5FDP video came out ok....the rest are goners. It may have had something to do with the rain or possibly Ivan's water gun during 5FDP...maybe it was just old...or bad karma because I was filming LOL. So that's why I have no videos or photos posted of Machine Head or anyone after them. If anyone has any photos, I'm taking donations LOL...although I have a feeling even without photos or videos, this was a day that I won't forget EVER!

Look for more of the photos that I was able to take on my myspace and/or my website: www.hvymtlmom.com

and stay tuned for my Mayhem Day 3-Atlanta coming soon and if you're interested & haven't read it yet-check out the Mayhem Day 1 - Tampa blog!