Mayhem Fest @ The San Manuel Ampitheatre 7/12/09

Third show for me in three nights and still rockin the horns. After the wall of death at MMFM I don’t know how I made it to another show. First of all I must thank Princess Raqueline for the amazing pit ticket!

So me and Zyner were standing in line and heard Trivium starting their set (ugh). So as soon as we got in we ran right over to the side stages. They had the 2 side stages side by side so that when one band ended, the other would start right away. Pretty efficient setup. Trivium started with Rain, but by the time we made it down there they were on their 2nd song When All Light Dies. The rest of their short set included Down From the Sky, Throes of Perdition and Pull Harder. Pretty good considering their short amount of time given. Perfect mix of old songs and new songs. Also Paolo shaved his head… Now it just looks like he has a tiny head. Good job.

Cannibal Corpse came up next on the other side stage and they just destroyed. Don’t really know much about them but they did play the one song I knew, I Cum Blood. It doesn’t get any more metal than that. That was the end of the side stages and the main stage was about to start. This is where we learned how Livenation is ruining the concert experience.

I’ve never had pit tickets to the San Manuel until that day, but I knew how it worked. You have a pit ticket and you can walk in… freely. But not anymore. Livenation found a way to make more money by creating VIP tickets for the pit area. These VIP tickets allow you to walk in and out of the pit like you normally would be able to. But everybody with a regular pit ticket now has to wait in line (twice) just to get down to the floor. Thanks to this awesome new system we missed all of Bullet for my Valentine’s set. They suck anyway but still, what if we missed Killswitch? I woulda been pissed.

Speaking of Killswitch Engage, they came on right after BFMV and started with My Last Serenade. The band came out in those awesome tuxedo shirts. “It’s a black tie affair” said Howard. Up next was new song Starting Over which got pretty good reception and some people already knew the track. Then they went back into some old tunes like Fixation on the Darkness and Rose of Sharyn. Ok so I lied about the wall of death at MMFM, but during Rose of Sharyn I got to partake in my 1st wall of death. Here’s proof that I was in it…

Told you. Then during End of Heartache, Howard called for everyone in the pit to crowd surf. “I want it to look like Point fucking Break out there!”, he screamed. It was the most glorious thing I’ve ever seen at a metal show (besides tits). And yes there were plenty of tits.

Up next (and should’ve been last, no offense to Manson fans…) was SLAYER!!! By then I was so tired that I told Zyner that I was done moshing and I wouldn’t leave her behind again. The furious metal attack started with Disciple, great song to open with. They played all the classics like Chemical Warfare, War Ensemble, Dead Skin Mask, Mandatory Suicide. Once I heard the drums start for Hell Awaits, forget what I said earlier about the pit. It was on! That song is probably my favorite Slayer song and it sounded just as good as all the other times I’ve seen them. They ended the set with all hell breaking lose playing Angel of Death, South of Heaven and Raining Blood. Slayer has to be one of the last old school heavy metal bands that still sounds like they did when they started. True survivors.

Marilyn Manson… He put on quite a show, but when will the music start? I’ll let Zyner talk about this one since she’s the real MM fan.

Mayhem Fest totally made me forget that there was no Ozzfest this year. Even if there was it would be hard to beat Mayhem for the title of best summer tour, cause that’s exactly what this was.

:Q: