Remember that last year of high school? The sparse classes, the End-of-Grade standardized tests you aced from being taught the answers, the constant hustling back and forth to McDonald’s for “real food”? Yeah, me neither. Damned house parties.
Mayhem Festival is at its fourth touring run, which past experience dictates to be its point of graduating to full-on definitive metal festival of the summer season. With Ozzfest essentially a thing of the past, Mayhem has taken the torch and ran with it, implying all else prior was merely foreplay and build-up. There were slices of diversity, like hard rock stoner throwbacks Red Fang, or the female-fronted metal powerhouse, Straight Line Stitch. There were moments where the line up became redundant, primarily revolving around the return of Disturbed and a crowd-friendly Machine Head to the fest. There was breaking news of Megadeth‘s pending October album, appropriately titled TH1rt3EN; according to bassist Dave Ellefson the band recorded the whole album in just 10 weeks.
Despite what amounted to lots of otherwise great news for later dates, Mayhem’s 2011 climax unfortunately felt a tad limp given its hyped potential, and Bizkit wasn’t even booked. Maybe this is Mayhem’s version of Senioritis? We’ll see.
-David Buchanan
Senior Staff Writer
Sidenote: In Flames was reportedly absent from this tour stop due to a death in a band member’s family, so sorry to say they were not included. Our best goes out to the band, and we hope to see it come around these parts again.
