Having previously always taken at least a year off between attending Aftershock festivals we had no intention of making 2019 our first back-to-back year… but then the lineup was released and it was too insanely good to pass up. Bob, Larry and I all flew in together and met up with Joe, who flew in from Portland within minutes of our flight landing. We then made our way over to the Embassy Suites where much to nobody’s surprise our room was not ready as this was only about 9:30 in the morning. We were not, however, too early to grab some beers at a nearby convenience store to go along with our omelet and potatoes that we snagged from the still open breakfast buffet at the Embassy Suites. A short while after refusing to pay $100 for a BS early check-in fee we were approached by the guy working the front desk who told us our room was suddenly ready. This is about the time Ken showed up to join in on the action so I am convinced management just did not want five degenerates sitting around getting wasted in their lobby at 10 am.
It is about this time that Larry started to question if he should stay the whole weekend because of surprise work that was doled out to him. He found out a massive project was going to be due Monday morning when he checked his email as soon as we landed in Sacramento. At first he thought he could slough it off but as the morning went on reality sunk in that he simply could not so he made the decision to stay only the first day and catch a plane back to San Diego on Saturday morning. It sucked that we were going to lose him for two of the three days but one less body was not completely unwelcome as our room turned out to have two double beds and a pull out couch instead of two queen beds as originally thought.
First up for the festival and the day was Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals. It was announced that these lads would be opening on the final leg of Slayer’s farewell tour and playing nothing but Pantera songs so it seemed reasonable that we may get nothing but Pantera songs for this set as well. That turned out to be the case and jeezus it was awesome! They played eight choice songs that whipped everyone into a frenzy and left my voice raw from screaming along. Why the festival organizers put these guys on so early I will never know.
SETLIST: Mouth For War, Strength Beyond Strength, Becoming, Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit, I’m Broken, Walk, Domination/Hollow, Fucking Hostile
After climaxing so early in the day it was a welcome respite to have some time to burn before Clutch, which was the next band I really cared about. In the meantime we checked out Motionless in White, which I can only describe as Marilyn Manson Jr., and I Prevail, which basically followed the Linkin Park template but with far worse results.
While I am always pumped to see Clutch unfortunately they never play the old shit that I really want to hear, which is material from the first few albums. This occasion was no different but it was a solid overall set with newer staples “Earth Rocker” and “X-Ray Visions” as well as a couple songs from Blast Tyrant and one from Jam Room.
SETLIST: The Mob Goes Wild, X-Ray Visions, Evil, Cypress Grove, In Walks Barbarella, Earth Rocker, Gimme the Keys, Willie Nelson, Electric Worry, One Eye Dollar
A wildcard for the festival was Staind because they had been on hiatus off and on since about 2012 when Aaron Lewis decided to do a solo country thing. I had not personally seen them for 16 years but did get a chance to see them five times before this in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. They sounded great and Aaron Lewis was moving around much more than he used to back in the day. I am sure this was in no small part due to his diversion into country music.
SETLIST: Eyes Wide Open, Paper Jesus, Not Again, Fade, For You, Crawl, Right Here, Outside, So Far Away, Raw. It’s Been Awhile, Mudshovel
It is about this time I passed out the gummy rings I had brought to everyone but Larry because I wanted them to kick in right as the night’s headliner Slipknot was going on. Besides Philip H. Alselmo and the Illegals today was all about Slipknot for me. It had been three years since I last saw them and now they had a new album under their belt, the outstanding We Are Not Your Kind that was released two months prior to this show, which was just enough time to digest it before witnessing the juggernaut that is Slipknot. Less than an hour after eating the gummy rings everyone in our group got separated from each other and phones do not do a bit of good in densely packed situations such as this so unfortunately I found myself watching Slipknot by myself…unless you count the other 49,995 people that were there. No matter how many times I see Slipknot I am astounded by the energy projected from nine guys going crazy on a stage. It is almost like a giant fireball getting as close as it can to burning you without actually burning you. “Solway Firth” killed live and I was just about dead after they played “The Heretic Anthem” right after but this was only halfway through their set.
SETLIST: People = Shit, (sic), Get This, Unsainted, Before I Forget, Solway Firth, The Heretic Anthem, Psychosocial, The Devil In I, Prostetics, Vermillion, Wait and Bleed, Sulfur, All Out Life, Duality, Spit It Out, Surfacing
It does not surprise me that everyone got separated after the weed kicked in because we had been drinking since 10 am but it did surprise me that I found Larry before I left. We decided to avoid the craziness of catching an Uber and walked along the river all the way back to the hotel to find our compadres waiting for us with a cold one.
