So last Saturday (September 30) I went to a huge rock music festival with some friends of mine. The Dirtyheads, A Change of Pace, Sparta, She Wants Revenge, Jack’s Mannequin, Authority Zero, 30 Seconds to Mars, Rise Against, and Incubus played on the main stage, while smaller local bands played on a secondary stage.

I had never heard of The Dirtyheads, and there’s a good reason for that.

A Change of Pace is from Arizona, and I had heard a sample of their music before. They played all right, but you could tell that they haven’t had much stage exposure.

Sparta is a younger band from Texas, but they weren’t very impressive. They sounded very generic, so maybe in a couple years they’ll get better.

Johnny and Robbie fell asleep beside the local band stage while She Wants Revenge played. They put on an absolutely horrible show (read: three chords is all they know how to play, apparently) so we decided to use the time wisely.

Jack’s Mannequin played beautifully. They are very calm and easy to listen to, so I really didn’t understand why people tried to mosh while they were playing. There were probably 12,000 people in the crowd at the time, but I really think that Jack’s Mannequin would be best suited to play at a smaller venue. The lead singer, Andrew McMahon, used to play in the successful band Something Corporate. He has had lots of experience, and it was obvious. I think he made the quote of the day when he stopped mid-song and said:

“Ya know, if you guys ever come across an opportunity to get our music for free, go ahead and take advantage of it. We don’t really care.”

Authority Zero, also from Arizona, played the best out of all the bands there. The crowd was about 17,000 at the time, and everyone stopped what they were doing to listen. I think that on top of playing extremely well, Authority Zero is successful because of their marketing strategies. Any band will become well known if they stick around long enough. They realized however, that Arizona is home of their biggest fan base, and if they didn’t give Arizona a lot of TLC, then they wouldn’t have become so popular so fast. The fan/musician relationship is pretty touchy, and by TLC I meant playing an acoustic set of unreleased songs on ground level after their gig on stage was over. Sure, it was a little inconvenient to be mobbed my 15,000 people, but it did make the fans extremely happy to think that they got to hear those songs before everyone else in the country did.

30 Seconds to Mars put on a disappointing show. They are one of those bands that make me think, “Eh…they’re okay, I guess..” Playing live, however, took away what little fan/musician trust I had in them. The lead singer, Jared Leto, really killed the crowd’s enthusiasm (Jason DeVore [lead singer of Authority Zero] had boosted it to an all-time high when he climbed 1 and 1/2 stories up the scaffolding of the stage and jumped off into the crowd). I’m pretty sure the eye-liner, greased up hair, and space suit made me realize how fake they were. If a band needs a lot of props on stage, then I don’t want to hear them. Their recorded music is really doctored up in the studio. That’s extremely disappointing. Each band was only supposed to play for 45 minutes (except for Incubus, who got to play for an hour and a half), but 30 Seconds to Mars dragged on for over an hour. It was horrible.

Rise Against played next. They played good old-fashioned punk rock. Rise Against has been around for a while, so they knew what to do. It was nice.

Incubus headlined the night. The crowd was 20,000 strong by this time, and everyone was a little tired. Even though they played calm, soothing music, I left after 20 minutes. They sounded too much like Coldplay, plus I wanted to get out of there before the traffic got bad.

The people who set up the main stage were smart. The area by the stage was divided down the middle. One side was accessible to everyone, and the other was only for people ages 21+. It was good for people like me who came to critique the music, not to get drunk.

Incubus - Wish You Were Here
Authority Zero - One More Minute
Authority Zero - Sky’s the Limit
Authority Zero - Solitude

My apologies for the bad pictures. I had to sneak in my camera (it was pretty close when they were searching my bag), and I was too tired to try to push my way to the front of the stage, so I had to use digital zoom.