Mayhem Festival
featuring: Slayer, King Diamond, Hellyeah, Devil Wears Prada
July 29, 2015
Atlanta, GA
Lakewood Amphitheater
The 2015 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. You’ll never mind a more wretched hive of backwards baseball cap, Axe body spray wearing, tribal tattoo wearing “high five me bro” douchebags. Well, that’s how it had been in the past but this year something was missing. Oh yeah, the audience. Literally. This year’s Mayhem Festival was so sadly undersold that Lakewood turned this event into a full on General Admission show. Because of this they shut down the lawn and the people who bought lawn tickets were now privy to sharing the pit with all those people that shelled out big bucks for pit tickets. Why was this happening? Was it a weak bill? Was it the shit talking of promoter Kevin Lyman in the press recently? Who knows? All I can say is that this was easily one of the most sparse large scale shows I have ever seen in my life.
DEVIL WEARS PRADA
Parking for this show was not an issue. The festival started at 1pm with all the crappy side stage bands (and Sister Sin) at like 1pm and the parking lot wasn’t even half full. I got inside to the main stage just in time to catch Devil Wears Prada. Devil Wears Prada? What kind of shitty name is that? I liked them better when they were a book…. at the bottom of a box…. that was nowhere near me or better yet, a shitty Meryl Streep movie that I didn’t have to sit through. As a matter of fact, I’d rather sit through that movie than through all this screaming. So much screaming. My god will it ever fucking stop? A buddy of mine described them as “The Live Nation Package Deal.” Did you miss all the shitty side stage bands? Fear not! Here they all are rolled into one band: Devil Wears Prada. It’s bands like this that drive a man to buy an 11 dollar Miller Lite just to help ease the pain.
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HELLYEAH
Up next was Hellyeah. How is this even really something that is allowed to happen? I’m not even going to waste my time here as I really only have a two word review of their set: Hell No.
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KING DIAMOND
Finally, the only reason for braving the disgusting, humid, sweltering, thick as a block of fucking cheese Georgia air was about to take the stage. I made my way down to the pit area and started to work my way up front just as King Diamond kicked things off with “The Candle.” As always (and as expected) King Diamond’s performance was absolutely flawless. The set list this time around was shortened to 10 songs but King Diamond did more in that one hour set than most bands do in twice that. The highlight of the set without a doubt was getting to hear “The 7th Day of July 1777.” That alone was worth the price of admission as I have always wanted to hear/see this one live. Another cool moment was when Kerry King joined them for the Mercyful Fate classic, “Evil.” It was really cool to hear Kerry King playing guitar in a way that didn’t make me want to eat a box of nails. I was impressed. King Diamond chose “Black Horsemen” to cap off a set that absolutely melted my face off but seemed to go by way too fast.
During King Diamond’s show, the audience seemed absolutely mesmerized. I feel like many of these people were seeing King Diamond for the first time as they all just looked amazed and rightfully so. The folks in the seats were all sitting with their mouths dropped open. It was almost as if they were taking in a theater production. Hell, what am I saying? They were taking in a theater production of epic metal proportions complete with backdrop changes and a nice visit from Grandma. The band, as always, absolutely killed it. Andy LaRoque is such an underrated master of metal guitar and drummer Matt Thompson again just blew my mind. He has to be without a doubt one of the most underrated metal drummers around today. It’s always awesome to see how this band just kills it all the time and does so without all the ridiculous showboating or egos. King Diamond once again proved to be a band (and person) who’s best years are still far ahead of them and I cannot wait to see what King has in store for us all.
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SLAYER
Slayer closed the evening and it was very obvious that this audience was a Slayer audience. The people packed into the pit to pledge their allegiance to their metal masters as they opened their set with the new song, “Repentless.” This was the biggest stage production I’ve seen Slayer have to date. Fire, burning upside down crosses, and a larger than life media screen projecting all kinds gory images and mind numbing visuals. While the stage production was pretty fucking fantastic, at the end of the day it was still just Slayer.
By the time Slayer launched into “War Ensemble” I found myself pretty fucking bored to be honest. I find myself doing this every fucking time I catch a Slayer show. I said it before and I’ll slay it again (see what I did there?). Slayer is just Slayer. They don’t suck and I don’t hate them but I just never feel moved by them. Hell, if anything, too much Slayer just kind of annoys me. Their fans seem to eat this shit up and take just about anything they give them as the cream of the crop. I just can’t help but feel that Slayer fans love the idea of Slayer more so than the music. I mean, after all, it’s pretty “cool” to like Slayer these days right?
Musically Slayer was just doing absolutely nothing for me. Seeing Gary Holt actually look like he forgot how to play real lead guitar and adopt that psycho finger babble dive bombing tremolo bullshit just made me shake my head in frustration. I never got why Slayer guitar solos sound like someone falling down a flight of stairs with an electric guitar plugged in and cranked to 11. It also didn’t help that Slayer was following King Diamond. Whatever it was, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Slayer just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I’ll always enjoy the aspects of them that I enjoy but I really have no further interest in seeing them live again.
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The 2015 Mayhem Festival may have been a financial bust but at the end of it all, a whole new fan base was given the opportunity to witness the awesomeness of King Diamond. Seeing King Diamond on such a huge stage was pretty amazing and to see a lot of young people so stoked to witness him for the first time was a pretty magical thing. This was a King Diamond show without a doubt. It was so nice of him to invite all those other bands but I have to say, they weren’t necessary.
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