The music festival touring season is officially under way.
On Tuesday, the 2010 version of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem festival will sweep into Auburn’s White River Amphitheatre, bringing along co-headliners Rob Zombie and KORN, as well as 10 supporting acts on three stages.
Long a staple in Europe, the music festival has gained popularity stateside in recent years, offering an alternative to the traditional three-band headliner, opener and supporting act touring bill. Spurred on by successful multi-band tours, such as OzzFest and the previous two Mayhem tours in 2009 and 2008, this year’s White River roster includes four major multi-band bills – June 18’s KUBE SummerJam, Mayhem, the Uproar Festival, featuring metal act Disturbed and the KISW Pain in the Grass show, featuring Godsmack.
With high ticket prices, low attendance, and the recession plaguing the concert industry this season, three shows have already been cancelled at White River this summer; Rihanna, The Jonas Brothers and Limp Bizkit. The festival adds more bang for the buck for concertgoers, allowing them to see sets by more bands for the same price as traditional three-act concerts.
For the bands, the benefits are more than economical, especially for smaller acts such as Mayhem’s Chimiara and In This Moment, both of which will play on the tour’s auxiliary stages Tuesday.
“The name of the game is playing before many more people and having the opportunity to convert all those people to Chimaira fans,” Rob Arnold, guitarist for Chimaira said. “That is the main thing.”
Maria Brink, vocalist for Los Angeles metalcore outfit In This Moment, agrees.
“Everybody knows the summer festivals are the best,” Brink said. “Not only are you getting exposed to thousands and thousands of fans, you’re getting fans of bands like Korn and getting exposed to all those fans every day.”
For a band like In This Moment, whose third album “A Star-Crossed Wasteland” drops on July 13, the exposure is crucial.
Brink explained that some of the bands success is due to exposure at the OzzFest festival in 2007 and 2008.
“For us, it’s huge. We don’t take this for granted at all,” Brink said. “We were fortunate to get on this summer tour. The fact that we got it lined up to coincide with the release of our album is great. So we’re really excited about and worked up for it and ready to hit it.”
Tickets are still available for the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival 2010, featuring KORN, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Five Finger Death Punch, Atreyu, Norma Jean, In This Moment, 3 Inches of Blood, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, Chimaira and Winds of Plague.
For more information, visit www.livenation.com.
