Recap: Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival – A Day of Metal in The Woodlands

The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival  at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion was full of intense hard core and metal energy! Starting it off on the Chicago based Victory Records Stage White Chapel, Thy Art is Murder, Jungle Rot, Sister Sin, Sworn In, Shattered Sun, Feed Her to the Sharks, Code Orange and Kissing Candice tore it up. Each band brought their own unique hardcore/metal sound. For the Victory stage you can find pictures of bands on that stage in the gallery directly below. (For headlining bands check out the next gallery down)

* WARNING: View at your own discretion. Images may not be suitable for all viewers.

There was a wide variety of styles for all hardcore music lovers. Some bands brought the Hatebreed Chugga Chugga style breakdowns adding melodic choruses remnant to those of early Hydra Head Record’s Cave In – Beyond Hypothermia/Until Your Heart Stops days, while some brought more straight metal hailing complex style solos like those of Slayer and bands of earlier metal days but adding their own touches of uniqueness.

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The Woodlands Journal | Photos © Forse Media

The Devil Wears Prada out of Dayton, OH opened up the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival main stage for others to follow. I remember these guys from years ago when I had ventured off into some metal music and was experimenting with bands like Underoath who are similar to TDWP’s theme and are also Christian. One of the coolest and most interesting things I find about TDWP, is they were founded by all Christian members and uphold their beliefs in a scene which seems to be overrun by opposing views about belief of a higher power in general.

This band tears up the stage in a magnifying way, with (Mike Hranica – Vocals / Guitar)
 roaring out lyrics and attracting, your attention with a lot of energetic movement, while (Jeremy Depoyster – Guitar /Vocals
) contributes the hooky undertone to Prada’s brutal musical brilliance, handling the “clean” more melodic singing. TDWP has been around since 2005 and to date, has released five full-length albums: Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord (2006), Plagues (2007), With Roots Above and Branches Below (2009), Dead Throne (2011) and 8:18 (2013) as well as two EPs, one DVD, fourteen singles, and ten music videos. They played the song Super Nova off their upcoming 6 song EP called Space which will be released on August 21, but if you can’t wait, you can buy it HERE NOW!

Next up was Hellyeah hailing out of Dallas, TX featuring lead vocalist Chad Gray of Mudvayne, bass player Kyle Sanders, guitarist Tom Maxwell of Nothingface, Rhythm Guitarist Christian Brady and former Pantera and Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul.  Members of the band had ideas to form a super group as far back as 2001, but scheduling conflicts put the plans on hold until 2006 when they were able to record their first actual album which they recorded at Chasin’ Jason Studio in the backyard of Pantera’s very own Dimebag Darrell. Released in 2007 the album the album entered the Billboard 200 at number 9, selling 45,000 copies. On this tour they’re largely promoting their new 2015 album Blood for Blood with many songs being played from the album. The full album was available for streaming via YouTube on June 3.

There were a lot of King Diamond fans in the crowd, although I’ll have to say this was my least favorite act of the whole festival. I had never heard anything by King Diamond before this show, and the performance wasn’t exactly something that attracted me to go check it out (maybe it was just the aesthetics?). That’s just an opinion though and not an attempt to change yours. Kim Bendix Petersen, better known by his stage name King Diamond is a Danish heavy metal musician who is also the lead vocalist for Mercyful Fate. Petersen “King Diamond” follows LaVeyan Satanism, which he does not see as a religion, but a philosophy by which he lived even before reading Anton LaVey‘s The Satanic Bible. “Diamond is one of the only performers of the ’80s Satanic Metal who was more than just a poseur using a devilish image for shock value” said Michael Moynihan. This could be why I didn’t find him or his music appealing. Just a personal preference though. Sure his fans liked it.

Slayer came out with a blast! Literally, they opened their set with a blasting wall of flaming pyrotechnics which you can see in the gallery above, glowing behind the members of the band while performing. Founded in 1981 by Jeff Hanneman, Dave Lombardo and Kerry King from Huntington Park, CA who first rose to fame in 1986 after their album Reign in Blood  these guys have been at it for a while and are still active. Slayer throw down when it comes to dominating on technical guitar riffs and solos, as well as driving drum beats and bass lines. Being the overall headliner of the entire festival, their was mass anticipation for the band to perform from the crowd. From my seats in the middle of The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion I was able to see a lot of thrashing and head banging going on. Our photographer was in the pit and got to capture it all up close and personal. Be sure to check out both galleries above to see Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival photos from throughout the day.