This year’s Rock on the Range took on a whole new special meaning with the untimely death of front man Chris Cornell of Friday’s headliner Soundgarden. It was a totally different vibe and mood but as one once said years ago, the show must go on. There were 59 other acts ready to rock and bring it to the people as Columbus, Ohio has become the center of the rock universe for the last 11 years.
Friday not only met with an uncertainty for who would now be the headliner but a storm came through and delayed the festival for almost 4 hours. The staff and security handled the evacuation of everyone very professionally and the concert attendees followed protocol without any issues.
Bands that caught my eye or gave an over the top performance include: Gojira, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Skillet, Dorothy, Every Time I Die, Rival Sons, Volbeat and Metallica. With these types of festivals people get a chance to check out bands they wouldn’t normally get to see.
Pleased to see Rival Sons starting to get the credit they so deserve. They played in 2015 but were a side stage act. Papa Roach was the only act to be on the inaugural bill and made their 4th overall performance. They invited a local high school marching band to perform “Born for Greatness” from their recently released “Crooked Teeth” LP.
Many tributes were made to the memory of Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell including the announced surprise set by Slipknot and Stone Sour’s Corey Taylor. The most moving was by Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless. The Pretty Reckless opened up for Soundgarden for what would be Cornell’s final performance last Wednesday in Detroit. Momsen looked up to Cornell and took the passing extremely hard. They even cancelled their performance in New Jersey on Friday. Guitarist Ben Phillips accompanied her with an acoustic and made it through Audioslave’s “Like a Stone.”
The comedy tent still drew big numbers even when the festival was running as we checked in for some of Niki Glaser’s set. Zippo was a main sponsor this year and not only had a booth set up, but had performances by Various artists through out the 3 days. The stage was called Zippo Sessions and no announcement was made to give fans a surprise of who would be performing.
One of the more popular attire you saw this weekend was from F*ck Cancer. They were everywhere and glad to see money being raised for the Dyin 2 Live Dreams Program which is a 501c nonprofit organization.
It was 3 days of dealing with sporadic thunderstorms, torrential rain and wind. The festival organizers did a good job in dealing with this the best way they could. This was evident on Sunday when the biggest band they ever had play in Metallica was set to perform at 8:45 pm. A storm came through and cut Volbeat’s set by 2 songs. They decided to delay the show for about an hour or so and not have everyone evacuate. I believe that was the right call to make because if they did decide to evacuate it probably would have caused more issues (possibly rioting or property damage) as the buildup to Metallica’s set was in full force. Much respect was given to Volbeat to come back and finish their set before the change-over for Metallica.
I won’t go into Metallica’s set with much description as you can see last week’s show review here for that. I will point out some of the differences from the show at MetLife Stadium. The stage was barebones. It only consisted of 2 small amplifiers on each side of drummer Lars Ulrich’s small drum riser. It was a very cool old school set up. The songs they added on this set were “Creeping Death,” “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” “Harvester of Sorrow” and “Blackened.”
As stated earlier, the biggest band came and delivered and made a trip to this year’s Rock on the Range memorable for most despite many obstacles. How can Rock on the Range top themselves for 2017? Stay tuned…
Metallica setlist:
Hardwired
Atlas, Rise!
For Whom the Bells Tolls
Creeping Death
The Unforgiven
Now That We’re Dead
Moth into the Flame
Harvester of Sorrow
Welcome Home (Sanatarium)/(Rob and Kirk’s solos – I Disappear and Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)
Whiplash
Sad but True
One
Master of Puppets
Fade to Black
Seek & Destroy
Encore:
Blackened
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Korn setlist:
Right Now
Here to Stay
Rotting in Vain
Somebody Someone
Word Up! (Cameo cover)
Coming Undone (We will Rock You-Queen cover snippet)
Insane
Y’All Want a Single
Make Me Bad
Shoots and Ladders (One-Metallica cover snippet)
Corey Taylor (surprise guest in place of Soundgarden following Chris Cornell’s death) setlist:
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd cover)
Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog cover)
Photos of Metallica are from MetLife Stadium show. We would like to thank Kristine Ashton-Magnuson from Ashton-Magnuson Media for the credentials to review the show.
