www.hardrockhideout.com

Last Thursday, I attended the Rockstar Energy Drink, Mayhem Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana.  This all day festival hosted several hard rock and metal bands, as well as a Motorcycle stunt show, and several meet & greet sessions, where fans could meet their favorite bands.  Their were two side stages where bands played back to back, and the mainstage was used for the headlining acts.  This concert was full of crowd surfing, mosh pitting, concert going maniacs.  I am not sure what the overall attendance was, but based on the full venue and lawn at the Verizon Wireless Music Center, I would estimate between 15 – 20,000 people.

Black Tide was one of the first side show bands that I checked out.  They played a short set with a few tunes off of their new album, Light From Above, as well as a cover of Iron Maiden’s Prowler, that was on the recent Kerrang, Iron Maiden Tribute CD Sampler. Most bands only played a 30 – 40 minute set at maximum, with the exception of the headlining bands.  This was somewhat disappointing, but this also gave every band a chance to play.

I was pretty impressed by Black Tide.  The guys in this band are 18 – 19 years old.  For such a young band, they rock pretty hard!