May 18, 2008
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The 2008 KROQ Weenie Roast Y Fiesta music festival is done and over with, and it was absolutely great great great! I did not go for the whole show, but I did check out the live streaming webcast for the first couple of acts. By the time I did arrive at the show, it was around 4:30PM and apparently the parking lot was completely full. They made us park on the street; which was maybe only a few 100 feet away from the actual parking lot, and so they did not charge us the parking fee. So far so good. Entering the venue, the first thing me and my friend noticed was all these hot girls in skimpy outfits, and it’s really all thanks to the day being so hot. I went over to the merchandise booth to buy a Weenie Roast t-shirt, but unfortunately they were all out of Large at that time, so I did not bother getting a shirt. My friend also went ahead and got me a drink as thanks for the free Weenie Roast ticket I won. It was only appropriate I suppose, since he was the very first person at work that I knew also loved Metallica.
We went and took our seats right in time to watch Pennywise, and they rocked the house! Awesome set list, and I finally took a vid of my favorite song of theirs “Bro Hymm,” since I finally ignored the urge to sing along this time around. Bad Religion was up next, and they are great as usual. They played a good mix of old and new stuff, and I thought it was kinda funny that people thought lead singer Greg Graffin looked too much “like some teacher” to be in a punk band, especially considering that he is in fact a lecturer at UCLA.
Rise Against performed next, and while I’m not a fan of the band, I do like their singles. At one point when they were playing an acoustic ballad, a brawl actually occurred a few rows in front of mine, and the lead singer thought it was funny that something like that would happen during a slow song. The Raconteurs was next up, and just like the previous band, I’m only really a fan of their singles; and even then just so-so. The crowd also seemed to feel the same way, because they really weren’t into the band either. I took that time to go visit the restroom one more time before the Offspring / Metallica combo comes up, and a funny thing happened. I was maybe the 15th person in line to enter the restroom, when all of a sudden this big huge shirtless bruiser of a guy filled with tatoos all over just casually walks past a line of 40+ guys and cuts to the front. Ofcourse considering the size of the guy, no one was willing to tell him to go back in line. If it wasn’t brawls or tough looking guys in this concert, there were also a bunch of people illegally setting up makeshift bonfires at the lawn area of the venue. Funny stuff.
After a long hiatus from touring, The Offspring are back, and they kicked ass! They played a great mix of their most popular songs, as well as a couple of new songs. The crowd was really into their performance and sang along with the band enthusiastically. Unfortunately at that point of the night, a lot of people opted to stand up more than seat down, which meant that my viewpoint of the stage for my picture/video taking with my camera was quite obstructed. Despite that, I did attempt to take some video recordings of their two newest songs, and when watching them on youtube, you may just want to listen to the song. Maybe it’ll be better to just watch one of the video cuts from the KROQ webcast which I’m sure somebody will upload.
The mighty Metallica closed the night with one of the best performances I’ve ever seen them do. Playing almost nothing but their classic popular songs, it was a killer set. The crowd however wasn’t the typical Metallica crowd, in fact there weren’t a lot of black shirts in the audience which is very “un-metal-concert-like.” If you look at the band list, the whole Weenie Roast was really
primarily filled with punk bands, so Metallica themselves kinda stood
out despite being the headliners. Around where I was sitting (standing), I felt like the lone guy saying the “hey heys,” “masters,” “die die dies,” “nah nah na nahs,” etc… that is customary for a lot of the songs Metallica plays live. At one point, lead singer / rhythm guitarist James Hetfield asked the crowd to raise their hand if this was their first Metallica concert ever, and I swear that at least half the crowd raised their hands. I suppose I really shouldn’t fault the crowd too much, considering that the 1999 Weenie Roast was my first Metallica concert (I did not go to many concerts until I was well into College already). For the most part the crowd was definitely into their show, and I’m betting some of them were just like me back in 1999, when I decided I was going to be a Metallica fan for life after finally seeing them live for the very first time.Despite this not being a “full” Metallica gig (there were no black outs in “Fade To Black,” or pyros in “One,” etc), that did not stop me from singing along and head banging to my hearts content though. Speaking of which, I haven’t sang that loud or bang my head that much for a very very long time, and my age is showing because my throat, head, and neck are quite sore right now. Instead of the scheduled original alloted time of 1 hour 30 minutes, Metallica played a little under two hours long, which is pretty damn cool since most of the other bands only got 30-45 minutes sets, while the Offspring only got an hour. Metallica had two encore sets, but a lot of people thought there was only going to be one. After the first encore many people began to leave, in fact it was probably half of the crowd. I almost left, until I realized that the house lights weren’t turned on yet, which usually means that it’s not over. I was happy to see that despite the fact this was a radio concert, Metallica still did their 2nd encore set, much to the surprise of the people who’ve never seen them live before. So all the way until the end for me, and it is always well worth it.
When I got home, I took a shower from all the beer and marijuana/cigarette smoke that I’ve been engulfed in, and had a late late dinner. Afterwards I went on the Metallica club message boards, and apparently they were all watching the live webcast, while posting messages to each other about it during the show. Some of the members were watching all the way from Europe, and for some of them the show ended as late as 7AM! This was kind of a historic moment for Metallica to perform literally to the whole world, and it’s all thanks to Microsoft xbox sponsoring the webcast and KROQ for bringing us one of the best Weenie Roast they’ve ever had (as well as a kick ass webcast).
p.s. I spent practically zero dollars for the whole thing. Free tickets. Free parking. Did not spend money on food, drinks, or merchandise. How cool was that?
* Photos taken at the Weenie Roast Y Fiesta! *
* youtube videos will be uploaded sometime in the next day *
