Videos: P.O.D., Evanescence, The Ghost Inside

I took Daughter of Jay to the Sonic Temple Fest in Columbus, OH as a graduation present. The fest ran for four days, from Thursday and through the weekend. Her target was Evanescence, who only played Thursday, and passes for even one day were pretty pricey…so Thursday it is. I don’t think I could endure three more days of skinny-fat dudes, goth girls, and weed stank.

First band we saw was SiM, who I knew nothing about except that they were from Japan. It turns out they wrote the song that was used in the opening for the final season of Attack on Titan. Also, there’s a smoking clown.

As you can see, all the stages had large TVs, or whatever you would call them (digital video screens?), on their either side, which I thought was a good idea.

Here’s P.O.D. It was a while since I had seen them. Sonny does the thing now where he kind of raps maybe a half or quarter-step off rhythm. It’s kind of annoying, but that’s the trend these days.

Daughter of Jay makes a split second cameo at the end here.

Mudvayne. They are gross, but their bass player (Ryan Martinie) is good and he’s in great shape for being 48 years old. I’m not a fan of the random note singing they sometimes do. The Deftones (I refuse to call them by their official name, “Deftones,” without the determiner) are known for that and that’s a big reason why I dislike them.

The Ghost Inside, a band a little more up my alley. I had forgotten they had a really bad van accident a while ago, and the drummer lost a leg and some motor movement in one of his arms. He sounded like he was back to normal. I don’t know any of their music that well, but my finely-tuned metalcore sense could detect the crescendo and breakdown that happened in the first half here, so I was able to record it in time.

Evanescence, and some green mohawk guy. They’re not quite my bag but Amy Lee’s singing was pristine and completely on point. And it’s kind of nice to see a woman in a metal band dress modestly. It tends to go the opposite direction.

I’m stupid and recorded at different phone orientations, and editing orientations into a single video makes the landscape footage look laughably small. I don’t make videos for ants.

At around 2:26 in this first video you hear me yell “ow,” because some knucklehead behind me threw an empty vape cartridge and it nailed me in the head. I saw it on the ground after. It wasn’t heavy but it must’ve been thrown pretty hard because it definitely smarted.

On the way back to the car, Judas Priest was in the middle of their set. Rob Halford looks every inch a metal grandpa at 72 years old.