Uproar Festival 2011 at the Spokane Arena on Sunday, October 2nd Featuring: Sevendust, Escape the Fate, Bullet For My Valentine, Seether, Three Days Grace, Avenged Sevenfold
We meet again Uproar Festival! Last year we rocked it hard together at Greyhound Park in Post Falls, however this year you came to our hood and tore up the Spokane Arena and its parking lot!
We arrived at the Spokane Arena to a sea of black canopy tents, trucks, tour busses, a stage and Rockstar Energy Drink flags and banners everywhere, in the Parking Lot!!! It was pretty exciting to walk up on the corner of Boone and Howard and see kids and adults rocking out, in the outdoors. I wasn’t expecting an outdoor stage… the only other time I have seen an outdoor stage at the Arena was for a country show. Any who it looked badass.
We got to the Best Buy Music Gear Stage just in time to catch Sevendust. Who came out on stage to a packed crowd with fists in the air. Lajon Witherspoon was talking to the crowd about how his birthday is tomorrow and how thankful he was that because of their fans that at the age of 39 he is still making music, touring, and making his dream come true. They sounded great and we were so lucky to be watching them outside in Spokane in October, with sun!!! We heard a couple of songs from Sevendust including “Praise,” and “Splinter” before I had to wait in the longest line ever to get inside the Arena! The line was so long to get on the floor that I missed the entire, yes entire, Escape the Fate set. Kind of a bummer, but Matt said it was cool. I am sure I will have a chance to see them again in the future.
Bullet for My Valentine was not fucking around. The girl in front of me in line told me how all she wanted to see today was Bullet for My Valentine, they were who she came to see at Uproar. I did notice the amount of fans each band drew in, you could almost take a poll of the fans by all of the different shirts. Bullet For My Valentine told the crowd right off the bat… they were here to do one thing, and that is play heavy fucking metal. They got a circle pit going and performed “Waking the Demon,” “Your Betrayal,” “The Last Fight,” “Scream Aim Fire,” “Tears Don’t Fall,” and a few other songs. They definitely got the crowd pumped up for Seether, which I didn’t realize how may Seether songs I knew. I recognized their entire set! Which when you know every song of a set… that means you are a fan. The set list went “Gasoline,” “Fine Again,” “Broken,” “Tonight,” “Country Song,” “Rise Above This,” “Fake It,” and “Remedy.” They just killed it, and the three of them made sure to put on a kick ass set. So loved it; even when Shaun Morgan threw his guitar into the drum set at the end. Kind of hoping they will come back to Spokane, and I may have the chance to see them again.
Three Days Grace kept the energy going and took the stage next. At this point in the day, most people saw seven bands before them. In fact Adam Gontier even got off the stage and walked down the side, around the back, and back up the other side and made sure anyone who wasn’t standing got up. Though almost every time I looked behind me or to the side of me people weren’t in their seats they were leaning over, rocking out and singing along. I was shocked by the amount of people who stood up and rocked out for the entire night. Three Days Grace performed “The Good Life,” “Break,” “Pain,” “I Hate Everything About You,” “Home,” “Never Too Late,” “Riot,” and “Animal I Have Become.”
Last but not least Avenged Sevenfold was getting ready to take the stage. There was a shear black curtain covering the front of the stage and when the lights went out, big flames shot up and lit up the stage which had a huge statue of the bands skull logo. The stage looked incredible. There were skulls everywhere and the band looked like badasses, never taking off their sunglasses. M. Shadows also welcomed everyone into the family if this was their first time seeing Avenged Sevenfold. Plus I learned that I guess at the start of their tour M. Shadows said that he would bring up the first person onto the stage who made a sign that read something along the lines of Pull Me Up On Stage. Well he stuck with it and tonight he brought two people up on stage, I thought that was so cool!!! He kind of seems like a softy under that metal shell. He also mentioned how they have been playing outside in the rain and it’s been cold, and he were are in Spokane inside and people have seats. He wanted to fuck shit up, mentioning there are 6,000 of us on the floor so in order to get us going they played some songs that they played on old Warped Tour… beginning with “Second Heartbeat.” Avenged Sevenfold also performed “Nightmare,” “Beast and the Harlot,” “Welcome to the Family,” “Afterlife,” “Buried Alive,” “So Far Away,” “Chapter Four,” “A Little Piece of Heaven,” “Bat Country,” and “Unholy Confessions.” Every time I have seen Avenged Sevenfold they put on an incredible show that has me talking about it for the next couple of days.
Overall it was cool to have Uproar in Spokane and also to have a big rock festival like that in town. Sure there were girls wearing hardly any clothes and few people who had just one too many beers but the music and seeing people have a good time at a show made it worth it. Uproar 2012 is looking like a good time and I can’t wait to see next year’s lineup!
Photos courtesy of Matt Auclair.
