Welcome to Rockville 2021 Behind Daytona
By Jeff Stolowitz, Daytona Beach Fl, Dec 10, 2021
Welcome to Rockville 2021, hell WELCOME BACK ROCKVILLIANS and Welcome to Daytona Beach, Florida still The World’s Most Famous Beach, WERE BACK!!!
After a cancellation due to the Pandemic the hard rock music festival roared back to life as over 160,000 fans poured into the International Speedway for the 4-day festival. With the weather absolutely perfect the stages were set and off we went.
The Beginning
We picked up my media credentials and headed to the Speedway on the first night of four. I wanted to get a feel for the fan experience going through security. It was a lot smoother and easier than I had thought possible. I quickly realized that for the first time in quite some time I was here to observe and write rather than take pictures or live stream. We did a little of both anyway after all Behind Daytona was born on a flip phone and an old Compaq PC… and instead of focusing as normal on the stage, I focused on the scene.
Awed again by the breadth of the event It was here I just wanted to say thanks to the girls who stayed with it through the entire process. They got me into this festival and man it had been some time since I wrote one up. Then it happened… I heard it and was quick enough to see it live on the big screen to the right of the stage. I heard Sophia’s voice looked up saw the people I was with the crowd and everyone just gasped as she %&^^ *$^% in that guys mouth… and away we go……..
A little about the lineup for the festival. The people that put this on behind the scenes are incredible. The planning the details the setup the marketing. Dealing with all the entertainers the crews getting volunteers, making sure people are safer than anywhere else on earth for 4 days just a miracle and my hats off to them. I don’t know how they do it but featuring the world’s biggest heavy metal band Metallica twice in 4 days is unprecedented feat.
I’m not as young as I once was so it became a choice to do that and we were rewarded with some incredible cool moments, like SLIPKNOT honoring the people injured and killed during the Astra World Crowd Crush in Texas. “If you see someone fall, what do you do? yelled Corey Taylor and the crowd roared back “Pick them Up”
Crowd surfing, Costumists, Fetishists, Locals, Rockvillians, Families, Musicians every attendee was smiling through the entire 4 days especially the vendors who worked their collective asses off.
Stuff we had never seen
Meanwhile we learned about a few new bands we had no experienced or heard of like
We asked some fans and local musicians. What was their favorite memory of the event?
Josh Lough of the newly formed Local Hard FractureOfficial Said, “Crowd Surfing from Front to Back during Slipknot here’s his link Crowd Surfing on https://www.facebook.com/1807948757/videos/1124292644974289/
Ike from Queens, NY said “I had never seen Metallica, but to see them for the first time play The Black Album in reverse made it all worth the years of waiting
Nicole D, from the Outer Banks, NC said, Running through the crowd of Rob Zombie fans to the front of the stage with Christie Love. Making it to the front of the stage at Metallica! Jumping around by the mosh pit during Asking Alexandria and the first night running around with Jeff and Amber riding the Ferris wheel while absorbing all the sounds and lights.
Giulio Depierro, Bass Player from Original Punk Band out of New Smyrna Beach 5 Time Shag Beach said, “Social Distortion, Fur Shurr”
The Art Towers
Our Picks Rewarding Performances.
The Local Metal from Behind New Smyrna Beach
Alternative metal outfit NoSelf from Central Florida have released their powerful new single “Resistance”, produced by Matt Johnson at Revelation Studios. The song will be featured on the band’s upcoming album, ‘Human-Cyborg Relations: Episode III’.
Photo by Jeff Stolowitz Photography
Gojira
Gojira is a French heavy metal band. Founded as Godzilla in 1996, the band’s lineup—brothers Joe (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) and Mario Duplantier (drums), Christian Andreu (lead guitar), and Jean-Michel Labadie (bass)—has been the same since the band changed its name to Gojira in 2001. Gojira has been known for their progressive and technical death metal styles and their spiritual and environmentally-themed lyrics. The band has gone “from the utmost obscurity during the first half of their career to widespread global recognition in the second.
Source Wikipedia
Slipknot
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band formed in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1995 by percussionist Shawn Crahan, drummer Joey Jordison and bassist Paul Gray. It now features Corey Taylor as the lead Singer.
Source Wikipedia
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida. The group originally formed as My Backyard in 1964 and comprised Ronnie Van Zant (lead vocalist), Gary Rossington (guitar), Allen Collins (guitar), Larry Junstrom (bass guitar) and Bob Burns (drums). The band spent five years touring small venues under various names and with several lineup changes before deciding on “Lynyrd Skynyrd” in 1969. The band released its first album in 1973, having settled on a lineup that included bassist Leon Wilkeson, keyboardist Billy Powell and guitarist Ed King. Burns left and was replaced by Artimus Pyle in 1974. King left in 1975 and was replaced by Steve Gaines in 1976. At the height of their fame in the 1970s, the band popularized the Southern rock genre with songs such as “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird“. After releasing five studio albums and one live album, the band’s career was abruptly halted on October 20, 1977, when their chartered airplane crashed, killing Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and backup singer Cassie Gaines, and seriously injuring the rest of the band.
Photo by Jeff Stolowitz Photography
Source Wikipedia
Rob Zombie
Since the beginning of his music career, Zombie’s music and lyrics have featured notable horror and sci-fi themes. His live shows have been praised for their elaborate shock rock theatricality. Since beginning his solo career, Zombie has sold an estimated fifteen million albums worldwide.
Photo By Steve Thrasher Photography
Source Wikipedia
Metallica Night 2
Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career.[1][2] The band’s fast tempos, instrumentals and aggressive musicianship made them one of the founding “big four” bands of thrash metal, alongside Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer.
Source Wikipedia
Photo by Steve Thrasher Photography
Asking Alexandria
Asking Alexandria are a British rock band from York, North Yorkshire, consisting of guitarists Ben Bruce and Cameron Liddell, drummer James Cassells, lead vocalist Danny Worsnop, and bassist Sam Bettley.
Initially formed in 2006 by Ben Bruce, the band officially established as a six-piece in 2008 with the founding line-up consisting of Bruce, Worsnop, Cassells, Liddell, Joe Lancaster and Ryan Binns. After the departure of Lancaster and Binns, as well as the recruitment of bassist Sam Bettley in 2009, the band released their debut album Stand Up and Scream (2009)
Photo Credit Steve Thrasher Photography
Source Wikipedia
Pennywise
Pennywise is an American punk rock band from Hermosa Beach, California, formed in 1988. The band took its name from the evil clown monster from the Stephen King horror novel It.
Photo Credit Steve Thrasher Photography
Source Wikipedia
Behind Daytona “The People at Rockville”
Welcome to Rockville 2021 Photo Albums
Click on the button for the Days Photos
Photo’s Courtesy of Welcome to Rockville/Danny Wimmer Presents. Photography by Steve Thrasher, Ana Massard, Tyler Church & Sterve Carlos
Day 1
Slipknot, Cypress Hill, A Day to Remember, Gojira, Grandson, Dorothy, Dead Sara, Spirit Box, Jeris Johnson, Brass Against*, Teenage Wrist, Nascar Aloe, Siikbrain, Dana Dentata, Avoid, Blame my Youth, Contracult Collective, As You Were, Shadow the Earth, Dead Reckoning, Scarlett O’Hara, A War Within,The Alpha Complex, Them Evils
Day 2
Metallica, Rob Zombie, Social Distortion, Chevelle, Pennywise, Beartooth, Starset, Wage War, Ice Nine Kills, Ayron Jones, Amigo The Devi, Bad Omens, Zero 9:36, Butcher Babies, Tallah, Austin Meade, Eva Under Fire, WHIT3 COLLR, As You Were, The Coursing, Ventruss, Tragic, Rebirth, Divided Truth
Day 3
Disturbed, The Offspring, Staind, Lamb of God, GWAR, Badflower, Fever 333, Atreyu, Crown The Empire, Kingdom Collapse,, Sick Puppies, Dead Poets Society, All Good Things, Fameon Fire, Brkn Love, Reach NYC, As You Were, Higher Ground, Troy, NoSelf*, Timmy Taylor, Widow7, Actus Reus, Magnolia Bayou
Day 4
Metallica, Lynyrd Skynyrd*, Mudvayne, Anthrax, Falling in Reverse, Sleeping With Sirens, Code Orange, Dance With Gavin, Jelly Roll, Fire From The Gods, Goodbye June, Alien Weaponry, The Warning, Hero The Band, Survive The Sun, Avoid, Lines Of Loyalty, Imperial Tide, The Dev, Lone Wolf
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