I am a Rock on the Range veteran, my ever changing band of Midwest head crushers (an east coaster slipped in the group last year) have been to every single Rock on the Range Columbus, OH, has put on. I'm pretty proud of this festival, and the hard-rock and metal fans that make it possible each year (roughtly 30,000 attend each year). Way back in 2007, Rock on the Range wasnt much bigger than the numerous summer radio station rock concerts that dot the midwest, but with two stages (one inside, one outside Crew Stadium) promising non-stop music from a varied lineup of old and new rock acts (ZZ Top, Evanescence, Velvet Revolver, Papa Roach, Three Days Grace, and more) the one day show was a huge sold out success. Capitaling off the success, year two was bigger and better drafting Stone Temple Pilots to headline Day 1 (their first show in 7 years) and Kid Rock and 3 Doors Down co-headling Day 2. It was also the first year field and seating tickets were sold seperately (year one you had to wait in a giant line hoping to get a floor bracelet) and featured 27 of rock radio's biggest bands (year one had 14 bands). With the addition of a smaller third stage, 2009 featured 38 bands and featured giant artist Slipknot, Motley Cru, Alice In Chains, Aveneged Sevenfold, and Korn. Also in year three, Rock on the Range expanded to Canada throwing a sister festival in Winnipeg. Year 4 also hosted 38 bands and with new sponsors, Monster Engergy Drinks and Jagermeister, ROTR again brought the biggest names in hard-rock and metal to Columbus as Godsmack, Limp Bizkit (newly reunited), Three Days Grace, and Rob Zombie rocked late into the summer night.
Um.....really didnt mean to run down the whole festival history there..but I'm just excited because this year the festival is expanding once again. Instead of two days, ROTR's fifth year will be three days of moshing, body surfing, and head-banging delight. Europe completely has America pegged on hard rock and metal festivals, but if this little baby keeps going, and growing, there may be a day when hungry metal fans wont have to pine and dream of The Download Festival, Big Day Out, Hellfest, Wacken, and so on; they'll have their very own.
To pull off the transistion from great to fucking awesome, ROTR needs to really bring it this year (three days means you'll have to convince people to really invest in this festival). Time for my list of rumors and perdictions.
Here is my perdiction for this year's headliners (friends did give input on the first two), Linkin Park, Soundgarden, and Van Halen. Pretty fucking epic huh. Linkin Park gets the green light because they've been popular for over ten years now, they have a new CD out, and what better way for them to kick off a summer touring season. I pray Soundgarden will be there. I missed their reunion show at Lollapalooza, god dammit, and though the grunge rockers have played only a handful of shows, ROTR is the perfect venue to show fans what they've been missing all these years. Van Halen, well....this one is maybe a reach, but there has been strong indications of them putting out a new album and touring next summer. If ROTR could pull down these legends, it would mean big $$$ for the whole operation; plus a shit load of happy rock fans.
So thats three days, three headliners but who else will grace the three ROTR stages? When making these kind of perdictions I like to consider three things: who's on the road, who's on the radio, and who has a new album to promote. On that basis there are some names I expect to see on the ROTR 2010 poster: Black Label Society, Stone Sour, Five Finger Death Punch, Alter Bridge, The Sword, Down, Bush, Murderdolls, The Exies, 10 Years, Trapt, Filter, Halford. As we grow closer to the date I'll make more perdictions. I would really like it if we could get a Big 4 Day, or at least a couple of those thrash legends. Begin the countdown to February when the lineup will be revealed.
Updated info: here
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