Aftershock Festival in Sacramento puts a neat bow on the summer festival season

Aftershock 2019. What an incredible three days of Music, Comraderie, and Cuisine. Through every aspect of the event, it was clear that the festival organizers, Danny Wimmer Presents, put a tremendous amount of effort into the planning and execution of the event to make Aftershock 2019 the premiere west coast music festival.

Aftershock, held anually at Sacramento’s Discovery Park usually falls in the early part of October and draws some of the biggest performers in the world. Aftershock 2019 was held October 11th - October 13th, expanding to three full days for the first time in festival history with several nations represented. Box office estimates put attendance at nearly 100 thousand over the course of the weekend.

Weather in Sacramento for Friday was perfect. Just a faint breeze worked it’s way through the park to help keep temperatures, and dust, to a moderate level. With three stages arranged throughout the park, being present for every band is not always possible. However, the way that bands were scheduled this year, there was little overlap, so with a good pair of walking shoes and a zip in your step, it was entirely possible to catch the majority of each performance. If you wanted to catch performances at the two main stages, but didn’t feel like walking all that much, it was entirely possible to just park yourself at the barricade and watch the broadcast from the opposite stage during set changes.

There were several standout performances on Friday but there were a few that simply left the crowd awestruck. Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals turned up the nostalgia and gave us some of that old school metal, playing several Pantera classics. Lzzy Hale of Halestorm let ‘er rip on the vocals and just pierced the souls of every person within earshot. Slipknot put on a 9 man metal spectacle that overwhelmed every one of our senses. But, to me, there was no better performance than that of Aaron Lewis and the return of Staind. Every song was performed just perfectly, and the pyrotechnics made the visual aspect of the performance come alive. So. Much. Fire.

With things getting underway on Saturday, you could tell that many of the attendees were “kicked in the face” the night before, but the hits kept coming. Sick Puppies put on a headliner-worthy set with many in attendance chanting and cheering along. Ghostmane brought a hip-hop metal fusion set that drew a huge audience. Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie showed us the dark side, but closing out Saturday night were punk favorites Blink-182. During one song, drummer Travis Barker played the entire song with a towel over his head. During another, the entire band kicked it up a level and the whole band played in the dark. The only thing that would have made the set better is if Blink-182 would have played for their entire set time, instead of cutting out 10 minutes early.

Sunday, I don’t think you could have fit another soul into the venue. It was absolutely filled out for the final day of the sold out festival. One band in particular seemed to be the talk of the town and that was Mongolian rock band The Hu. Their heavy riffs using traditional Mongolian instrumentation as well as throat singing brought the audience to life and assured that Mongolian rock was alive and well in Sacramento. The crowd was oddly a bit tame for Gojira, but it was midday and most likely that people were out enjoying many of the incredible food options available at Aftershock. The other probable explanation is that people were conserving their energy. Afterall, as the sun began to set and Korn took the stage, the crowd came unglued. Unfortunately the crowd gathered at the Main stage for Tool didn’t get to see the live feed of Korn due to the preparations for the Tool video extravaganza. Tool’s performance at Aftershock marked the beginning of their new tour in support of their latest release, Fear Inoculum.

Plans for Aftershock 2020 are already underway with legendary thrash metal pioneers Metallica headlining Friday and Sunday nights next year. Tickets are already on sale and the VIP experience is already SOLD OUT, so if you are planning to rock out with Aftershock in 2020, get those weekend passes here.