#rocknroller19

As I mentioned in my Bourbon and Beyond post, Michele and I decided that one music festival was not enough and that we should go to TWO festivals on back to back weekends in Louisville, Kentucky. The problem is that we live in Alaska which is a six hour flight and a six hour drive from Louisville.

This would be our second time at Louder Than Life, our first being in 2017 that was epic. We had tickets for last year’s festival but it was cancelled at the last minute, after we were in Louisville, in fact, because of a hurricane.

We were determined to be back. After our awesome time at Bourbon and Beyond, Michele flew home to Alaska for the week, well, three days, and I headed to Lexington to stay with my aunt. While there I visited the Buffalo Trace Distillery. What a great tour. Hung out around town and waited for Michele’s return.

On Friday, day one of the festival Michele flew back down and was super late on her flight from Chicago because of massive storms. We made it inside at about 4:30 just in time for all of the big bands to start. It was so hot these too weeks and I could barely walk because of a bad case of plantar fasciitis that I thought I was going to die on the first day.

The headliner was Slipknot and was one of the bands I wanted to see the most. They rocked it and man, what a set.

We learned from waiting on the shuttle bus for for more than an hour the previous week to just walk back to the car. It was about a mile but my god it was a struggle with my bum foot.

The second day we headed to Holiday World in the morning and made it back to the festival around 3 pm. This was the day I was really looking forward to. I would be my first rap show, with Ice Cube tearing it up and followed by Halestorm, my all time favorite, Godsmack and almost a three hour set by Guns n Roses.

Of course we ate a lot of great food including the most decadent chicken sandwich on a glazed doughnut and plenty of bourbon.

Unlike the week before we were not allowed to bring in our cool chairs. I guess they figured this would be a rowdier crowd than the old folks at the B&B. Sunday’s line up was pretty dang good. It was In this Moment with one of the most bizarre sets I have ever seen, along with a surprisingly good set by Breaking Benjamin. Of course Rob Zombie always puts on a great show but Marilyn Manson was just ho-hum. We left after just a few songs from Disturbed because of my stupid foot.

So, after two weeks of rock and more seeing more bands than we can remember, Michele and I licked our wounds and headed home. What a way to carry on the rocknroller tour tradition!

True to form we already bought our tickets for next year as soon as it was announced that Metallica will be headlining two nights!

**Just so you know that I have included some Amazon affiliate links to some of the artist’s music. Please do me a favor and check them out.

Way back in the cold days of winter last year I jumped on a chance to buy tickets to our second Louder Than Life music festival in Louisville, Kentucky. Michele and I have been going back east to this for the last three years. Last year’s festival was cancelled at the last minute due to a hurricane and the first year we went in 2017 was amazing.

The way festivals work these days is they promoters allow you to buy tickets months in advance and way before the release the line up. They even allow you to buy your tickets on layaway. Yes layway, just like K-Mart back in the day.

So I bought the tickets and then about a month later, the same promoter released that Foo Fighters would be headlining the Bourbon and Beyond festival the weekend before Louder Than Life. Without hesitation I bought those tickets too without even thinking of what kind of craziness we just got ourselves into attending two massive music festivals over two weekends.

As the date moved closer we decided that Michele would fly home in the middle of the two so that she could handle our business and she is enrolled in some college classes. I would stay with m aunt who lives about an hour away in Lexington.

We arrived in Chicago after an overnight on a red-eye from Alaska on Friday morning. The festival started at 2pm and it would be a six hour drive. We were both whipped and Michele had a major migraine and ended up getting sick several times in the rental car. We arrived at about four and headed inside. Foo Fighters were the headliners that night and one of the main reasons we came. They of course were amazing but what was even better was the hour and a half set right before Foo, John Fogerty. He was awesome! He played non-stop and Michele and I knew every song.

Thought the day we feasted on festival grub and I had mu shares of bourbon. This would continue all weekend.

On the second day Michele found a vendor that sold these cool way-too-expensive camp chairs but they were worth every penny. We spent the weekend rocking out and baking in the sun.

The highlight of he festival was the ZZ Top set. I have wanted to see them my whole life and it was so cool to see The Texas Trio. Man, Billy Gibbons does ooze cool, as Dave Grohl says.

Oh, since this is the rocknroller coaster tour we had to get in a theme park too. How cool is it that a massive rock festival and Kentucky Kingdom can be in the same parking lot! I will do a separate write-up on it too.

2019 Bourbon & Beyond Festival music lineup

FRIDAY, SEPT. 20

Barrel Stage

• 9:20 p.m.: Foo Fighters 
• 6:40 p.m.: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
• 4:10 p.m.: Live
• 2:10 p.m. Lukas Nelson & Promise Of Real 
• 12:40 p.m.: The Record Company
• 11:30 a.m.: Pearl 

Oak Stage

• 7:55 p.m.: John Fogerty
• 5:25 p.m.: The Flaming Lips
• 2:55 p.m.: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
• 1:25 p.m.: Blackberry Smoke
• 12 p.m.: Preservation Hall Jazz Band

The Bluegrass Situation Stage

• 5:20 p.m.: Greensky Bluegrass
• 3:45 p.m.: Mipso
• 1:40 p.m.: The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
• 11:45 a.m.: Amythyst Kiah

SATURDAY, SEPT. 21

Barrel Stage

• 9:30 p.m.: Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters 
• 7 p.m.: Trey Anastasio Band
• 4:50  p.m.: Grace Potter
• 3:05 p.m.: Squeeze
• 1:40 p.m.: Samantha Fish
• 12:30 p.m.: Maggie Rose

Oak Stage

• 8:05 p.m.: Daryl Hall & John Oates
• 5:55 p.m.: Alison Krauss
• 3:55 p.m.: Jenny Lewis
• 2:15 p.m.: Del McCoury Band
• 1:05 p.m.: The White Buffalo
• 11:55 a.m.: Patrick Droney

The Bluegrass Situation Stage

• 4:20 p.m.: The Travelin’ McCourys 
• 2:55 p.m.: Fruition
• 1:25 p.m.: Cedric Burnside
• 12:05 p.m.: Ben Sollee

SUNDAY, SEPT. 22

Barrel Stage

• 8:40 p.m.: Zac Brown Band
• 6:20 p.m.: Leon Bridges 
• 4:20 p.m.: Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul
• 2:40 p.m.: Margo Price
• 1:20 p.m.: Whiskey Myers
• 12:10 p.m.: Southern Avenue

Oak Stage

• 7:25 p.m.: ZZ Top
• 5:15 p.m.: Edward Shapre and the Magnetic Zeros
• 3:25 p.m.: Kurt Vile and the Violators
• 1:55 p.m.: Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
• 12:45 p.m.: White Reaper
• 11:35 a.m.: Caroline Jones

The Bluegrass Situation Stage

• 4:15 p.m.: Dustbowl Revival
• 2:40 p.m.: Birds Of Chicago
• 1:20 p.m.: The Lil Smokies
• 11:50 a.m.: Front Country

**Just so you know, I have included some Amazon affiliate links on the artists. If you would like to buy, check them out.

I have been to a lot of concerts over the years. I have seen just about every band that I have wanted to see. The last four years or so has been a flurry of tours from the top rock bands, including, the resurgence of Gun’s n Roses, a huge Metallica World Wired Tour, the Foo Fighters and massive rock festivals around the country.

One band that I really wanted to see was Tool. It has been since 2009 when I took my daughter, Nicole to see them for her first concert when she was 12. That long hiatus was also the amount of time it took the notoriously reclusive band to release their new music, Fear Inoculum.

While Michele and I were down in Kentucky for an epic back-to-back weekends of music festivals; Bourbon and Beyond and Louder Than Life, one of our dog training clients, Nate, asked if I would like to join him for the Tool Show in Salt Lake. Without hesitation I jumped on it and ended up paying more for the tickets to Tool than any other in my 40+ years of shows.

I flew into Salt Lake with a bum foot. I have been dealing with a really bad case of plantar fasciitis and I literally could not walk the week before the show. I hobbled into a brewery on the day of the show and Nate and I did a little beer tour of the city. It was a ton of fun including the very tasty, vanilla milkshake brew.

We met his friend, Justin for dinner and headed inside.

The prog band Killing Joke opened and I didn’t know any of their songs. I had no idea these dudes have been around since the 1980s.

After a bit of a wait the lights dimmed and the now very familiar Fear Inoculum started. Immediately I could tell we were in for a treat! A large curtain that looked like glass beads covered the entire stage and the light and video effects were in 3D.

The band had a very strict no-cell phone policy and I now know why. In my opinion concerts are ruined these days by half the crowd holding up their phones to record the entire show. I just wonder how many times they watch it later on or just load it up on YouTube.

During the show something amazing was happening. We had amazing section 125 seats and right behind us were speakers. This was the first concert in my life that was in surround sound!

Tool played for any an hour and a half and took an intermission including a laser-lighted countdown clock to let us know that we had enough time to grab another beer.

After the encore the band came out and launched immediately into the new Chocolate Chip Trip. It is mainly drummer Dany Carry with is insane synthesizer set up and drums.

After the new Invincible tract, Maynard said, “for the rest of the show you can use your ‘stupid’ cell phones” and launched into an extended Stinkfist.

Adam, Justin and Dany blew me away. Justin is by far one the best bassists in the world and the guitar work of Adam was amazing. Maynard was being, well, Maynard. He stood up on the platforms that flanked the drums the entire show and mostly in the shadows. After the show was over he walked down the stairs and refused to touch the main stage and even had a hard time summoning Justin over to give him a fist-bump.

This may have been the most amazing show of my life. As I mentioned before, I have been to a lot of shows in the last 45 years but this one will be hard to beat.

I only made it through the show hopped up on Tramadol and those few beers and I hobbled several blocks after we were forced off of the light rail for a medical emergency but my goodness this trip was a highlight of the #rocknroller19 tour.

Set List

1. Fear Inoculm
2. Ænema
3. The Pot
4. Parabola
5. Pneuma
6. Schism
   (extended)
7. Jambi
8. Vicarious
9. Intolerance
10. Forty Six & 2

    Intermission

11. Chocolate Chip Trip
12. Invincible
13. (-) Ions
14. Stinkfist
    (extended)