There were many popular rock bands emerging to the music scene in the early 2000’s with rock altogether getting a huge boost with the rise of nu-metal. A lot of bands even if not considered in that particular subgenre were thrown into the same melting pot of hard rock and nu-metal for the sake of convenience. There were big fish like Linkin’ Park, Slipknot, Papa Roach, Korn and Limp Bizkit, and then whole lot of core, new rock/metal wave with the likes of Puddle Of Mudd, P.O.D., Saliva, Incubus, Saving Abel, Kid Rock, Staind and many, many more. Arguably everyone could move these bands around the list by the level of success they had. It should not be a surprise then, that these bands stay together. There have been a lot of collective tours by them, and we’ll speak of one now.
Puddle Of Mudd is spending quite a lot of time touring lately, and along the way have organized this event they call Muddfest. It’s a series of shows across the United States that showcases a few hitmakers from that time, coming together to bring heavy rock to the masses. Their tour on March 9th made a stop in the spacious Union County Performance Center in Rahway, New Jersey. Puddle of Mudd were joined by Tantric, Saving Abel, Trapt and Saliva.
Unfortunately, there was some bad news in the beginning of the show. Mississippi band Saving Abel‘s tour van broke down, and only few band members made it to New Jersey. They did however manage to perform few songs in acoustic version.
The hard hitting rock started with Kentucky rock band Tantric, playing an excellent set and firing the crowd up for the rest of the night.
Next came Saliva. The Tennessee boys were absolutely amazing with a show that was absolutely in par with headliner Puddle Of Mudd. Vocalist Bobby Amary made everyone forget about former frontman Josey Scott, his performance was powerful and exciting enough to really take appreciation for this current moment. Joined on stage by lone original member Wayne Swinny on lead guitar, Damien Starkey on bass and Tosha Jones on drums, they played only six songs, but it was like a hit parade that started off with “Ladies and Gentleman” and ended with “Click Click Boom” and “Your Disease”, with “Superstar”, “Survival Of The Sickest” and “Always” in the middle. The crowd was on their feet the whole time despite the seats and resulted in one of the best trips down the memory lane kids from 2k could have.
California band Trapt had big shoes to fill. Fronted by original member Chris Taylor Brown, they started off with “Still Frame” from their debut self titled album followed by “Who’s Going Home With You Tonight?”. From newer material they ventured only as far as their 2013 album Reborn with “Love Hate Relationship”. Of course, they rounded up their eight song set with their biggest hit “Headstrong”. Trapt did not pay too much attention to the showmanship as did Saliva, but musically they were sound and solid.
Puddle Of Mudd followed opening with a mash-up of their hit song “Control” and Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”. That set the tone for rest of the evening. No slowing down, just a hard hitting rock song one after another. The bands only remaining founding member Wes Scantlin made everyone forget some troubles he hada few years back and gave us a solid performance on guitar and vocals. Joined by Dave Moreno on drums, Matt Fuller on lead guitar and Michael Adams on bass, the show was loud and led up to the breathtaking finale which started of with “Psycho” and included a rockin’ cover of AC/DC hit song “T.N.T.”, and wrapped up with other two mega hits “She Hates Me” and “Blurry”.
After witnessing quite a musical event tonight, it’s safe to say these bands will keep getting together for quite a few more Muddfest 2019 editions across US for the foreseeable future.
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Andris Jansons
