Day 4 of Rocklahoma was supposed to be about reunion and rebirth. Instead, the oppressive mid-day heat, followed violent late afternoon thunderstorms, brought disaster to the Rocklahoma grounds.
First up was Pretty Boy Floyd with an 11 am set. They brought the largest crowd so far for an early-morning act to the stage. While lots of fans were bitching that they should have gotten a later time, their set did wake everyone up and bring folks into the show early. Here's one clip from their set:
Next up was Every Mother's Nightmare. While many of the bands booked for Rocklahoma spent a lot of time practing their set, preparing stage outfits (Lita), and polishing their chops, we are pretty sure that EMN just loaded the truck up with gear and beer on Friday night and drove down from Tenessee to Oklahoma. Hey, our favorite band is ZZ Top, so we love loud rednecks, and EMN certainly qualifies. They even did some Skynyrd.
Nice guys too. After their set they just sat down on the front of the stage and took photos with fans.
Here's where it started to get dicey. It was starting to get HOT. Eddie Trunk said that several people had heat-related problems, and we saw at least one person being worked on by medical personnel who were applying CPR.
Next up was Tora Tora. First performance in something like 12 years. TT are one of our favorite bands of all time and we rocked it from the front row. Even picked up the set list. Plenty of video is up on our YoutTube channel, here is just a taste:
Next up was Black-n-Blue. We thought we got some video but apparently didn't. This was about when we saw that person getting CPR so that prompted us ot get some rest in the tent and we missed a good part of their set.
Trixter followed with their first set in XX (13 or something?) years. Her's teir first song:
Again, more at YouTube.
This is where things *really* started to get dicey. There was cleary a long line of storms approaching.
We took shelter in our vehicle as soon as it started to rain so we missed most of the fun, but the storms came through like a Banshee. Our SUV was rocking back and forth from the wind, and we saw tents in the parking lot getting blown away as the rain was coming down horizontally. When the rain slowed, we saw several ambulances enter the grounds through the VIP area, and firefighters were driving through the parkings lots on ATVs. As we walked in, we saw one person being treated for a minor cut on her leg. (It's always a "minor" cut when it's somebody else's leg.) The grounds were pretty much trashed. The shokcer was both side stages were completey destroyed, they pretty much pancaked.
From a failure analysis standpoint, the fact that both stages came down in almost exactly the same way is troubling. That indicates a design or construction flaw. They're lucky no one was killed. Theyre was damage to the main stage area, and they lost both big screen tvs for most of the night. The storm also knocked out some power and the air conditioning in the VIP tent was down. Many of the smaller tents were also damaged or blown away.
After a delay, Lynch Mob ripped it up (with Fred Coury of Cinderlla on drums) in a short set:
Then the other act we had been waiting for:
KIX!!!!!
Kix killed the place. At this point in time it started to rain like hell again, and it pretty much contined for the rest of the night. While Eddie Trunk, most of the security guards, and a whole host of the so-called "press" scurried to the protection offered by the side of the stage, the real fans were getting soaked while those pussies were telling the rest of us how great we were for staying.
Anywa, Kix was awesome, as usual, and here is some shitty video. It was impossible to keep anything dry. More poor video on the Tube:
The only bad thing (besides the rain) was that Steve's vocals almost disappeared on a few songs. Obviously still a few technical glitches after all that rain. Talk about a Cold Shower:
Yeah, Eddie Trunk said that they set changes would only take 15-20 minutes, but the change between Kix and Lita still took almost 40 minutes anyway. Lita looked incredible, sounded great, and had a really good connection with the audience. Again, we have some poor video, better footage will show up soon from all those folks standing on the side of the stage:
Hungry?
Finally, Warrant came on at around 12:30 or so. Jani was not that bad, and it was amazing how many fans stuck around for their set.
Tomorrow (now today) will be a mess. Hot and rainy, and probably mud everywhere. Wish you were here!
Probably won't have much/any video tomorrow because the camera is still waterlogged. Stay safe Rocklahoma.
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