If you missed the 2018 Fort Rock Festival at Markham Park on April 28th and 29th, you missed great bands and the culture of it all.   The 30,000 who spilled into Markham with a yearning for hard rock and metal for these two days and it delivered.  Bad Wolves hit our souls with the Cranberries tune "Zombie" and had us teary-eyed recalling O'Riordan's haunting voice and how she died on the day Bad Wolves would have recorded it with her voice in it, as well. Texas Hippie Coalition had people fist pumping to their new Red Dirt Metal sound invented by these Texas rockers who are gritty, proud to be Texans and give us a sound of Pantera meets Lynyrd Skynyrd and more. They did not disappoint.  Great musicianship and Big Daddy Rich knows how to command a stage, large in stature and even more so in aura and personality.  Hollywood Undead mixed rock with hip hop in an interesting blend, Lizzy Hale screamed out to us with her wild rocking sound, Shinedown and Godsmack gave us their amazing show, as usual.

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Tyler Bryant is a young guitarist / singer from Nashville with incredible chops, reminiscent of a young Stevie Ray Vaughan, although not quite in the same league.  His band is a tight mix of very talented musicians who love to perform live.  After the show, we caught up with Tyler, Caleb Crosby (drums) and Noah Denney (bass) for an interview.  

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Organized by Danny Wimmer Presents, and AEG Presents, this festival was a rockin' success.  This was for the die-hard rock and roll fans, and they were there in droves, so yes, rock and roll is alive and well in South Florida. However, we met many Michigan, Colorado and Philadelphia fans; people from far and wide, hoping to get away from the cold weather and into the flames of burning rock n roll.

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Before STP took the stage, for two days we asked people how they felt about STP having Jeff Gutt, the new singer, and how can he fill the shoes of Scott Weiland? The consensus, including we, loved the new CD and felt he was great at doing the songs, yet being original, too. 

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We were fortunate enough to interview many bands, and in a few weeks we will have actual one-on-one time with many other bands from these two days. For now, two things must be stated: Ozzy, the Prince of Darkness, showed us how it all began with breaking boundaries and making the darkness shed light on rock n roll with wisdom.

 

Stay tuned as we will return here, with many amazing interviews from this terrific weekend of true rock n roll.