Front Row Pix: Uproar Festival Weekend @ PNC Bank Arts Center & Jones Beach

By Seth M

FlashWounds caught the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival during its back to back dates August 17th & 18th. Each day had over 10,000 fans enjoying 10+ bands for 10+ hours of great rock music.

Over the years Uproar has provided some great line-ups that included Godsmack, Avenged Sevenfold, Shinedown, Disturbed, Stone Sour and more… 2013’s Uproar didn’t disappoint by any means with headliners Alice In Chains as well as Jane’s Addiction, Coheed and Cambria, and a handful of other bands.

Although this show could stand on its own with just those bands, fans get their money’s worth by arriving early and checking out some great music on the 2nd and 3rd stages. These bands include Beware of Darkness, Chuck Shaffer Picture Show, Middle Class Rut, veterans Danko Jones, The Dead Daisies and relative new comers Walking Papers.

A couple of the early bands drew larger crowds and the two most attended and impressive bands, in my opinion, were Walking Papers and The Dead Daisies. You may recognize a couple of faces in Walking Papers as its members include Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses as well as Jeff Angell of The Missionary Position and Barrett Martin of the Screaming trees. Walking Papers played a solid set with a mix of blues, rock and even a little bit of a jazz feel.

The Dead Daisies were by far the highlight of the early bands with the largest crowd and the best sound — this “semi-supergroup” totally rocked. The band includes former INXS front man Jon Stevens, Guns N’ Roses keyboardist Dizzy Reed and guitarist Richard Fortus as well as Marco Mendoza who played with Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, Ted Nugent and a host of others. Rounded out by Alex Carapetis and David Lowy these are seasoned veterans and were nothing but impressive. This is straightforward rock and roll and Jon Stevens was even performing with a cast on his foot from a recent accident; if that doesn’t say rock and roll nothing does! Check these guys out, the album kicks ass and they’re even better live.

Back on the Main Stage the show kicked off with Circa Survive followed by Coheed & Cambria. Both venues began to fill in while Circa played their set and were near capacity by the time Coheed hit the stage. Of the two Coheed had the better showing and if you’re a diehard fan you definitely enjoyed yourself. If anything the set was too short but their upcoming fall tour will fix that.

With Asian dancers performing acrobatics as they hung from the staging, it was time for Jane’s Addition. If you’ve seen and loved Jane’s Addiction before you could appreciate their nine song greatest hits set, similar to the set they have been playing for years. If you aren’t a fan then this performance probably wouldn’t have swayed you but they were solid, sounded good and performed classics like “Mountain Song,” “Ocean Size,” and “Jane Says” nearly perfectly.

As great as these days of music were and regardless of which bands you wanted to see there is no question every single person at both PNC Bank Arts Center and Jones Beach was anxiously awaiting Alice in Chains. These guys have become rock staples. They come out and there isn’t a lot of chit chat, stories or nonsense — they just kick your ass. Although they are touring in support of The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here they only played two cuts from the album (“Hollow” and “Stone”). The rest was a mix of hits and some of the more obscure songs. My friend and I spoke to Jerry Cantrell and Mike Inez earlier in the day; Mike mentioned they each choose songs daily to make the set and asked what we wanted to hear. My friend Dave said “Dam The River” and he got what he asked for as it was the second song at PNC. The great thing is that no two sets are alike and they are including songs that die hard, old school fans haven’t heard in a long time.

Of course with tours like this the sets are shorter but it’s hard to be disappointed. They also included songs like “Would,” “Rooster,” “Check My Brain,” “Got Me Wrong,” “Nutshell,” and — of course –“Man in the Box.” The production is probably the largest they have taken out, and it looked and sounded great.

So if you want to get your money’s worth as summer runs down and you want a great day of music, get to Uproar and get there early…

The Rockstar Energy UPROAR Festival runs through September 15 and tickets are on sale now at RockstarUPROAR.com and LiveNation.com.

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Photos by and courtesy of SethM for FlashWounds