Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival 2012, San Bernadino

Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival 2012, San Bernadino, CA 6/30/12

This year’s lineup for Mayhem is enough to make your head explode. With temperatures in the 90s for Saturday’s kick off show in San Bernadino, it was enough to make all in attendance self-combust as well.

I love attending Mayhem every year because even if I’m not into every band, it’s always a party and there is plenty to see in between sets. Merch, food vendors, motocross, people watching, (this year, fire watching…more on that later) etc. This year was especially great because I felt like the line-up was the strongest I’d seen in years. Slipknot, Slayer, Motörhead, Devil Wears Prada, Anthrax, Asking Alexandria, As I Lay Dying, White Chapel and Upon A Burning Body.

I got there just as As I Lay Dying went on and photographed their set up through Slayer. I had no complaints about any of the sets except that I would have liked some to be longer…but it’s cool to see so many legendary bands on the same day, short times or not.

While Slayer was on, several fires broke out on the lawn. This usually gives me nasty flash back to the disastrous fire and riot filled Woodstock 99 that I attended, but these fires never got too out of control. At one point, I did see a young lady bend into the fire to light her cigarette. My heart stopped for a second, but lucky for her, it wasn’t 1988 and her hair didn’t have a layer of Aqua Net on it!

Tip: Anthrax went on earlier than I would have expected. If you don’t want to miss them, make sure you get there early enough! They closed out the Jägermeister stage. I took a photo of the set/stage times. This should at least give you an idea of playing order and set lengths. But check with your local venue and the Mayhem website in case it varies from city to city.