Aftershock Festival Day 4 Recap: Metallica, Rise Against, Social Distortion, Pennywise, Mastodon, and more

Aftershock Festival
Day 4
w/ Metallica, Rise Against, Social Distortion, Pennywise, Mastodon, and more
Discovery Park
Sacramento, CA

Review by Jared Stossel

Here is it: after days of trudging through the dust and grass in Discovery Park, after sets from some of the biggest rock bands in the world, we have arrived at Day 4, the final day of the annual Aftershock Festival. I was definitely far more tired on this final festival date, but there was a lot of great music to make up for my aching legs. 

My day started with a performance from another one of my most anticipated acts of the weekend: Mammoth, fronted by Wolfgang Van Halen and backed by a superb lineup of musicians to round out the live band. Mammoth is a relatively new act, but they’ve been making some absolutely killer music and it was great to see it in a live setting, even with the sun beating down on us. After Mammoth, I headed over to the Coors Light Stage to check out The Cold Stares, an up-and-coming blues rock duo that put on a great show. 

Next up was Black Veil Brides on the Jack Daniel’s Stage. It has been a few years since I’ve seen this band, but I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with how much they’ve improved. Ever since listening to them during their We Stitch These Wounds and Set The World on Fire eras, I always thought that they would best fit into a heavy metal world in lieu of the Warped Tour scene (although they always played well and drew crowds whenever they played on the Vans Warped Tour). Black Veil Brides have embraced their full-scale heavy metal sensibilities, bringing forth the large-scale performance I had always hoped they would bring. On the Kolas stage, In This Moment brought a spectacularly theatrical performance to one of the biggest crowds of the day. I’ve always stated that festivals are not always the most ideal places to get the “full picture” from a band’s performance, but In This Moment proved me wrong. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them numerous times over the last few years, and whether they are opening or headlining, their performance is always top-tier both musically and visually. 

Over at the Coors Light Stage, up-and-coming rock act All Good Things put on a spectacular performance, before leading into a set on the very same stage from Grandson, who I firmly believe put on one of the best sets of the entire weekend. He had more energy on stage than some of the bigger acts and didn’t let up for even a second, eventually jumping into the crowd for his closing songs. The Coors Light Stage was closed out by Yelawolf, who drew this stages’ largest crowd of the entire weekend, thrilling the packed audience with fast-paced hip-hop and frenetic energy. 

What followed was what I can only describe as a compilation of the greatest hits of bands I’ve seen in the past. There’s really nothing new I can add to this conversation; Pennywise were fantastic as always, closing out with the high-speed “Fuck Authority” and “Bro Hymn”. Mastodon brought a technically intricate and powerfully heavy set to the Kolas Stage. Social Distortion are as good as they’ve ever been, running through a setlist that included some of their biggest hits like “I Was Wrong”, “Story of My Life”, and their cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”. Rise Against were in top form, sounding the best I think they’ve ever sounded. I’d also never seen any of these bands play to crowds this large before, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud at how far they’ve come after so many years. 

And of course, Metallica closed out the night with their second set of the weekend, this time playing a couple of hits before plunging into a special performance of their critically-acclaimed The Black Album. Metallica were a massive band before The Black Album, but that record is the one that most credit with catapulting them into the rock mainstream. They played it in reverse, which I found clever: it was a way of switching things up, and it gave them a chance to finish with arguably their most famous song, “Enter Sandman”. While I definitely preferred the first night of Metallica over the second, I’m still in awe whenever I watch them. They are one of the technically proficient and tightest sounding live bands in the world. It makes sense why they’ve endured this long. 

The band launched into a power-packed two song encore of “Fight Fire With Fire” and “Creeping Death”, which immediately caused everyone heading for the exits after “Enter Sandman” to double back and head straight for the crowd. As “Creeping Death” finished, fireworks went off, cascading down and covering the blackened sky in hues of red, green and yellow. The Bay Area four-piece took their bows and thanked everyone for coming out. After two long years of anticipation, this moment had finally arrived. This was one intense weekend, filled with some of the biggest and best that heavy metal and punk rock had to offer, and fans of this genre were all the better for it as they walked out of the festival gates and into the night.

Aftershock Festival
www.aftershockfestival.com
www.facebook.com/AftershockFestival
Twitter: @AFTERSHOCKSAC
Instagram: @aftershockfestival