15,000 satisfied music lovers rock on down 9-hour jamming session

JOE.BRYKSA@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Fans go nuts listening to Buck­cherry while getting sprayed with water at Rock on the Range at Canad Inns Stadium on Saturday.

Labatt's Lite bikini tops? Check. Water hoses? Check. Tramp stamps? Check. Inflatable Jagermeister bottle? Check. Lengthy beer lines? Check.

All the ingredients for a rock festival were in place at the Canad Inns Stadium Saturday during the second annual Rock on the Range, the Canadian offshoot of an annual event in Columbus, Ohio.

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Buckcherry’s Josh Todd is what the fuss is all about. (JOE.BRYKSA@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

A predicted thunderstorm failed to materialize and the threatening clouds in the early afternoon departed by the middle of the day, meaning it was nothing but sunshine and heat for a crowd of 15,000 music fans attracted to the home of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by 13 modern rock bands who played on two stages set up on the west side of the field facing east.

The crowd was only 1,000 larger than last year's show held on a cold, rainy June day, but the lack of a bigger audience might be attributed to the fact most of the headliners have played the city within the past year, including Stone Temple Pilots, Three Days Grace and Buckcherry.

There were about 2,000 fans on hand when Toronto power trio Danko Jones played far too early at 2 p.m. to kick off the mainstage with a set of bruising, in-your-face maximum RNR.

Alt-rock supergroup Crash Karma -- featuring members of I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace and the Tea Party -- were next on the mainstage and got the biggest cheers for songs from their previous bands, although their new material sounds like IME, mainly due to the distinctive vocals of Edwin, who can still belt it out like he did in the 1990s.

Winnipeg's Domenica easily held their own on the second stage while hoses sprayed the hot crowd. The band is most interesting when they throw in some metal elements to their straight-up melodic hard rock, such as on set highlight Waste Away.

A few more songs like that and the band could find itself on the mainstage next year. Frontwoman Bekki Friesen even has the stage banter down pat. "You guys are my favourite. I love Winnipeg," she said, throwing out some props to her hometown.

It was a sentiment echoed by almost every group that took the stages over the course of the nine-and-a-half hour marathon that seemed to run like clockwork, despite complaints about half-hour lines for beer and a one-drink policy.

Fans who needed a break from the non-stop music could hang out in the "village" in the south-end practice field, which featured tents with concessions, alcohol, band merch and temporary tattoos along with a giant bouncy castle for people with extra energy.

The action on the field picked up with the appearance of Toronto's Finger Eleven, who drew a huge surge of fans. The group started strong with two hard-hitting slices of their trademark post-grunge before sucking the energy out of the set with the ballad I'll Keep Your Memory Vague and some mid-tempo dreck. Thankfully, they managed to get the mood back later with their show closer, and best song, the dance-oriented Paralyzer, which included snippets of songs by Franz Ferdinand, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

That all seemed like a buildup to Buckcherry, who truly got the party started with a quick and dirty 40-minute set of sleazy hard rock. Shirtless, tattooed vocalist Josh Todd is the quintessential rock frontman who never fails to deliver, whether he and the band are kicking out the party jams with All Night Long, slowing things down on the love song Sorry or grinding it out on the funk-infused Crazy Bitch.

"Who here loves the cocaine?" he asked before an extended version of Lit Up, complete with a crowd chant dedicated to the white powder, ensuring he would not be the favourite performer of the parents in the audience.

It was in that charged atmosphere that Australia's Airbourne took to the stage and they held up their end of the bargain by delivering the best set of the day -- 40 minutes of balls-to-the-wall, three-chord blasts of sexual innuendo with titles list Diamond in the Rough, Chewing the Fat and No Way But the Hard Way.

The bands owes its entire existence and sound to fellow countrymen AC/DC and Rose Tattoo, but are so enthusiastic and over-the-top, it's impossible not to get caught up in the fist-pumping rock fury.

After the one-two punch of Buckcherry and Airbourne, it was a comedown to have to get back to the generic angst-ridden post-grunge of Three Days Grace, who have a huge fan base despite their complete lack of originality.

Godsmack was the heaviest band on the bill and got the first full-scale mosh pit going with their Alice in Chains meets Metallica alt-metal that serves as the link between thrash, grunge and sludge, with Tony Rombola showing off with some of the day's best guitar solos (tied with Buckcherry's Keith Nelson).

The reunited Stone Temple Pilots served as the headliners and instantly got the crowd on side with old favourites Heaven and Hotrods, Crackerman, Wicked Garden and Vaseline.

Frontman Scott Weiland prowled the stage menacingly and was chatty between songs, even if he made no sense sometimes.

"Winnipeg, we are as far, far away from the south, depending on which country we're talking about," he said before introducing the new song Hickory Dichotomy as having the flavour of Louisiana or Mississippi.

Press time hit just over halfway through the band's 90-minute set during their Grammy-winning single Plush, which still holds up almost two decades later.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 9, 2010 D3