Earthday Birthday 22 - Central Florida Fairgrounds - Orlando, Florida - April, 25, 20

 

 We only bought one thing on the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Black Friday, Concert tickets! It was our idea of the perfect shopping day, no lines, no angry crowds fighting over items, we saved alot of money buying the tickets on this day, we didn't even have to leave the house! As a matter of fact, we were visiting my (Bill) sister in South Carolina for Thanksgiving! Isn't modern technology great!?!? The concert that we purchased tickets for was Orlando radio station WJRR's 22nd annual Earthday Birthday Concert. This long running Festival is held at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando and featured a steller line up which included the bands Message to Venus, Sleepwave, 12 Stones, Avatar, Islander, Bobaflex, Nothing More, Saving Abel, Trapt, Flyleaf, Tremonti, All That Remains, Buckcherry, Hellyeah, Sevendust, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, Rise Against and Five Finger Death Punch.

 

 This was our first time attending this event and we were VERY impressed! There was plenty of convenient parking for a $10 charge, numerous merchandise vendors who sold everything from t - shirts to artwork, several carnival type rides which were free to ride as many times as you liked, an air conditioned building with tables and chairs set up so you could get off your feet and out of the heat for awhile, lots of food and drink vendors, body painting, helicopter rides and an amazing fireworks display. The fairgrounds were absolutely packed for this show, it's hard to guess the crowd size with so many people but I would say that there were easily at least 10 thousand people in the crowd, with so many people you would think that there was bound to be issues, especially seeing that people were drinking all day, but the crowd was extremely well behaved. We only saw one issue, a guy that was being escorted out by the Orlando police, apparently for fighting, but that was it. The entire show ran like clockwork with no technical issues at all, the only thing that was a bit of a disappointment, and this wasn't the fault of WJRR at all, was that I (Bill) couldn't shoot any photos of Slash's set, I did get to shoot any other band that I wanted to from the photo pit. Apparently our website isn't "big" enough or something, it was up to Slash's management who they let take photos of his set. Our contact in setting up the media pass was Lea "LT" Reynolds, the Promotions Manager and an On Air Personality for the radio station, she was fantastic to work with, extremely helpful and timely with all of our communication. We've been doing the Concert Photography / Review thing for almost 15 years now and Lea is right up there at the top of the list for the most helpful Promotion / Publicity Person that we have ever dealt with.

 

 While we didn't get a chance to see every band, we did see the ones we were the most interested in. The first band we actually saw was Buckcherry, a band that we have never seen before but have wanted to for quite some time, just never had the chance until EDBD22. The crowd really seemed to be into them, the band is great live and vocalist Josh Todd sounds exactly the same live as he does on their albums. For Bill, this was the highlight of the entire show. The band opened with Lit Up, one of their biggest hits and the crowd loved it! They only had a short set of about 45 minutes but they definitely got everyone fired up for the rest of the festival. The highlights were Lit Up, Say Fuck It (cover of Icona Pop's I Love It with a variation of the lyrics), and set closer Crazy Bitch. This is a band we will definitely see again when they are in our area. 

​

 Next up was Sevendust, who replaced Bush who cancelled their entire tour. We're not too familiar with Sevendust but they were another one of those bands that impressed us with their live show, although they also had a short set it included some of their biggest hits. Their setlist was as follows: Pieces, Face to Face, Bitch, Till Death, Denial, Praise, Enemy and Decay.

 

 After Sevendust was the artist that many in the crowd, including us were looking forward to: Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. They played a fantastic show consisting of 4 Guns N Roses songs and 5 of Slash's originals. Myles Kennedy is an amazing vocalist that complements Slash's guitar style very well. He sounds better doing the GNR songs than Axl Rose does nowadays. Here's an idea, why don't they reunite with the other original members of GNR and just have Myles Kennedy on vocals instead of Axl?! We would pay DAMN good money for that one! Their set consisted of: You're A Lie, Nightrain, Back from Cali, You Could Be Mine, Bent to Fly, World On Fire, Anastasia, Sweet Child of Mine, and Paradise City. 

 

 We pretty much stayed in front of the Main Stage except for when Bill and Charlie went to the second stage to see HELLYEAH, Vinnie Paul's band. They opened with HELLYEAH, and performed other songs such as Sangre por Sangre (Blood for Blood) and Moth. 

 

 We caught the end of Rise Against's set, as we spent most of that time in the cooling zone as it was a pretty hot day. From what we heard we really weren't impressed, they ended their show with their biggest hit, Prayer of the Refugee. 

 

 The headliners were Charlie's all time favorite band and a band we also enjoy, Five Finger Death Punch. We had been anticipating this show since November and they did NOT disappoint at all! Bill was in the photo pit for their set but unfortunately did not get any good pictures as his camera battery died, and the photo pit was packed full of people (and a dog lol..seriously no shit)! Vocalist Ivan Moody interacted quite a bit with the crowd throughout the show, including at one point bringing a few youngsters up on the stage with them. A really cool moment was when they brought out a Disabled War Veteran for one of their most well known covers, Bad Company. The crowd was very loud and vocal when they brought the Veteran onstage chanting USA, USA! The band really enjoys performing for their fans and it showed at EDBD 22! This is another band we will definitely see again when they come back on tour! The band's setlist included Under and Over It, Burn it Down, Coming Down, Bad Company, Lift Me Up, Remember Everything, Burn MF, and The Bleeding. 

 

 We would recommend this fest to anybody! We had a great time and would definitely attend again. As we don't live in the Orlando area we don't get the chance to listen to WJRR very often, however when we do make the occasional trip to Orlando they are the go to radio station for us!