There is nothing like festival season. What else can get you to brave the scorching heat, inevitable sunburn, dehydration and massive crowds besides a great lineup and some killer music? Louder Than Life, that’s what. The Raised Rowdy crew were boots on ground for a couple days of Louisville’s biggest rock celebration, and boy was it a wild ride.
We attended Thursday and Friday, both of which were stacked when it came to the different acts. Movements were one of the first bands we caught, and they set the tone for the night to come in the best way possible. Bands like Royal Blood and Coheed and Cambria were exceptional and put on a hell of a show. We watched the two of them while we worked our way up to the front of the crowd in time for 311, who still got it. That’s when we got caught up in our first Louder Than Life mosh, which is always a good time. The headliners drew the crowd in heavily, beginning with Rancid. After them Weezer performed and were surprisingly “jammy”. It could be because I’ve never seen them live, but they definitely noodled around and lengthened their tunes, which left me pretty impressed with how much more spice it gave their songs. Foo Fighters closed it out, and it was a cloud 9 experience. They played the hits and Dave Grohl commanded the crowd effortlessly. Truly a bucket list performance.
Then comes Friday, along with another absolutely stacked lineup. We booked it to the festival grounds in time to see Austin Meade help kick the day off. He’s been a friend of Raised Rowdy for some time, and it is super exciting to see him on the big stage of a major festival wearing a literal middle finger mask (it’s hard to explain, just use your imagination) getting the crowd going. After that, we caught Widow7 – a band that was the best example of modern, badass Nu-Metal that we’ve seen in a while – then watched a bit of Avatar. After grabbing some brews and grub, we worked our way to the main stages in time for Bad Omens, which was one of the best performances of the two days, honestly.
Corey Taylor had the crowd in the palm of his hand and commanded the most intense mosh pit we’ve ever seen. Megadeth killed it as well, but at that time there was only one thought on the Raised Rowdy crews’ minds – Limp Bizkit. They came out playing the wrong instrument covering Korn’s Blind, then demanded the big screens to be turned off, which is both a typical Fred Durst move, but also a great way to get the crowd drawn in and involved. Man, did it work. Everybody was jumping, crowd surfing and moshing from start to finish, and was one of – if not the – best set of the trip.
Now a word from Nicky T about this amazing festival:
“After not being at a Rock festival for 20 years, Louder than Life really opened my eyes to the scene. Danny Wimmer and team have probably the finest layout of any festival I have attended. The flow, the stages are setup so well and it never felt overly busy anywhere except in front of the main stages (which is to be expected). One of my favorite performances of the weekend was 311, who not only brought that Amber energy we have come to love, but also had the best vibes of a mosh pit I have ever seen. It was groovy, funky, sometimes hard and overall just an amazing festival experience.”
For anyone tempted on going to 2024’s Louder Than Life, we can promise you it is worth it. Buy that weekend pass and rock the hell out!