I attended the final Carolina Rebellion music festival at the NASCAR fairground in Charlotte, May, 2018. In future years it would be renamed the Epicenter festival. I was there to see Queens of the Stone Age but caught the other acts performing that evening. The lineup struck me as odd. Carolina Rebellion is supposed to be a metal festival but the headliners were Billy Idol (new wave), Incubus (nu metal), Muse (prog) and Queens of the Stone Age (hard rock). Which probably explained that while we were coming in to see the headliners, the true metal fans were all streaming out of the venue.
I entered the raceway fairgrounds in time to catch the second half of Billy Idol’s set. He, of course, made clear and obvious reference to his song Rebel Yell. The crowd appeared to be mostly generation X. Idol was having a grand time. His shirt was off, his lips jutted and his, doubtless dyed hair, spiked. The 80s keyboards were gone, replaced by gnarly guitars as Idol strutted up and down the stage like a rooster. I don’t think he took himself too seriously.
After his set ended, we skipped Incubus and went after food and drink. Afterwards, my wife and I setup for Queens at an empty stage on the far side of the fairgrounds. The crowd started to fill in well before Incubus was over. We spent our time checking out the outrageous outfits.Most of the people wore boring black t-shirts and shorts. A few had on scary masks. Some of the girls wore barely anything; fishnets and electrical tape.
The crowd ages appeared mixed, gen-X and millennial with a few boomers. There was a definite white trashy vibe going on but I couldn’t tell if it was legit. A Bud Light ad came on the overhead and the crowd loudly shouted “dilly, dilly!” at the screen. I was struck at how easy it is to get supposed rebels to yell nonsense memes.
As the sun set, the mood changed. I picked up on a familiar energy in the crowd. People were sizing me up. It reminded me of metal shows of the late 90’s. At dark, Queens came out on stage. and the crowd exploded into chaos. The young people decided to act like it was the 90s they’d missed.
Because the bands only get a hour to perform they truncate their sets and play only their hardest material. A mosh pit quickly formed around me. I planted my legs and people behind me put their hands on my shoulders to use me as a protective firewall.
Every couple of songs I’d get pushed closer to the stage. There were people, of all genders, crowd surfing. Suddenly, a girl fell from the sky onto the back of my neck. I went almost to the ground before zombie hands came out the darkness to pull us back up
The music blared so loud it warped time and space and the stage cameras lost focus with every downbeat. The band played with passion and vigor, letting us up for breath only for one slow number in the middle of the set. Josh Homme addressed the crowd and commended us on being individuals who didn’t need anyone to tell us what to do. I almost yelled, “dilly, dilly” in response.
Then it all ended. The lights came up and the crowd left the field full of human detritus; plastic cups, empty cartons and an amazing amount of clothing. The band had played thirteen songs in an hour. It felt too short but we really couldn’t have taken much more. The crowd was beat-up and smiling. The euphoria of survival without major injury.
We made our way over to see Muse, who had already started their set. We spread out a blanket on the lawn and I took my shoes off. Muse had a much better video system setup that made use of complex CG geometry. After a couple of songs to recover our sanity, we got up and made our way forward.
Muse played to the crowd. There wasn’t a single second of silence in the set. All the songs ended with guitar segues. Most of the transitions were metals riffs from 80s hair bands. Matt Bellamy white-trashing his prog-rock credentials just for us. While Muse had a keyboardist on stage, the camera rarely focused on him. The band had an hour to play and they dropped their pop radio hits, favoring guitar rock instead. Some redneck threw something on stage, hitting Bellamy. He just kept playing like nothing happened.
Bellamy’s anti-authoritarian messages were thrown up on the screens in single word bursts to ensure his message got through to the festival crowd. They even used surprising gimmicks to keep the crowd involved by variously dropping balloons, streamers or confetti.
Most of the way through the set, Bellamy kicked over his amp and used his guitar like an axe until it splintered into little matchboxes. I wasn’t expecting the math-nerd rocker to be so rock-godish. Afterwards, I found out he has a world record in guitar destruction. I couldn’t help but think he was playing his part in our shared commitment to being white trash for the evening.
So the night ended. A night without obvious irony from the crowd or the bands. I had fun, no one got obviously hurt. But In the morning, I felt like I’d survived a car wreck.