Orion Music and More Music Fest 2012
Bader Field, Atlantic City, NJ
June 24th, 2012
Day 2

Driving to Orion Music and More with Kevin from the MMaRMy at 8:30 in the morning was a blast. The closer we got the more and more I was getting amped for the day ahead. We pulled into the media lot behind Joe C. from Engineering. As we got out of the MMR Tahoe this sexy hot German gal in a golf cart pulled up to say hello and get us to the media tent. Rad. She was very cool and friendly and just as excited for day two as we were. At that point I knew this day was going to be INCREDIBLE.  We got to the media table and set everything up. When we finished, I walked around to get a feel for the lay of the land.  There were four stage; Frantic, Damage Inc., Fuel and Orion. Fuel and Orion were the big stages. I also cruised through The Metallica Museum, Billabong Oasis Lounge, Orion Custom Car and Motorcycle Show, Hit The Lights Films and Kirk's Crypt. 

The Metallica Museum was awesome. It had The stage props from The ...And Justice Tour, Drums, guitars, basses from the early days, early band artwork and shirts, posters and the double neck James was playing when he was burnt onstage. Very impressive and according to Toby Stapleton of Metallica HQ, it will be changing every year, with so much classic Metallica material to share. 

Kirk's Crypt was the ultimate eyegasm for old school horror film fanatics. There were some amazing pieces of Horror Movie Memorabilia. Monster Toys, Masks, vintage posters, props and more. Kirk has one of the best collections in the world. The Crypt also had people in zombie, vampire, etc... costumes adding to the experience. Linda Blair spoke in the tent both days. 

Orion Custom Car & Motorcycle Show was another ultimate eyegasm for the car and bike lover. A big passion of James Hetfield. Custom Cars, Hot Rods, Muscle Cars and Motorcycles all on display.  On Saturday, James went out to the tent, grabbed some tools and worked on a car.  Some of the cars on display included Jame's 1937 Lincoln Zephyr Voodoo Priest, Rick Dore & Kirk Hammett's 1936 Ford Coupe and more. 

Billabong Seek and destroy AC Air Assault & Oasis Lounge and the Vans Motorbreath Mini Ramp. Robert Trujillo & Kirk Hammett love to surf, and Robert Trujillo loves to skateboard. These areas were awesome with some big air and cool chilling available. 

Hit The Lights Films was a very cool and different offering the festival goers some Movies to check out. Lars put this together and offered the North American premiere of "Mission To Lars". Lars also recently played filmmaker Joris Ivens in "Hemingway and Gellhorn", there was a screening of this film. Lar's father Torben Ulrich did a film called "Before The Wall:  Body & Being," with the soundtrack done by Lars. Torben also did a Q&A in the Met Club tent area. 

After I got back to the media tent at about 11:30am, Toby Singleton from Camp Metallica stopped by to chat about Orion Music and More Festival 2012 and more. We had a great time chatting. You can check out my chat with him here. From there, Toby took me to the Metallica Museum, Kirk's Crypt and The Met club and gave me a look at it with explanations as to what it all was. Toby took me back to the media tent. Getting the behind the scenes tour was very cool. 

At about 1pm Jon Larsen, drummer for the Danish Rock Band, Volbeat stopped by the WMMR table to talk to Brent Porche and myself. He spoke about their live show, new and old music, his personal favorites, What's ahead for Volbeat, Still Counting being a "Current" radio hit after being released so long ago, Volbeat fever and Eurocopa 2012. We enjoyed talking to him a lot. 

As it got closer to 2pm, the media tent started clearing out as everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was headed to The Orion stage to see Ghost perform. Ghost is a Swedish band who, like The Replacements of old, have kept their real identities a secret. They blew the entire crowd away. I looked around from where I was and I saw a lot of people from the media tent nearby enjoying this amazing show from the Unknown Ghouls rocking the stage. One of their last songs was an awesome dark, heavy cover of The Beatles Here Come's The Sun.  At 3pmish when the set ended, the entire crowd walked away mesmerized, in awe and satisfied with what they saw. Ghost ROCKED!

Got back to the media tent and Trevor from The Black Dahlia Murders stopped by the WMMR table to chat. This is a band that is very brutal and punshing live. I have seen them live twice and really enjoy their live show. It's a 9 on the face melting scale of 1-10. I don't know a ton about them, but, I do love what I have heard so far. We talked about the band, Orion Music & More, writing music, touring, their live show and a lot more. If you like to be punished by an extremely blistering and brutal live set, The Black Dahlia Murders are for you. 

Joe C. who was the WMMR engineer on sight went to see Best Coast at 4pm and came back very satisfied. At 5pm James Hetfield came out and introduced Volbeat and they took stage.  They were absolutely incredible. About 90% of the crowd had never seen them before, but let me tell you, they had a HUGE crowd in front of them and brought it big time even though Michael Poulson's vocals were strained from the night before. They blew the entire crowd away.

Black Dahlia as to be expected were brutal and punishing  as I caught a little bit of their set. At 6pm I wandered by the Orion stage where Metallica would be playing at 8pm and Eric Church was on stage. A country cat. He and his band were outstanding. Loved listening to them. 

A little after 7pm Lars jumped onto The Fuel stage and introduced Avenged Sevenfold.  As always they were pretty damn good. I like Aren Ilejay playing the drums for them. They were a little loose at times, but, they really were awesome and the crowd went crazy when they were on stage. Another HUGE crowd. 

At 8pm Metallica took and really kicked the crap out of the crowd. They came out and just blew the crowd away with Hit The Lights, Master Of Puppets, Fuel and For Whom The Bell Tolls as the first four songs. They did a few more and kicked into The Black Album from Back to Front with a few more derrier kicking rock songs to end the amazing evening. I was so junked on adrenaline from the amazing day of music and entertainment that I didn't get to sleep until 7am Morning following my airshift from midnight until 5:30am.

The only negative I found was that the Bader Field vendors should lower food and beverage prices next year. 

Orion Music and More fest is going to be an annual event. From a music fans perspective it was a HUGE success. I had a blast spending the day going from stage to stage, tent to tent exploring and rocking. More pictures up on both WMMR's Facebook page as well as mine, WMMR'S Markus. When it comes back next year I recommend the two day pass. This is an excellent festival that can only get better.