By John Indiveri
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Earthday Birthday 26 hit the Orlando Fairgrounds on April 13, 2019 with a stacked line up of Rock and Metal favorites! ​

​Earthday Birthday is the brainchild of 101.1 WJRR radio in Orlando, FL (one of the few stations around still playing rock and metal music that I know of) and has been running for 26 years now. Past artists have included Shinedown, All That Remains, Escape The Fate, Dirty Heads, From Ashes to New, Bush and many more. The locations have changed over the years as the festival grew of course and is quite impressive that WJRR has been able to put on this event for 26 straight years. Kudos to you WJRR! 

Now, Florida is of course normally a fairly warm state, especially in the summer months. It’s one of those things you just have to cope with if you live here. Typically it doesn’t start to get really warm until the end of April and start of May, however on April 13th it was a scorcher. Temps hovered around 90 degrees most of the day with ~80% humidity and the sun out for most of it. It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to stand in an open field basically with the sun beating down on them all day. But stand they did. While I don’t have an exact count of how many were in attendance, it was easily in the thousands. With a line up like this years, any rock and metal fan in the area would be remiss to skip this show! The festival organizers, obviously being from Florida, are well aware of the temps that could be reached and did a great job at ensuring there were cooling stations throughout the grounds. While there could have been a few more tents in the GA areas, they did have a large cooling center (which also doubled as the acoustic sessions stage) in a large hanger. This photojournalist took advantage of this area quite a bit throughout the day! 

Earthday Birthday is also not just about the music, but about the experience as well. From the food trucks to wrestling to helicopter rides (yes you read that correctly), there was a little something for everyone. 

Now onto the music. EDBD had 3 stages plus the indoor acoustic stage. The main stage (aka the Bud Light Stage) was set up while the second stage (aka the Amp Stage) was already existing in the Amphitheater portion of the fairgrounds. There was also the Ink stage where smaller and local bands performed. 

The day for me started with Eve to Adam playing on the Amp stage. I wasn’t super familiar with them but they came on stage with quite the show! Singer and founding member Taki Sassaris was dragged out by members of their crew in a straitjacket “struggling” to get away and placed in front of the mic. He sang the first song still in the straitjacket before it was removed. From there it was quick walk over to the Bud Light stage to catch Canadian rock n’ roll band The Glorious Sons. They opened with their hit single S.O.S and put on a great show. I stuck around the Bud Light Stage for the next act to play, Rival Sons. Man the sound these guys produce is refreshing. It brings you back to the classic rock and roll of the 70’s with a modern flare. The performance started out a bit rocky before they took the stage due to some technical difficulties, but once fixed they took the stage and put on an amazing show. High energy, powerful guitar riffs (courtesy of Mr. Fuzzlord) and commanding vocals is how I would describe Rival Sons live. 

Once Rival Sons was finished it was a quick walk back over to the Amp stage to catch one of my favorite artist, Atreyu. This is the second time I have covered them and as always they did not disappoint. This was their first show since the In Our Wake tour and the following day was their spring kick off tour with Motionless In White. To my surprise they played a good deal of older tunes which was awesome and of course, the energy on stage was second to none! They went on around 4pm and unfortunately this stage faced towards the West so the sun was BRUTAL, but to their credit they didn’t skip a beat. Definitely one of my favorite artists to see live! From Atreyu it was back to the Bud Light Stage to catch Motionless In White, back from a bit of a break. Joining them as always on tour was Justin Morrow on Bass however he is now a full time member of the band, departing Ice Nine Kills. I had the chance to photograph Justin while he was in Ice Nine Kills and just as when he was with them, he put on an amazing performance as did the rest of the guys. 

The evening rounded out with Underoath, Three Days Grace and the headliner, Godsmack. For me personally, it’s been a bucket list item to photograph Godsmack. I first saw them live back in 1998 when they started getting more national attention and have followed them ever since. The show was phenomenal! Fast paced, hard hitting and the guys were very engaging with the crowd and the photographers. 

Overall Earthday Birthday 26 was a well thought out and fun festival, and after 26 years of putting on the show it’s evident they know what they are doing. This is one festival you do not want to miss next year. 

Be sure to check out the gallery below! 

The '80s are back. We hear power-ballad synths and firework drum fills in song after song on the radio today - and honestly, we love it. We see fashion trends from 35 years ago, pastel and neon color schemes are shining on our high-tech phones, and even our movies are taking after the Flash Gordons and Breakfast Clubs of yesteryear. The area that this revival hasn't fully hit yet, however, is rock. Migrant Motel is here to fix that.

"Different Kind of Leather" is a new bridge between 1980s pop rock and new wave, blues-driven, whiskey rock. With the verse leaning on a classic overdriven bass line and snappy electric drum samples reminiscent of an 808, you can't help but bop your head along. Then the chorus roars in, and David Stewart Jr.'s falsetto and Chava's drums mixed with a pinch of synth create a nostalgic cocktail best shaken, not stirred.

Even the lyrics alone point to a story of how music trends are changing and becoming a twisted and engaging version of what has inspired our current artists in their youth. ​

If you look at these lines with the lens of the music industry as a whole, you can see a sort of mutation that Migrant Motel is alluding to. The different kind of leather we wear is an iteration on what came before, what drove new musicians to create and model their work on. It all seems new and foreign, but there is always that underlying feeling of remembering the past, and improving upon its successes and failures alike. 

But don't just take our word for it. Check out the full music video at the top of this article!

Migrant Motel will be playing some very exciting shows in the near future:

• The Viper Room on May 1st
• Brooklyn Bowl on May 4th
• Various concerts in Mexico, including one SoFar show

Click the button below to grab your tickets to their Las Vegas performance, where they will be opening for Buckcherry and Joyous Wolf!

By John Indiveri

From the Royal Court of Avatar Country, The Kingdom announces they will release a new Live LP titled “The King Live in Paris”, recorded live at Download Festival 2018 in Paris, France. The new release will include favorites such as “A Statue Of The King”, “Let It Burn” and “Hail To The Apocalypse”. 

Says frontman Johannes Eckerström: “Looking back at all that’s happened and what’s still going on it feels more like a document from a pivotal battle than a live album”

He continues: “In the past, I've found it hard to motivate making something like this, but as time goes on, I find it fortunate that we get to have our work captured like this. I realize now more than ever that we are in the process of constant change. This release is a version of Avatar that didn't exist a year prior, and that already has morphed into something else. The show at Download Paris was a particular one for many reasons. We are very proud of the result."

Avatar will release the live LP on May 17, 2019 via Entertainment One (eOne). Pre-orders are available right now and those pre-ordering on iTunes will receive an instant download of “Bloody Angel” 

Here are the track off the LP: 
Intro
Statue Of The King
Paint Me Red
Bloody Angel
For The Swarm
Tower
The Eagle Has Landed
Smells Like A Freakshow
Avatar Country
Hail The Apocalypse

You can pre-order the album now.

The band will also be hitting the road in North America for the “Avatar Country World Tour 2019” starting May 16th in Buffalo, NY and wrapping up in Las Vegas, NV on June 15th. These dates include three major festivals including Sonic Youth (Columbus, OH) on May 17th, Rocklahoma (Pryor, OK) on May 26th and Domination 2019 (Mexico City) on May 3rd. Devin Townsend will be providing direct support. 

“As we’ve stated in the past, we are reaching the end of the road for the Avatar Country saga, and if you want to see us in all our Royal Glory in tribute to the King, this might very well be your last chance. We will make sure to go out with a bang!” says Eckerström.

Tickets are on sale now.