Hot, humid, dusty with a 100% of thunder is the forecast for Rocklahoma (ROK) each Memorial Day weekend in Pryor, Oklahoma. ROK is part of a series of multi-day Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music festivals planned by AEG and billed as the World’s Loudest Month from late April to early June. This tenth edition of Rocklahoma features a healthy dose of AEG’s emerging Active Rock talent mixed with Traditional Heavy Metal bands of the ROK legacy.
Under blue skies, white clouds, and temperature in the upper 80s, Rival Sons open the festival’s main stage to an attentive but sober crowd with “Electric Man” from their 2014 release Great Western Valkyrie. The song is representative of the band’s 1970s Blues and Hard Rock sound. With only 30-minute sets, one expects the band to burn through a half dozen high energy tunes and call it good; but Rival Sons attended to the Memorial weekend theme playing a ballad midway dedicated to a recently deceased friend. The band turned up the heat and closed the set with “Open My Eyes” from Great Western Valkyrie and “Keep On Swinging” from 2012’s Head Down. Rival Sons launched ROK with great sounding tunes. As Buchanan stated during their set “We are Rival Sons and we play Rock and Roll”. No argument here.
ROK runs two other stages, Retrospect Records and River Spirit Casino Second Stage, in addition to the main stage alternating quickly between shows. The music never stops from 3:00 pm to well after midnight. It is literally impossible to catch the full sets of all the bands. Travelling through the crowds is a challenge as well, particularly after the sunset. Traversing the grounds is like walking a gauntlet of bodies, chairs, and motorized carts in the dark.
The smaller Retrospect Records stage hosted Dallas, Texas-based ASKA who churned through a 40-minute set of original and cover Traditional Heavy Metal to a small but enthusiastic crowd who prefer ASKA over In Flames who played the second stage. After opening with an original, the veterans switched gears and stirred the crowd with Metallica’s, “Seek And Destroy”. They continued the high-energy show with “Leprosy” from their Nine Tongues album, then another crowd-pleasing cover of AC/DC’s, “Highway To Hell”. After closing the show with the head bang worthy “The Stalker”, George Call, the lead singer for ASKA spent a few minutes chatting about ASKA and his latest work with Cloven Hoof. He’s a big fan of ROK and Retrospect Records for continuing to support Traditional Metal artists. He is looking forward to performing for European fans as the lead singer for Cloven Hoof during their tour later this summer.
Def Leppard headlined the main stage this first night. While displaying professional musicianship and a big time light show, the sound board technician was having a tough night. Not sure what went wrong, but the low end was crushingly heavy. While thunderous bass is normally a good thing, thumping low end with too little mid-range makes a band sound as if they are under water. Such was the case with Def Leppard. Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell’s guitars fought for every breath. Meanwhile, Rick Savage’s bass guitar on “Switch 625” and a cover of David Essex’s “Rock On” was fantastic. Fortunately for the fans, everyone knows the songs so well the shortcomings in sound are offset by the soundtrack running in everyone’s mind. Def Leppard was able to finish their set just before a moderate rain started at midnight.
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