Rock 102.1 is my favorite radio station, but their popularity has declined over the past year and began when Shmonty (a former radio host of Rock 102.1) left the radio station. But with that in mind, this year’s KFMA Day was surprisingly good. Even though I only attended for the last two bands, Papa Roach and Shinedown, I saw tons of videos of the previous bands: Fever 333, Asking Alexandria, and Pyrotechnica; lots of those videos consisted of the lead singer of Fever 333 stand on top of the porta potties and do a stage dive. This year’s local band, Pyrotechnica, has a relatively good sound compared to those in the past years.

Out of the two bands I saw perform, Shinedown topped Papa Roach by far. Papa Roach is a great band and I’ve always loved them, but their performance lacked the pizzazz and showed their age. They didn’t perform with the excitement their music provided, which was a huge letdown. Jacoby Shaddix, the lead singer, tried so hard to get a mosh pit going, but they’ve begun to go down the road to more pop-like music and that definitely didn’t get any mosh pits started, but they sounded amazing. I guess it worked out in the end because I’m too short to have seen them anyway; occasionally I found a window in between the sea of people to see someone, but most of the time I would look on someone’s phone screen while they’re recording.

Even though Shinedown was limited due to the venue and its size, they still managed to impress. I’ve always loved them, and they put on a fantastic performance. They had fire behind Barry Kerch, the drummer, and they had lots of enthusiasm. All of them jumped around the stage and riled up the crowd, too. They played singles, favorites, and classics like Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe. One of my favorites was Black Soul from their new album, Attention Attention. I’ve seen Shinedown before and, despite their limitations, I can almost say this performance was better than the one I saw during their Threat to Survival era. One of my favorite things about their performances is Brent Smith’s speech about how beautiful music is and how crucial it is to living. He always quotes Friedrich Nietzsche by saying, “Without music, life would be a mistake,” and hearing those words from his mouth makes it mean so much more to me.