KROQ Inland Invasion Concert

by chris cunningham

Ok, where do I begin…

Guns ‘n Roses, Alice in Chains, Muse, Avenged Sevenfold, Papa Roach, Rise Against, Atreyu, Buckberry, 30 Seconds to Mars

It took FOREVER to get out there. The Glen Helen Pavilion out in Devore. Am I in Nevada yet? On Friday, Blaine came by my desk and asked if I’d like some tickets to the KROQ Inland Invasion show out in Devore. Well, yeah! Wife Erin got the VIP’s through work and they couldn’t use them and I fall under the spontaneous category so I’m in! Sweet, thanks! Of course I had to ditch out on a party I was expected at! Doh, sorry Chris. Anyway, the first few bands I didn’t really care about so I left at my leisure. The only bands I would like to see were Muse, Alice, and G ‘N R. It took a few hours to get out in the area because the traffic was gridlocked. Where is everybody going? I arrive at the Ontario Hilton where there are KROQ courtesy shuttles to the party. So I get parked and hop on a bus and wait. Wait a little more. Then a little more, then finally we head out with a semi full load. It’s about 20-25 minutes until we wade through the concert traffic and get dropped off near the backstage area. I get out the credentials and go through the little entry and boom, there’s free food, drinks, games to play and lots of black clothes. I milled around a bit and the band Avenged Sevenfold were on stage. Don’t care about them so I hung out a bit. The tickets were general admission lawn seats so I just headed straight up to the top of the bowl to get an overview. Glen Helen’s lawn seating is absolutely massive. I can’t imagine this place ever selling out because it’s just so huge.

Muse came on and just tore through their set. They were amazing and even opened with Knights of Cydonia which just has the greatest video. [LINK] Next up was Alice in Chains and they were surprisingly good. Minus the dead original singer their sound is so massive. They played every song I’d want to hear so probably seeing them on their own wouldn’t be any better than the hour set they played.

So then… Guns n’ Roses are scheduled for 10:00pm. On the drive out I made a pledge to myself that if G n’ R wasn’t onstage by 10:30, I’d leave. Since Axl is notorius for being completely late for his own concerts you never know when he might arrive. One show they didn’t start until 3 in the morning. I’m not the biggest G n’ R fan anymore, I have a hard time even calling this G n’ R, but this is the first time Axl has played in the area in more than 12 years. After Alice in Chains left the stage they started setting up and all was on time. About 10:00 it looked like they we’re ready. No band though. Videos played. And played. And played. And played. And played. Nothing. People started booing. More videos. More booing. Now bon fires are breaking out up in the lawn area. 7 of them. It smells like burning plastic. Toxic. Then a food war broke out as people started getting pissed that the band wasn’t there. Then water bottles started flying and craziness ensued. A couple fights broke out and the whole situation was getting really dodgy. When people around me started peeing into the bottles and then throwing those down into the crowd I decided it was time to leave. It was getting too dangerous and there was no band in sight.

I headed for the exit and much to my surprise thousands of people were pouring out of the exits all mad about Guns n’ Roses not showing up. I was on the shuttle and ready to leave when we all heard that Axl just arrived. Over an hour after the scheduled time. Who knows how long he was going to take to get on stage? Not a single person on that shuttle cared. Nobody got off and everybody got on their cell phones and called friends to tell them what a jerk they thought Axl Rose is. Too funny. Surprisingly everybody was in a pretty good mood and were talking about it like it was actually cooler to get stood up by Axl than to actually see him in concert. As we got back to the Hilton I hopped in the car and headed home. Didn’t take long to get back as the road was wide open.

Ahhhhh… the trials of concert going. Dude, let’s say you woke up at noon. You still had 10 hours not to be late to your show! So, The Axl Rose Band did end up playing but I could care less. I’ll never open my wallet for anything Guns n’ Roses related because he’s a jerk.

Hey, but none of this really matters because it was free! Thanks to Erin! Muse was lovely and worth the whole trip.