Photos/Review: Milwaukee Metal Fest Day 3

Day 3 (May 19th) of Milwaukee Metal Fest had a slower start. Perhaps everyone was nursing hangovers from Saturday night, but things didn’t really start filling up until a few hours into the day. The lineup was again heavy on death metal, with a good showing of metalcore and deathcore bands throughout the day and a smattering of gothic and melodeath bands to break things up.

The MartyrStore bar stage had the best showing earlier in the day, especially before stage delays in the ballroom started, leading to significant set conflicts in the later half of the day. Errors of Humanity, Stabbing, and Alluvial packed the house, amping up the bar with mosh pits and breakdowns. Skeletal Remains closed the night to a full bar and a roaring mosh pit.

On the Century Media stage, the first few bands had small, but enthusiastic audiences, and things didn’t really start filling up until Exhumed took the stage in the late afternoon. Paleface Swiss led the crowd in a massive wall of death, while Gatecreeper and I Am Morbid had more traditional mosh pits and surfers throughout the set. The room was packed full for In Flames, including Johannes from Avatar, who announced before ending his set in the ballroom that he wouldn’t miss the fellow Swedish band for anything.

The IndieMerchStore ballroom stage kept decently full for most of the day, with Monochromatic Black and Casket Robbery drawing decent attendance early in the day, but really fleshing out for Death to All and Lacuna Coil in the evening. Despite the ballroom stage slowly lagging to nearly a full hour behind schedule, the closing bands, Avatar and Slaughter to Prevail easily had the biggest crowds of the weekend, providing a multitude of opportunities for wall of death, crowd surfers, mosh pits, and other chaos to occur.

The full weekend of Milwaukee Metal Fest was a delight. I had the chance to try new local food truck creations, like mac & cheese hot dogs and ice cream nachos, as well as see many friends and peruse the vendor area to pick up some new patches for one of my vest projects. The bands all put on great shows, and a few of them could even be found hanging out on the patio during the day!

Photo coverage was taken by Metal Insider’s Mar Morannon and special guest photographer Toast.