Weenie Roast recap...

On Saturday, Cyndi and I slept in a bit, then got some lunch before heading out to Irvine for the Weenie Roast. On the way there they announced on the radio that the Killers had canceled due to the singer's illness. Since that's who we were looking forward to seeing the most, it was not a good start. It continued to go downhill when it took almost an hour to go the last mile on the freeway only to find that parking had filled up long before we got there and they were sending people out. It was very frustrating. We finally found a field where a bunch of other people were parking so we left the car there and hoped it would still be there when we got back.

When we got up to the gate, security not only opened our sealed bottles of water to "make sure it really is water" but they then threw the caps away and said they weren't allowed in. So much for saving it for later when we really wanted it.

Once we dealt with the nonsense of getting in the place it was a lot of fun. Here's a rundown of the bands...

• Tim Armstrong -- We walked in as he was finishing his set on the side stage. He played a couple of songs from when he was with Rancid..."Ruby Soho" and "Timebomb". I've seen him before so I was ok with just hearing a couple of songs.

• Tiger Army -- I really enjoyed their psychobilly set. I was surprised how many people in the crowd knew their songs besides "Forever Fades Away". Hopefully they'll stick around for a while.

• The Bravery -- I've never paid much attention to them, but again I really liked their set. I would have liked them to have a little longer set.

• Rise Against -- Bathroom break. We got back just in time to hear them close with "Prayer of the Refugee" which I like. That really got the crowd going just in time for...

• 30 Seconds to Mars -- ...to kill it. I was looking forward to this set, but it turned out to be the worst of the day. Jared Leto should stick to acting and not doing concerts. Lots of delays from the band, and Leto assumed that if he ran through the crowd holding out his mic that everyone would sing his hits for him. I guess the instrumentals were ok. The 5 minutes of dancing with mariachis to start the set didn't help either.

• Bad Religion -- Luckily Bad Religion knows what they're doing and got the show back on track. It was a very tight set and their new songs were as impressive as all the old hits. They made me want to see a full show from them someday.

• Queens of the Stone Age -- Dinner time. I didn't care about them before, and I still don't. I hear they were good. Probably not as good as my teriyaki bowl.

• Interpol -- They don't move around on stage at all, but they sounded good. Unfortunately their guitar broke so they had to cut the set short. Because at a festival with 15 bands, there is only one guitar there.

• Incubus -- Since Brandon Flowers of the Killers was sick, Brandon Boyd of Incubus filled in. It wasn't the full band...just vocals and one guitar. I wasn't too happy when they came out because I'm not a fan. However, the stripped down version was actually listenable and they sort of won me over. From this point on, the crowd was on their feet the whole time.

• Social Distortion -- I first became a fan when I saw them at a Weenie Roast 10 years ago. They put on another great show as always from "Mommy's Little Monster" through "Story of My Life". Maybe this year I'll finally manage to get to one of their House of Blues shows.
  

• Korn -- I never knew how much of a Korn fan Cyndi was until tonight. She was going wild, knocking people around in the pit. She was also quite impressed with the girl we saw who had a 6 inch tall Korn logo tattooed across her back. I'd be shocked if Cyndi doesn't get one to match any day now. She'll deny it of course, but I know the truth. We knew it was going to be loud when they came on with 3 drum kits. I loved seeing "Blind" performed live.

• Linkin Park -- They really surprised me. Maybe they were just trying to keep up with all the other rock-out bands, but Linkin Park seems a lot harder in concert than on their cds. A good mix of the old and new, redone versions of older songs, and all on a pink Hello Kitty guitar. I don't think I'll be seeing them by themselves any time soon, but the hour plus set here was a lot of fun.