March 27, 2009 at 6:30 pm, Rupp Arena was the place to be. Those in attendance witnessed a spectacular rock event featuring Burn Halo, Papa Roach, and double headliners Avenged Sevenfold and Buckcherry. It was an amazing show and a night to remember.

Starting promptly at 6:30 PM, Burn Halo took the stage. Burn Halo features the front man of 18 Visions, James Hart, Joey Cunha on the lead guitar, Ryan Folden on the drums, Aaron Boehler on the bass, and Allen Wheeler on the rhythm guitar. During their set, they experienced a little bit of sound distortion, making it hard to hear Hart’s impressive lyrics and voice. Looking past the minor and infrequent problems, Burn Halo rocked hard, sang loud, and danced around the stage with an ambiance of a seasoned rock band. Their CD will be released to the public on March 31st and that was a problem. I really enjoy knowing the words of the songs that are being played and singing along with the band, but with their CD not having been by the time of the concert, I knew more about quantum physics. That was a small problem that had no impact on how exciting and energy pumping Burn Halo was. Their set lasted around 30 minutes, with them playing about three fourths of their CD.

After their set was done, they told us that they would be walking around the stands between the other bands’ sets, selling advance copies of their debut CD for $10. Sure enough, between the bands, every member of Burn Halo was walking up and down the isles with a box filled with their CDs. I was really wanting to buy one, but had no cash on me at the time. Even though I couldn’t buy their CD when Cunha came around, he still thanked me for coming out and shook my hand. Throughout the night I met all the members of Burn Halo, either as they were walking through the isles or after the concert near the concession stands. After the show I ran back into Hart and got a picture taken with him, and talked with Boehler. At this time they were still selling their CDs, but now they had signed them, so I ran as quickly as I could to the nearest ATM, accepted the $3 charge, and withdrew a twenty dollar bill. Now besides having a great CD, I also have it signed by the band!

After a fifteen minute break, the lights in Rupp Arena went dark. As the thunder of cheers rose from the crowd, light began to illuminate a Papa Roach banner. In 2007, I went to Columbus, Ohio for the first Rock on the Range, and got to see the last three songs of Papa Roach’s set. Using that as a sample of a full setlist, I started getting really pumped. Starting off with “Between Angels & Insects,” Papa Roach turned Rupp Arena into a jumping, head-banging, mosh-pitting, rock party.

Mixing in songs from all of their CDs, Papa Roach took the concert to a different level of excitement, and never toned it down throughout their entire time on stage. The only bad thing I can think of about Papa Roach was that their setlist was too short! They only played nine songs, I knew they would not get much time to be on stage, but it went by too quick for such a great band.

Avenged Sevenfold took the stage 45 minutes after Papa Roach with a background that might be the funniest/awesome thing I have seen in a long time. It was an image of a re-creation of the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln was still sitting in his chair, but he was a skeleton, and of course, the head of the skeleton had the bat wings. Whoever the artist is for Avenged Sevenfold is… well… AMAZING! I had to put that in capital letters to get as close as I could to how sweet the image looked. I do not know much about Avenged Sevenfold. I know a couple of their songs, and that they are featured in Rock Band 2. Even with knowing only three songs, “Afterlife”, “Bat Country”, and “Almost Easy” had no effect on how much I enjoyed seeing Avenged Sevenfold. They have made a new fan, I will be going out to get all their CDs later today actually and add them to my iPod. About half way through their set list, the band left the stage to take a break while their lead guitarist, Synyster Gates, stayed on stage to entertain the crowd with some guitar solos.

He played two different solos, each only using one had on the neck of the guitar. The second guitar solo lead into their next song that they played, “Bat Country”. Avenged Sevenfold ended their set list with my favorite song of theirs, “Almost Easy”.

Buckcherry was the last band to play, and they were worth the wait. They featured the biggest setlist for the night, 13 songs. I have seen Buckcherry one other time, and that was great. I really enjoyed them the first time. I had been hearing things, like that on this tour they were not as good as they usually were, that they had lost something, or that they were having problems following up the great bands that played before them. I did not want to believe that Buckcherry would put on a bad show, and was hoping they would not let me down… and they didn’t. It took them 45 minutes to get out on the stage, and for the next hour or so that they played, they finished off an amazing concert with a spectacular finale.

During Buckcherry’s “Broken Glass” they played a video on the jumbo screen behind them. My only big complaint I had with Buckcherry and the entire concert as a whole was this song. They mentioned that this song was about war and politics. While playing the song, the video showed different images and videos of war and politics; Obama, McCain, Bush, Clinton, bombs, and other visuals. The majority of the images and videos did not bother me at all, but there were two videos that struck me as very inappropriate.

The first video was of J.F.K. being shot. It started out showing him and his wife riding in their car heading into Dealey Plaza. I figured they would show right before the shot and after it, but oh no. They zoomed the image in right as J.F.K. was shot and you see him slump down. As if that was not bad enough, they then showed the video of Budd Dwyer shooting himself after a press conference. Again, Buckcherry zoomed in on the act of Mr. Dwyer shooting himself. Seeing those two videos again, in a place where I was wanting to enjoy myself, was a real blow to my excitement level. I understand, and encourage, artists to express themselves anyway they want to, but there are some lines that should not be crossed, and I feel as if they had pole-vaulted over them. Despite that horrible footage, they still rocked the roof off of Rupp Arena, and gave a great finale to an awesome rock concert.

Guest Blogged by: Kyle Jessee
House Photographer: Wes Allen
View More Photos From the Show: Facebook Album