The second annual Mayhem Fest brought together the finest in caveman music from all around the country (in addition to the Polish Behemoth, whose set was a major highlight.) Part of my excitement for the fest was sparked by its total lack of trend or hipster appeal. In great contrast to the previous week's Pitchfork Festival, Mayhem was guaranteed to be 100% buzz-band free. None of these groups were claiming to be the Next Big Thing. No major fashion statements would be made. Very few people dressed like lumberjacks. It was all pretty refreshing. I quickly deleted every term from my vocabulary that wasn't "slayer" and joined the herds of fans in spreading the word: at the gates, in the washrooms, directed at other bands� "SLAYER!"

The one-day fest was organized onto three separate stages to minimize setup time between sets. The supporting stages ran all day but never at the same time, since they were easily within eye and earshot of each other, and nobody played on the mainstage until those two stages had pretty much shut down. Theoretically, you could see every single band on the lineup if you darted back and forth between stages and missed a tiny bit of Cannibal Corpse in order to catch Bullet For My Valentine (which would be insane.) It's a cool idea, especially since festivals like Lollapalooza advertise all these important bands and then put all the greats on at the same times.

But the downside of one band playing at a time is that everybody in attendance is competing for a view of the same small stage. You're much more likely to watch the back of somebody's all caps "FUCK YOU � I LIKE HATEBREED" shirt than to see the band, and when you factor in the difficult sound quality of outdoor stages, you're much better off getting as close as possible for the bands you like and totally sacrificing the ones you aren't as familiar with on the other stage. I made one such sacrifice and plowed my way towards the front for Behemoth.

Behemoth

As mentioned above, this was one of the musical peaks of the day. Behemoth didn't waste a minute of their half-hour set. Right from the opener (the excellent "Slaves Shall Serve"), their set was tight, full of rhythmic stops and starts with flawless execution. They were so totally locked in they sounded like studio quality performance-wise, but subtle drum twists and interaction with the audience ensured us they were really doing it up there (as if you'd ever heard of a lip-syncing death metal band anyways.)

The group unleashed a new apocalyptic groove on us and it was greatly received. It mixed the band's trademark marching-into-war stomp with a cheesy black metal keyboard bit on top. All the musicians were awesome, but the drummer Inferno was totally amazing � a total blur of flailing arms and hair. A bit of the melody was lost for fans in the back of the crowd (according to a friend's testimony), but there was no mistaking that perfect precision from a drummer using at least 7 cymbals.

The group members themselves were a spectacle, dressed in what looked like bulletproof vests and white facepaint, long hair swirling with every dramatic, violent headbang. At one point they bit down on fake blood capsules because they apparently didn't think they looked ridiculous enough. As the set was coming to a close, singer/guitarist Nergal yelled to the audience in his heavy Polish accent, "Whenever we play Chicago, we get erection!" We were honored. www.myspace.com/behemoth

Between sets with a few minutes to kill, I decided to visit the Rock Star Energy tent. Because of the festival's Rock Star sponsorship, four varieties of energy drinks were completely free, and since the tent was located right between the two daytime stages, it was incredibly easy to keep coming back for more. Kids lined up the different cans for taste tests � kind of like a wine tasting, except with more palpitations. And then it was funny seeing a vendor walking around the park trying to sell $7 Monsters.

Of course at a festival like this you've got to consider concession prices, since you'll be in the park for around ten hours with no reentry. A lot of people hit up fast-food places before and after, but I myself can't completely enjoy a great metal show if my tummy is rumbling as loud as the bass. Just to give you an impression, the First Midwest Bank Ampitheater's beer choices were $8, $9.50, and $12, while a slice of pizza was $9. I went with the tummy rumbling after all.*

Cannibal Corpse

The sun obligingly began to set as Cannibal Corpse took the stage. Frontman Corpsegrinder immediately pumped up the adrenaline with his infamous circular headbanging. Seriously, the dude is known to many metalheads for his unique whiplash-inducing style of headbanging, and he kept it going for much of the set, to the point I was amazed he didn't pass out. "Try to keep up with me," he offered, "and you will fail!"

Corpse delivered a great set, but it was an extremely dangerous one (which probably wouldn't surprise fans familiar with their intense brand of melodic death metal.) The first song hadn't even finished yet before someone kicked me in the head, and as a result I can't really read my notes from the rest of the set! But I'll go from memory: the sound was pretty good � the melodies came through really strongly � since I was close to the stage. That's the secret � get close. But beware.

Corpsegrinder was by far the most stage-bantering of the Mayhem frontmen, and it was amazing how much he just looked and acted like a normal guy between songs. But when he launched back into his guttural, monsterous vocals, the sound was great (particularly on classics like "Hammer Smashed Face"), and all hell broke loose in the audience. Before the set was over, some aspiring baseball pitcher type managed to whip a Coke at my back with full force and an extremely sticky evening began for me. Then a loud smoke bomb blew off about a foot behind me and I realized it was time for me to make my way to the back of the crowd. No hard feelings Corpse � it was an awesome set with above average sound quality by small-outdoor-stage standards. www.myspace.com/cannibalcorpse

I was pretty relieved to be able to go sit down for the rest of the night. In the mainstage area, you're guaranteed a spot and can see � though it's much tougher in the lawn seats. In both areas, though, you've got substantially fewer elbows in and around your face. I mentally began to prepare myself for the awesomeness in store for me in the next few hours as I made my way through the ocean of people, waited in line for a urinal for 12 minutes, screamed "Slayer!" about 29,000 times, etc.

The echoed, washing machine sound quality of the mainstage is a plague I've seen many shows fall victim to. In fact, my high school graduated on this stage, and even the sound of the principal announcing our names was off. Needless to say I've never had high hopes for sets I've seen performed here, and I mostly avoid the First Midwest Bank Ampitheater except for can't-miss opportunities such as this one. Having said that, the only band whose sound was remarkably off was Bullet For My Valentine, whose set I only caught the tail end of anyhow. It's got a bit to do with sound levels, or at least it must, since Killswitch sounded infinitely more like music, and the two main headliners somehow sounded excellent.

Killswitch Engage

Killswitch was a band I hadn't particularly been looking forward to seeing. Not that I have anything against them, but I couldn't rank them with Manson and Slayer for headlining status (and Corpse has to have at least as many fans as they do.) But just as with every other time I inadvertently ended up seeing the group live, I was pretty surprised by how involved the crowd (and I myself) became. "The End of Heartache" in particular elicited a positive response, with almost everybody in the place mouthing the words and putting their hands up. It tended to be those slightly older songs that really did it for everybody.

To a casual fan like myself, KSE sounded good but could have done without a bit of the cheesing-up that too many artificial harmonics and a Dio cover ("Holy Diver") will naturally bring to a set. But the fans really seemed to dig it, and it was overall a pretty good time. You could also argue that the group's style has been made generic by a million ripoff groups, but it's definitely still cool to see the real thing live. www.myspace.com/killswitchengage

Slayer

There's no doubt about it: Slayer alone was worth the cost of admission. Their set was as brutal as ever, their sound quality conquered the unconquerable main-stage-plague, and they stormed through a tour of their legacy-spawning classics. In the process they somehow pulled off "Angel Of Death" even faster than the album version, which I guess is what happens when you've been rocking out a song for 23 years. For some reason Tom Araya skipped the opening Reign in Blood-defining scream, but the entire audience filled in the blank for him and it was at least as hilarious as the original.

Old tracks were kept fresh by some altered drumbeats and Tom's urgent shouts, which never get old. When they closed with "Raining Blood" (which was a total no brainer) they worked in an absolutely ridiculous noise freakout. It was quite awesome, although we all wished the group would have come back out for an encore.

They also introduced a new, unreleased song, which Tom informed us is "about death and murder!" The song continued in the old-school revival tradition of Christ Illusion, which is always welcome of course. A totally bats*** guitar solo / freakout made it totally vintage Slayer, and confirmed that these guys remain one of the coolest bands you can see live. www.myspace.com/slayer

Marilyn Manson

All day I'd been crossing my fingers that Manson would abandon all of his new material and stick to his classics like Antichrist Superstar, Holywood, and Mechanical Animals � and I'm sure I wasn't alone in doing so. After building suspense for a couple minutes with intro music and a curtain covering the stage, he opened with "We're From America", and a collective disappointed sigh escaped us all. But overall he played a good mix, and I was pleased to find that he gave tracks from his new High End of Low a whole lot more enthusiasm and vitality live than on the record.

Manson seemed aware nobody wanted to hear "America", but he gave it his all to win us over. He was all over the stage and running out of breath, coming to the edge by the audience and dropping to his knees. He used his scratchy Manson yell a great deal more than that sing-speak that characterizes much of his music. The band played really great together too; Twiggy Ramirez's resumed position in the band must have breathed some new energy into the rest of the guys (even if the record convinced you otherwise.)

However, none of the above compliments apply to the absolutely awful new single "Arma-Goddamn-Motherf***ing-Geddon". That song's just totally un-revamp-able, and even Manson sounded bored with it. But thank God (or whoever you want to thank) that Manson launched into "Dopeshow" next�and actually sounded like he gave a damn.

The audience went crazy for "Disposable Teens", and sang along as the band powered through a handful of classics, completely skipping the Twiggy-less era of clunkers The Golden Age of Grotesque and Eat Me, Drink Me. We can probably assume that the next time Manson puts out an album and goes on tour, he'll be skipping The High End of Low as well, but it was alright just this once.

Slayer and Manson must have gotten along pretty well a couple of years ago when they went on a co-headlining arena tour, because here they both are again. Perhaps it was just the massive fan turnout that the lineup generated. Maybe the connecting theme was just that they're both bands your parents are terrified of. Whatever the reason, I was happy to see the groups together again on one stage, and I'd certainly say Mayhem's lineup this year trumped last year's. All things considered, Mayhem Fest was a great way to spend a day, and an inexpensive one at that (if you don't fall for any of the venue's traps.)