HELLYEAH

Live at Mayhem Festival

San Bernardino, California

June 27th, 2015

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

Hellyeah were the direct support leading up to King Diamond and Slayer at this year's Mayhem Festival. Hellyeah started as a supergroup, banding together well known musicians from other popular metal acts.

For me the crowning grace of their existance is Vinnie Paul on drums, having been a big Pantera fan. In addition to Vinnie we have Chad Gray of Mudvayne fame on vocals and dual guitar duties as well as bass coming from other entities in the metal world.

Last year saw the release of the album "Blood For Blood" and the stage dressing was set up around this artwork. They opened the set with the title track, "Sangre por Sangre".

I like their newer material as it falls into a form of Metal that incorporates some Industrial mentalities and I like the way Chad sings on these newer tracks. They are definitely a heavy band but they sit on the Rock side of Extreme metal.

The lead singer kept saying that "We need this! You need it and I need it! We need to come out here and lose our shit!" The mosh pit was very active despite that it was on concrete and people were get road rash like crazy.

Sticking with the new album, they did "Demons in the Dirt" next. Chad definitely has a good stage presence, moving all over the place and making insane facial expressions.

They went back to their previous album, "Band of Brothers" for "War In Me" before coming back to the latest album for "Moth" and "Cross to Bier".

The bassist came up and acted like he smashed Chad in the face with his instrument and the singer came away with his face covered in blood as they went into "Say When" also off the latest record.

They finished the set off with a song from their debut self-titled album, "You Wouldn't Know". It was a good show and they set up the evening nicely with the legendary King Diamond up next.

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