For the past 11-years Rock on the Range was home to one of the more successful annual rock festivals. Fast-forward to the 2019 and the inaugural Sonic Temple Music & Arts Festival located at MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus, OH. Festival diehards were pleasantly surprised to see the new festival picked up where the old one left off.
The 2019 festival season has been an interesting to say the least. Festival name changes, new festivals with amazing lineups consisting of giant headliners, fan favorites, tenured bands as well as bands on the rise. As lineups continue to blow fans away, festival organizers continue to evolve the festival experience for patrons.
The new Sonic Temple Music & Arts Festival revealed its new name in 2018 and fans were treated new enhancements that included the incorporation of art. The Zippo Sessions continue to be a staple of the Danny Wimmer Presents festivals as they were back and included a special acoustic performance by Lamb of God’s Mark Morton.
The one less than favorable theme to this years festival season has been good ole Mother Nature and some bad weather reared its ugly head on Sunday at Sonic Temple Music & Arts Festival. High winds on Saturday night caused the festival to cancel the entire Wave Stage lineup for Sunday due to damage to the stage. Also lost were sets for Chevelle, Bring Me The Horizon and the Distillers. Festival staff and security have been outstanding this year assisting guests during these critical times.
Weekend highlights includes; Serj Tankian of a System of a Down joining Tom Morello to sing Audioslave’s “Like a Stone” as a tribute to Chris Cornell. Maria Brink of In This Moment joined Papa Roach to sing a duet of “Gravity“. Pauly Shore made a guest appearance to introduce the Foo Fighters. The Foo Fighters are no strangers to special guests joining them as they welcomed John Travolta to the stage at Welcome To Rockville last year. Gojira had a memorable set as they were joined by Randy Blythe of Lamb of God during “Backbone“. Then guitarist Christian Andreu suffered minor injuries as flames from the band’s pyro reportedly injured the guitarist even though he completed the set.
A little bad weather certainly did not stop the Sonic Temple Music & Arts Festival from being one of 2019’s most EPIC festivals of the year. Its never to early to start planning for 2020!
