Rob Zombie, Gwar and Shinedown kick off day one of Welcome to Rockville with some help …
Rob Zombie, Gwar and Shinedown kick off day one of Welcome to Rockville with some help from Lynyrd Skynyd
Dan Slater
May 19, 2025
Live Reviews
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Lynyrd Skynyd
Shinedown
Welcome to Rockville
Thursday marked the first of four days of what they call “America’s largest rock festival”, Welcome to Rockville. The event is held in Daytona Beach, Florida. Now in its 13th year, this year Linkin Park, Green Day and Korn are amongst the headliners. Dan Slater is on ground to bring The AU Review day-by-day coverage.
Not unexpectedly, Daytona Beach is hot. By which I mean it was 30C by 11am, something of an inconvenience for those punters who started queueing early, not realising the gate time had been put back to 11:30am. Their enthusiasm quickly began to melt as fast as their corpse paint and latex suspenders.
Those that survived the trial by helium were free to roam around the large grounds lined with food & merch stalls, quirky stores, and a variety of themed watering holes as well as the official churn-through-‘em bar lines. Prices are fixed throughout for the selection of beers both regular (Bud Light, Michelob Ultra) and craft (Elysian Space Dust IPA, Stella Artois), wine (Maynard Keenen’s Caduceus label has a dedicated stand), seltzer, soft drinks and water.
As befits a 2025 festival, the whole event is cashless, with reverse ATMs on hand to charge up your card if cash is all you brought. And with the Welcome to Rockville app you can populate your own band schedule and keep an eye on clashes, while notifications of hot news, line-up changes or special offers assault your phone at regular intervals. The most welcome ping today was that Social Distortion have been added to the bill tomorrow – Rock n’ Roll!
The first half-day was spent in orientation, wandering around on the tarmac of the hallowed NASCAR circuit. Fairground rides, VIP areas, mist fans, and shaded chill-out zones with screens showing the action all kept things interesting. The distances between stages are manageable, maybe a 10-minute walk between the Apex to Octane stages (not counting crowd-weaving, fist bumps and being distracted by cool visuals), although the heat slows everything and everyone down.
The early bands drew hardcore fans while the rest of us sheltered from the sun. Things became bearable around 6pm, just in time for Gwar. The highlight of any festival, Gwar took to the Inferno stage with their usual gusto, taking only minutes to decapitate a sieg heil-ing Elon Musk to the strains of “F*ck this place”, his arterial spray delighting the front ten rows of fans, some of whom immediately left the pit, their mission accomplished. Undeterred, the champions of gore went on to destroy Donald Trump (“El Presidente”) and a pregnant Taylor Swift (“Womb with a View”) before closing with the classic “Sick of You”.
Three Days Grace, now with their original singer re-joining the band alongside his replacement, saw the younger fans racing to the Apex stage to bask in their chiselled good looks. Meanwhile, at the other end of the ground, Body Count were tearing things up with fewer ballads and greater anger. “No Lives Matter” and “Necessary Evil” were followed by frontman Ice-T donning a head stocking for new track “Psychopath”, his paen to horror movies.
Speaking of horror, the day’s highlight for this viewer wasgore director and all-round goth rock legend Rob Zombie, the well-rehearsed stage setup and backdrop visuals producing a multi-sensory spectacle to accompany his acrobatic stage antics – not bad for a 60 year-old.
Old tunes (“Living Dead Girl”, “Lords of Salem”) mixed with really old tunes (“More Human, Than Human”, “Thunderkiss 65”) and Rob’s gentle ribbing of the security guards for not allowing crowd surfing. It happened anyway. Strangely, it was only after the “Dragula” encore that he introduced all the band members, as the crowd was drifting away.
Not well known in Australia, local Floridians Shinedown headlined the first night, with extremely loud fireworks and a guest appearance by Johnny van Zant and Rickey Medlocke of even more legendary Jacksonvillains Lynyrd Skynyd to perform their track “Simple Man”.
A special way to top off a successful first day at Rockville.
This was day one of four. To see how things pan out from here, check back in with the AU. For more details about this event head to welcometorockville.com
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Dan Slater
Thursday marked the first of four days of what they call “America’s largest rock festival”, Welcome to Rockville. The event is held in Daytona Beach, Florida. Now in its 13th year, this year Linkin Park, Green Day and Korn are amongst the headliners. Dan Slater is on ground to bring The AU Review day-by-day coverage.
Not unexpectedly, Daytona Beach is hot. By which I mean it was 30C by 11am, something of an inconvenience for those punters who started queueing early, not