Rock Blogs from antiMUSIC's staff. Rocktober By Dan Grote

Welcomg to Blog n' Roll a place where antiMUSIC's staff brings the blog craze together with their rock n' roll adventures. Have a rock n roll story of your own? We're always on the look out for Fan Blogs too, click here to submit your story...  Now here is the featured Blog... Enjoy! 
 

Jackson, NJ (10-4-03) � It's October, and while that may mean many things to many different people, for the purposes of this article, that only means one thing: It's Fright Fest time at Six Flags Great Adventure. 

For those not native to the mid-Atlantic states, Fright Fest is a month-long Halloween celebration thrown every year by the local mega-coaster park, one link in the chain of Six Flags theme parks that spans the country and beyond. Every year, for a whole month, tourists come to hit the coasters by day, and by night they have the option of attending hayrides, circus stunt shows, �AND FAMILY-FRIENDLY RAWK CONCERTS!

Of course, rock, in the r-a-w-k, devil-horns-in-the-air, get-out-the-lighters sense of the word, is in the eye of the beholder, and as far as this beholder is concerned, the paid performers at Great Adventure put on the greatest contemporary Halloween-themed modern rock show this side of the music televizzle.
The party started at 4:30 p.m. (and repeated again at 6, 7:30, 9, and 10:30 p.m.) with an epic half-hour performance by the Zombie Stompers, a band that not only made itself up to look like the undead, but give the audience of kids from 1 to 92 what it wanted with a power-packed set featuring songs that kinda-sorta-maybe have Halloween-ish titles. Those forgotten gems of the alt-rock era included White Zombie's "More Human Than Human," Green Day's "Braindead," and Radiohead's "Creep." The latter of these songs featured the radio and granny-friendly edit lyrics, "You're so VERY special" (as opposed to f***ING, but you knew that). And for the mulletheads in the crowd, the Stompers trumped out �80s classics "Looks That Kill" by Motley Crue and "Kiss Me Deadly" by Lita Ford. When all was said and done, I was left wanting more, but my girlfriend wouldn't let me come back for the 6:00 show. 

Now, let me pull away from my own sarcasm for a minute. I'm not saying the Zombie Stompers were good. No, scratch that, the musicians themselves were all very competent. It was the singers that sucked. There were two of them, a guy and a girl. And from the first extended half-assed "Yeeeah" of "More Human Than Human," it was all downhill. With the exceptions of "Kiss Me Deadly" and "Hella Good," the guy did most of the singing. The girl just kind of skulked around stage in "ooh, I'm a creepy monster" mode, at one point bounding into the audience, cape flowing behind her, in an attempt to frighten small children. Frankly, it was like watching Mudvayne do community theatre.

I'd say it felt like the park pulled these two would-be singers away from strapping people into Nitro for a month just to let them perform, but then I did some research and found out there's actually an agency who books this act every year. Much of the entertainment for Fright Fest is provided by a company called DCA productions. Check �em out on the web.

But the fun didn't stop there. Well, the Zombie Stompers stopped there (until their 6 o'clock set at least), but now it was time for the Deadman's Party, a song and dance extravaganza. And what did this troupe of dancing Thriller-ized ghouls come out to? Would you believe Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life," that toe-tapping prayer for salvation from nothingness? RAWWWWK!

Hold on, wait, back to reality for a second. It wasn't actually the dulcet tones of Amy Lee and Paul McCoy the crowd was rawking out to. The dancers were singing. No, wait, the dancers all had head set microphones, and half the time they were off track with what was being sung. Using my brilliant powers of deduction, this could only mean that a bunch of studio vocalists went into the booth, sang whatever songs were on the agenda for the evening, and then the whole thing was lip-synched later. Diabolical!

So what other covered treats did the dead persons have in store for us? Well, you could say that the highlight of their performance was a Rob Zombie medley featuring both "Meet the Creeper" and his cover of K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "I'm Your Bogeyman." Seriously, is this what Rob had in mind when he wrote his songs? To have them become fodder for all-ages Halloween celebrations at theme parks? Poorly resung fodder, to boot? Then again, the man covered "Brick House," not to mention a K.C. and the Sunshine Band song, so it's kind of hard to question whether the man has a sense of humor. Still, how many grannies and grade schoolers in the audience know that portions of Rob's past work have been slapped with parental advisory stickers?

Like the Zombie Stompers, the Deadman's Party would resume at intervals throughout the night. Was the six o'clock set the same as the 4:30 set? Who knows? Probably. Did one of the dead men eerily resemble Screech? Most definitely. How does this make me fee? Well, like rock has been stripped down to its most perfunctory elements and repackaged so as not to offend anyone while corporate sponsors can still claim the music to be �edgy' or �hard.'  But then again, it was either that or "The Monster Mash" again and again and again. So I say rock on, Great Adventure, at least you're trying. By the way: Superman's Ultimate Flight? �meh.