BOARDWALK ROCK FEST DAY 1
Boardwalk Rock Fest Day 1, Ocean City Boardwalk, Ocean City, MD 5/17/25.
With the newly founded Boardwalk Rock Festival boasting an incredible lineup, fans came from far and wide excited to get the festival started. With some big names spread out throughout the entire day, people were looking forward to seeing acts such as Def Leppard, The Struts, Halestorm, and last minute fill in Rob Zombie. The Struts were an early day favorite running all over the stage and getting the fans dancing early. They played an all time hit of “Body Talk” with the 3rd song, and the guitarist turned around and shook his butt towards the crowd. By song five they were able to get the crowd singing along with “Dirty Sexy Money”. After The Struts finished up the crowd made their way over to see Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, and his band Mammoth WVH. To no one’s surprise, the guitar solos were incredible, even going into a Gojira riff. Wolfgang said to the crowd “I bet you guys didn’t expect to hear a Gojira riff, we go hard when we want to”. On the Lightning stage after Mammoth WVH was 90’s icons Everclear. They asked the crowd if there were any true 90’s fans, to which everyone exploded in cheer. When they played “Shimmer” they had the audience sing the chorus and were blown away by how loud everyone sang back at them. After Everclear on the Bolt stage was another 90’s iconic band, Bush. Early in the set singer Gavin Rossdale came over to the side of the stage, hopped down, ran through the photo pit and, jumped into the crowd. He made his way all the way down to the soundboard really engaging with the audience before coming back onto stage for the remainder of the set. The highlight of the day (and weekend) for me was the Rob Zombie set. Coming out to stage on a giant “Zombie” tombstone, he sang his whole first song from way up in the air. He soon came down and hissed at the sunlight because it was a rare sight to see Rob Zombie outdoors in the sun. Throughout the entire set he brought out monsters and robots and even demons. With the last song he played “Dragula,” a song that has inspired generations. After a really tough act to follow, Halestorm took the stage on the Bolt stage and continued to bring an incredible energy. Everywhere you looked there were people on each other’s shoulders. With a crowd stretching the entire length of the beach, Def Leppard came out and played “Rock, Rock”. They did a great job engaging the fans all night long and had really cool light set ups. When they closed out with “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” there was a sea of phones recording and singing along. It was an incredible day and everyone was excited to do it again on Sunday.
Shot and Written by Jonah van Bemmelen.
