Mayhem Festival on Long Island: Underoath on the power of the triangle

At this year’s Mayhem Festival just about anything goes. The 2008 roster features Machine Head, Dragonforce, Underoath, Disturbed and Slipknot just to name a few, as well as the brand new band Ladder Up The Ass, a supergroup of sorts. And get this: These guys are so metal, they don’t even need guitars.

“It’s basically members of each band on tour on stage playing the triangle,” said Underoath keyboardist Chris Dudley. “I was down there a few minutes ago when they were playing trying to get a mosh pit started, but it didn’t go so well.”

This symphonic percussive assault is just one of the highlights of the festival, which made its way to Nassau Collesium on Aug. 6. With two outdoor stages and a main stage indoors, Mayhem has been the biggest metal experience in the states this summer. Dudley said he and his bandmates couldn’t wait to hit the road.

“Our manager asked if we were interested in touring with Disturbed and Slipknot, and we said definitely,” he said. “It has been awesome and all of the guys from the bands have been really cool. Last night we actually went bowling with the guys from Disturbed.”

Though he has been enjoying the tour, Dudley was hit with some bad news in July that still haunts him to this day. After talking about music for a while, the keyboardist opened up about how the death of Golden Girls star Estelle Getty changed his life.

“The guys in the band knew I am a big Golden Girls fan, so they woke me up that day and told me they had something important to talk to me about,” he recalled. “They said the lady who played the mother on the show had died and asked if I was OK. I was a little upset, but I pretended it really got to me.”

The highlight of the festival was the return of Slipknot to New York. It has been four years since the group released a CD, and with the Aug. 26 release of “All Hope is Lost”, fan couldn’t wait to see the boys from Iowa hit the stage. Sporting a new mask, lead singer Corey Taylor aka Number 8 got the headbangers moving by opening up with a number of classic songs such as “Before I forget”. Even though the majority of the audience had spent the who day in the mosh pits and listening to various bands, they caught fire the moment the band took the stage and showed Slipknot much love. The nine member of metal royalty unleashed an onslaught of audio assault with some of the most intense performances of the day, wrapping up the Mayhem invasion in Long Island.

Metal horns were hoisted proudly all day as bands covering the entire metal spectrum whipped fans into a frenzy. The tour will wrap up on Aug. 19 in Buffalo, and has been a huge success so far.