Review and Picture credit – Marie-Christine Quirion
Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival – SOLD OUT for the third consecutive year.
After Sonic Temple in Colombus Ohio in May, Danny Wimmer Presents were back in Ohio only 7 weeks later with Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival. With 75 000 tickets sold, this was the third consecutive sell out.
With headliners like Limp Bizkit Pantera and Slipknot, plus Volbeat Highly Suspect Megadeth In this Moment, Motionless In White Lamb Of God Bush and many other talented heavy and not so heavy metal bands, the success of the 2023 was assured.
The venue layout was a bit different than in previous years, to give easier access to the 3 different stages and all attractions on site. Because it was a music & tattoo festival, Danny Wimmer Presents transformed the old State prison into a tattoo convention where more than 65 artists were competing for 1st place and where rockers could catch a glimpse of their favorite tattoo artist at work or get new ink on the spot. The fans could also enjoy a little bit of shade with a Blood Prison Haunted House Tour or a free tour of the infamous prison to see spots where the movie The Shawshank Redemption was filmed. This is what makes this prison so famous over the years.
Inkcarceration is a festival but also a chance to give back to the community. Many charitable partners like Take Me Home, F*CK Cancer, Save22.vet and To Write Love On Her Arms were able to raise funds on-site. The Taylor Foundation partnered with Living The Dream Foundation to provide a dream festival weekend for a young fan battling a life threatening illness. On top of that, one lucky fan was granted the unique opportunity to enjoy a private Ohio State Reformatory Tour including ‘’Haunted Hang’’ with Corey Taylor. Fans and bands, young and old, had the chance to experiment and make memories of a lifetime all weekend. Here are some of my favorite weekend highlights:
Tom Barber from Chelsea Grin proposed to his fiancé on stage and she said ‘’maybe’’ !?
Gavin Rossdale the lead singer of Bush seemed to spend more time singing in the crowd and meeting the fans than being on stage – we love this!
Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit invited a young boy from the crowd to sing ‘Nookie’ with him on stage and later that night walked and climbed to the riser for the soundboard and cameras to be closer to the fans.
The Russian band Slaughter To Prevail was one of the most anticipated bands of the weekend. The side stage was overflowing with a HUGE crowd of fans, they initiated a wall of death, with the lead singer smashing his head so hard in the intensity of the moment that he had to deal with a bleeding forehead for the rest of the performance.
The 8 member strong Ohio band Mushroomhead overwhelmed front line security for their stage by constantly singing and jumping into the crowd, mixed with the constant waves of crow surfers. Constantly swapping singers and musicians, water drums, water guns and entertainment on stage, the band is worth seeing live more than once to be able to enjoy the whole performance.
Randy Blythe, the lead singer of Lamb of God and his new haircut lit up the crowd with a ton of pyro, but I have to admit that the no dreadlocks headbanging seemed a bit weird after all these years.
In This Moment showed up at Inkcarceration with new material, a new intro and new costumes. Unfortunately, they played only 6 songs in their whole hour because of all the prep and acting necessary on stage.
As usual, Motionless In White rocked the crowd with their most famous hits, a lot of pyro and a surprise guest invited on stage, the metal vocalist & vocal coach (you maybe know him from TikTok and Instagram) David Benites, to add some dirty vocals to their song ‘Reincarnate.’
Andrew Rockhold, Crown The Empire’s lead singer, jumped on stage very nauseous and pretty sick due to food poisoning. He shared with the crowd that he had ‘’questionable sushi’’ from a grocery store the night before and was now paying for his bad choices. Between Dramamine and 2 sips of water, he didn’t let it phase him and gave the fans an incredible performance.
Traverse The Abyss from Scranton, PA won a ton of new fans with their music, but also their amazing way of talking and entertaining the crowd. On the smallest stage of the venue, they packed this section of the venue, and rocked it as though it was the main stage. The guys put the security guards to work with their waves of crowd surfers, their guitarist played in the middle of the crowd, the lead singer jumped into the mosh pit, then brought (by accident) the ‘mosh pitters’ with him back stage (you should have seen the face of their security officers) and even started a circle pit around the giant tent where rockers can go sit to relax and enjoy some shade. Traverse The Abyss deserves to be heard and seen live; they are VERY entertaining!
For the night owls, whose party never ends, the band Silly Goose drove their small trailer and instruments from Atlanta, Georgia to play every night in the parking lot for free. They obviously got a lot of attention from the fans and the media on site and you’ll be able to catch them live at Louder Than Life in September, not in the parking lot this time, because they are part of the line up.
Inkcarceration 2024 edition should be announced this summer and to attend to Louder Than Life (Kentucky, September 2023) or Aftershock (Sacramento, October 2023), keep an eye on the Danny Wimmer Presents social media or visit:
