Day 1 was the longest day and I can honestly say one of the most amazing days at Chicago Open Air. I am going to go through the bands we saw (we tried to get everyone but Bill and I did our best. We did miss a few bands here and there because we had to do things like eat) and I'll leave a few comments of what we thought. Chicago Open Air is a rock festival. These are pretty much all going to rock bands doing what they do best. (Also, I did not have a photopass, so these shots are all taken from the pit!) I also may have dyed my hair because why not?

The other cool thing that happened is that they have giant screens so if you were in the seats you can see the band. Between bands, they were streaming pictures from instagram. 5 of mine showed up:

Onto the bands:

Through Fire

We saw them Thursday night at the Preparty and they also opened the festival. They were great both times and I highly recommend checking them out. Plus, I happened to run into the lead singer during Chicago Open Air and snapped a picture with him!

Butcher Babies

I love girl rockers. There are so few of them in this genre, and they rocked it.

Trivium

Bill and I disagree on them. I loved their set. He was surprised how “heavy” they were from what he had previously listened to.

Drowning Pool

I'll be honest. I wasn't sure what to expect with them. I had heard good and bad things with the new lead singer, but he did awesome. The crowd was insane during their set.

In This Moment

Their set was amazing. My only complaint is the costume changes took forever and they didn't have a great segway between them. Marilyn Manson had the same issue. However, she (In This Moment) was still pretty awesome.

Here's a video of some of what we saw:

Of Mice & Men

Again, hard rocking set. I enjoyed it. 🙂

Ministry

This was an interesting set. The lead singer kept yelling at the sound people and generally looked unhappy. That being said, they played their old stuff and I think the vocals could have been a bit louder but it was okay to my untrained ear.

Chevelle

Chevelle is Bill's favorite band. We actually own all the CDs. As in bought them not pirated them or downloaded them off the internet. We went out and bought them all, so he could listen to them on his commute. He has been wanting to see them live for years. I can honestly say they did not disappoint!

Rammstein

Man, oh man. What can I say. Well, first watch this video. It'll give you a small glimpse of what the show was like.

I cannot describe how good this show was. I mean, it started with fireworks.

Then they were lowered to the stage:

They may have blown fire out of their mouthes (yes, it was amazing):

They also poured sparks and fire down onto the stage:

And we rocked out to fire coming from the audience, from the ground and from the top of the stage:

I honestly cannot describe how amazing this show was. I've done 20+ years of concerts. I can tell you I will never ever ever seen anything this amazing again. I was floored. I've been a fan since 1994, and I knew they put on a good show. I never realized how good. You had fire, you had fireworks, you had pyrotechnics — I mean all the makings of an amazing show. I understand why people flew in just for this show from all over the country! If you ever get the chance to experience (because it is an experience) Rammstein, you have to go. I know I will. The encore was the best too:

As you can see, Day One of Chicago Open Air was absolutely packed. It was insane. It was amazing. It is hard to put into words several days later. I survived it and tomorrow you will have to read about Day Two!