This past spring's Taste of Chaos tour arrived in South Florida smack in the middle of Winter Music Conference, on a weekday, and at the Bayfront Park Amphitheater in downtown Miami, no less -- awkward timing and location all around. (Not that the WMC/Taste of Chaos tours overlap, haha, just that it made getting to/from/around the venue a surreal hassle!)
Next year's edition takes place a little earlier in March, and is scaled down in size, and further north, at Revolution, in Ft. Lauderdale. I think these are good moves, all around, because it precludes the need for a cheesy big-name headliner. This year, I would hazard to say, the offerings are even a little more friendly to those of us over the age of 18 -- no 30 Seconds to Mars (2007), no Bullet For My Valentine (2008).
Instead, the headliners are Thursday, the awesome, awesome forerunners of the early 2000s post-hardcore scene -- right before all that stuff became really about ridiculous hair and ridiculous band names. Their appearance on the tour will come right after the release of the band's much-anticipated fifth studio release, Common Existence, due out in February.
Rounding out the bill are the currently uber-popular Bring Me the Horizon, from Sheffield, England; Four Year Strong, from Worcester, Massachusetts; Pierce the Veil, from San Diego; and Cancer Bats, from Ontario. Also,
one Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands winner gets to perform at each stop
of the tour -- as we get more information about that, we'll post it
here.
Tickets will remain at a relatively low price for a big-ticket,
multi-band show like this, around $20 to $25, and presale begins
Friday, Dec. 12 at 10 a.m., at www.rockstartasteofchaos.com.
-- Arielle Castillo
(Thursday photo by David Schrott, via Victory Records.)
