On October 11, Exit 111 brought generations together in Manchester, Tennessee. And a great time was had by many joining together in camping and music.
Having gone to a few festivals, with one not too long ago, I was incredibly impressed with the ease of getting into the camping spot and having our wristbands. If one thing, I appreciated the most, is having those things in advance on me before arrival.
As a teenager during the late 80’s and early 90’s I couldn’t fathom going to concerts, let alone festivals and found myself missing out on some of the great ones during that time, such as Anthrax, Cheap Trick, Guns’n’Roses and a few others – but let me just tell you how excited I was to see that those two bands were on the list to play at Exit 111.
It was a bit challenging to pick and choose which band we wanted to see between the 3 stages during the 2.5 days. On Friday we opted for Anthrax, and Killswitch Engage, and catching parts of Slayer, Black Label Society, 10 Years and Seether.
Saturday also presented itself with a bit of “OH MY GOSH” I don’t know which I want to see more. We started off with Alien Weaponry, Fever 333, Nothing More,
Sunday, we kicked it off with Tetrarch, From Ashes to New, catching some of Thrice and Alter Bridge before heading to see Skillet and then catching a break for dinner. Sadly we missed out on Of Mice and Men, Ministry, Lamb of God and the Deftones.
Some of these definitely came down to crossing off my living list to see, while others are my current top faves and I had not seen before or I had seen them but wanted to see them again.
The one downfall was that there was only one merchandise tent, making the lines incredibly long and therefore no merch was bought. Food was reasonable but we opted to not purchase drinks within the festival due to pricing – I always go for camping for reasons.
And yes, the experience was amazing and I am looking forward to seeing how they will (hopefully) top that next year. But let me also point out that Exit 111 was on a mission to saving lives.
Not only did they highlight service members each day and acknowledged those serving this country, but they created awareness around suicide. Shaun Morgan from Seether played an acoustic set – and the whole event was given money back to prevention and awareness.
I am hoping to hear that they’ll be back next year – bridging the cap of generations with music and supporting causes in their endeavor.
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