January 2022

Photos by Steve Thrasher, Danny Wimmer Presents Co-headlining the night was the “King Freak” himself, shock rock extraordinaire Rob Zombie. Flying in from Hungary, where he has been directing a reboot of the Munsters, specifically to perform this show, Zombie provided cuts from his lat- est album while also diving back into the well to play old school favorites from him and White Zombie. Zombie’s shows are known for having incredible live energy, and this was no exception, as the crowd was partying from the get-go to tracks like “Living Dead Girl”. As always though, the coolest moment of the night was dur- ing “Thunder Kiss ‘65”, when Rob had everyone put away their phones to create, as he put it, “an old fashioned rock show”. Finally closing out the evening was the reason why fans from all over the world have flocked to Daytona this week- end, Metallica. This set was basically “everything but the Black Album”, which allowed for them to play not just crowd pleasers like “Master of Puppets” but also favorites that rarely get the chance to be played live like “No Leaf Clover”. Metalli- ca’s phenomenal mixture of theatrics and heaviness made for an incredible show, as their two hour set seemed to pass by in mere seconds. Given that the show was at a festival, most pits were able to open up where they rarely do at the band’s arena shows, which gave a new thrill to those brave enough to go in them. One interest- ing anecdote from the set came from the encore, when James Hetfield made the comment “given where we are, it would not be fitting if we didn’t play this song” before launching into a wild performance of “Fuel” that featured enough pyrotech- nics to give the audience sunburns. Over- all, this was a phenomenal show that left everyone who came to see Metallica play from far and wide something that was in- stantly memorable. Photo by Sully Smith Photo by Steve Thrasher 18