Milwaukee Metal Fest was the first event of its kind I became aware of back in its mid-90s heyday, and it’s held an allure in my mind since I was a teenager. It’s late 90s rosters, after all, boasted the US debuts of such giants as Opeth, Children of Bodom, and Katatonia, and I vividly recall devouring the articles covering this event in the pages of Metal Maniacs and other publications of that era. Milwaukee Metal Fest has held a seductive draw that never wavered even as I became a steadfast ProgPower attendee.
The closest I ever came to attending it back in the day was then-promoter Jack Koshick’s ill-fated venture into Texas, November to Dismember, in late 1999. It was kind of a mess, but I did get to see In Flames, SOD, Samhain, Grey Skies Fallen, and October Thorns, to say nothing about Moonspell’s US debut. Sadly, Milwaukee Metal Fest ran out of steam after the 2004 edition, and my hopes of ever attending the legendary fest evaporated.
Enter Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta. He and late Black Dahlia Murder singer Trevor Strnad had entertained the idea of resurrecting the Milwaukee Metal Fest, and Jasta made good on that promise in the wake of Strnad’s death in 2022. The fest officially relaunched the following year after nearly two decades in hibernation at one of the venues most favored by longtime attendees – The Rave, which houses the Eagles Ballroom on its top two floors.
We knew upon entering The Rave that we would be in for a good time. The Midwest’s finest smiling faces, decked out in their corpse paint, pentagrams, and sleaze metal attire, greeted all attendees with a warmth that should send southerners back to the hospitality woodshed. The days threatened exhaustion though – imagine ten hours of methodically synchronized earspank spread across three multi-tiered floors of a structure that has more in common with a Scottish Rite theater than a rock venue.
Originally built as a performing arts center by the Milwaukee Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1927, The Rave is an architectural masterpiece in the Mediterranean revival style, featuring towering archways and eagle-human chimera reliefs overlooking the outdoor food court. Upon entering, you’d pass the smaller Rave Club, a 500-capacity room with housed the Copycat Media/ Reigning Phoenix Music stage, where most of the upcoming groups performed.
Just past that, in the Rave Hall, is the Blue Grape Music stage, which is where we’d see most of the mid-level acts, and which, for photographers, featured the most consistently favorable light. Up two flights of stairs from there is the centerpiece of the venue, the legendary Eagles Ballroom, where the main Sumerian Records stage was set. Boasting a capacity of 3,500, this stunning venue features an oval-shaped floor, balcony seating, a domed ceiling, and eagle-crested columns. It is on the Sumerian Stage where we’d see the biggest names on the bill perform.
Downstairs, in the Rave II, is where most of the vendors were hawking their wares. Vinyl, CDs, shirts, horror memorabilia, and the like were the order of the day, but the most common piece of merch vendors were selling was patches. Patches, patches, everywhere, sold by nearly every vendor, piled as high as many of the concertgoers were in this weed-friendly state. Vendorville is probably not quite as lit as it was in the 90s, when physical media was still the only option, but there were plenty of goodies to be found, including metal inspired coffees from a Floridian roasterie who works directly with bands – including Testament, GWAR, and the Cavalera brothers – to create their own custom blends that bands often sell while on tour.
Vendorville also gave me the only opportunity to chat with someone in my native tongue, with a vendor from the Mexican state of Oaxaca (it’s pronounced “wah-HA-ca”), where my parents just happen to have bought their retirement home, and where the absolutely celestial mountains grow some of the finest coffees I’ve ever tasted. I did not at all expect to see the legendary Latino love for metal represented in any way in the Midwest, but here I was conversing in Spanish with a Mexican metalhead dedicated enough to open up shop for a weekend in Wisconsin. Metal really does unite.
The Rave II is also where the artist meet-and-greets were held, though unlike at festivals like ProgPower and 70,000 Tons of Metal, these are sold individually as an upgrade for about thirty dollars per band.
The fest’s running order was choreographed meticulously, with most bands starting within a few minutes of another band wrapping their set. This is all cool and good, and allowed most fans to catch every band they’d wanted to catch, but fans were forced to battle their way through multiple sets of stairs. This is clearly not an issue for younger attendees, but the lack of elevators at the venue is a huge pain in the ass for folks with mobility issues and for fans like us, who are frightfully staring at the onset of middle age and have the joint pain to show for it. For their part, all – and I mean all – of the bands seem to be thrilled to have the opportunity to perform at such a prestigious event, and they treated fans with the sort of gratitude and respect that one might more readily expect but not be offered at a family reunion.
Day 1 – Friday
Though a pre-party featuring Flotsam and Jetsam, Jamey Jasta & Friends, Kcommm, and Sacrament did take place Thursday, Friday, May 16th was the first official night of Milwaukee Metal Fest 2025. Two dozen bands including Bongzilla, Enslaved, Down, Rotting Christ, Pentagram, Suicide Silence, and Paradise Lost threw down, and the ravenous audiences picked that shit up.
Given that my only previous experience with any Koshick related events featured the 1999 reunion of legendary sickos SOD, it’s oddly fitting that my first proper Milwaukee Metal Fest featured the next best thing. Friday night’s SOD Tribute included SOD originals Scott Ian and Danny Lilker and was rounded out by Scott Ian’s kid Revel on drums and one Jamey Jasta on vocals. Charlie Benante’s absence threw us for a bit of a loop, seeing as two other members of Pantera’s current lineup performed that weekend with other bands, but Revel did a hell of a job, especially considering that he’s only like thirteen years old.
Daddy Scott made it a point to announce to the audience how proud he was to share the stage with his kid, and together with Lilker and Jasta, the quartet tore through such irreverent classics as “Speak English or Die,” “Kill Yourself,” and multiple iterations of “The Ballad of Jimi Hendrix.” Their set was also peppered with a few covers, like Hatebreed’s “Perseverance,” Agnostic Front’s “Victim in Pain,” and SOD’s very own not-cover of “Diamonds and Rust.” The older farts of Not SOD (see what we did there?) closed their set by giddily high-fiving their pip-squeak drummer (whose grandfather happened to be a guy called Meat Loaf, dontchaknow) while an audience of oddly wholesome psychopaths “oooh-d” “aaahhh-d” over the kid’s devilishly tight performance.
Jasta even took a moment to acknowledge that despite whatever’s happening outside of The Rave, “Milwaukee Metal Fest is family,” echoing what Suicide Silence frontman Eddie Hermida, with his long silver hair and beard, told the audience during during their set: “It doesn’t matter what kind of metalhead you are. We’ll pick you up if you fall.” See? Metalheads aren’t so bad.
While we’re at a loss to think of a single band that didn’t bond well with their audience, Cleveland’s Chimera did so particularly well. The recently reactivated nu-groove/metalcore band eased their fans’ heartache when they returned to the stage after a nearly decade-long hiatus last year, and gave impassioned performances at not one but two fests this weekend. Chimaira dedicated their entire set to the fans who’d been on board since their formation in the late 90s, and they played with enough zeal to induce tears from the many 40-something men in the crowd who’ve been following Chimaira since their teenage years.
We overheard several diehards commenting that this was a set for the ages, with one dude insisting that he blew a load when the band tore into long-ignored deep cuts like “Lumps” and “Divination,” and based on the look on his face, we could not tell if he was joking or not. Metalcore may have its detractors, but there’s no denying that it’s had a profound impact on the people who love it. Chimaira’s set and the audience’s response to it cement that.
Progressive Viking metallers Enslaved also put on a performance for the ages. This extreme black metal warrior band from Norway played with an aggression that would make their raiding and pillaging ancestors proud. True to their violently masculine Viking roots, Enslaved’s riveting set was of the highest caliber and did justice to their extreme black metal sound that enticed nonstop headbanging and crowdsurfing throughout their entire set, the band’s skillfully intricate technique notwithstanding. This quintet has come a long fucking way since a thirteen year old kid named Ivar Bjørnson joined forces with Grutle Kjellson, who was only seventeen at the time. At this, one of only three performances on North American soil planned for this spring, Enslaved rewarded their fans with a set that drew from nearly their entire history, much to the delight of the fans who lament the infrequency with which Enslaved sails to our shores.
Stoner metal supergroup Down, formed in 1991, was the headlining performance to watch of Day 1, and the excitement in the crowd leading up to their performance was palpable. People were downright giddy at the thought of seeing metal legend/ longtime Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo in such a comparatively intimate setting, and Down’s set did not disappoint. The Eagles Ballroom was packed! The crowd surfers never ceased, and that absolute vortex of a mosh pit threatened to engulf the entire crowd. Down went for the jugular from the get-go and pulled out all the stops, focusing mostly on their classic debut album “NOLA.” All the while, a barefoot Anselmo sang with a passionate fury in his voice that was matched by his wildly flaring fists, narrowly missing bandmates Kirk Windstein, Pepper “Riff Lord” Keenan, and Pat Bruders on multiple occasions. Even as the band’s kids sat in awe at their dads absolutely owning the stage, Down played with the full confidence and knowledge that not only do they still have it, but so do their fans. A more perfect conclusion for the initial day could not have been curated.
Words by Crissy Dansak and Gonzalo E. Pozo
Photos by Crissy Dansak
