How do you take a pretty kickass tour and make it more awesome? Make the last date of tour an all day festival at one of the best venues in California. The fully fledged Rockstar Energy Drink Taste of Chaos Festival assembled on a hot Saturday in mid-summer at The San Manuel Amphitheater, in the thick of a concert tour and festival season packed with options. Fans still gathered in droves for a show in which more than half of the bands could have headlined and sold out their own tours easily. Although tons of cool food trucks, countless craft beer options, and a carnival type atmosphere helped make it a fun day out, it comes back to being all about the music. It’s a testament to the organizers who put this bill together, but there seemed to be many heads in the venue for each band, all screaming along with every word. For fans of a certain age, this event was the holy grail of millennial teen angst and passion. Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday are two of the signpost bands of that era, and coupled with The Starting Line, Saosin featuring Anthony Green, Senses Fail and The Early November on the bill might be just too much for the hearts of early 2000s heartstrings to take. Add in 90s post-hardcore kings Quicksand, The Get Up Kids, Reggie And the Full Effect and many more, and you have an incredible day of live music. Captured for Ghost Cult by Melina Dellamarggio of Melina D Photography in her final assignment before passing away in August, you get sense of the spirit these bands still embody, of music that still matters, and a mutual love shared by fans of all kinds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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