2014 YELP 365 CHALLENGE - 152/365…read more
This year was the first annual Self Help Festival held at the NOS Event Center in San Bernardino. It's a one day music festival for metal and hardcore fans. Band at this year's festival included:
A Day To Remember
Bring Me The Horizon
Of Mice & Men
The Story So Far
Memphis May Fire
Attila
The Word Alive
Stick To Your Guns
Issues
Letlive.
Terror
A Skylit Drive
Hands Like Houses
Beartooth
Hundredth
Rotting Out
My boyfriend and I purchased our tickets ahead of time, and got the general admission. The website had some RIDICULOUS service fees...almost $20 extra in fees PER ticket! My bf paid almost $100 for our GA tickets. They also had two VIP packages available, which came with some Self Help Fest merch, meet and greets with some of the bands, etc.
One thing that really annoyed me was the lack of details/information. I felt like we didn't know very much going into the festival, and even when we showed up, we weren't sure as to where to go. They would not announce the times each band would perform at. We were driving all the way out from Santa Monica and just wanted to arrive in time to see the bands we liked. The ONLY way we found out about the performance times was through a photo that Memphis May Fire had posted on their Instagram. If it weren't for that, we would have never known what time to arrive! By the time MMF had posted that picture, we had already missed Hands Like Houses, which sucked. And then thanks to traffic, we got to the venue right as Memphis May Fire was ending. Basically we paid $90 to see one band - Of Mice & Men.
The venue was very odd. The NOS Event Center is one of those big event spaces, like a county fairgrounds of some sort. They have multiple buildings, multiple areas, etc. and can easily hold multiple events at once. Heck, there were actually horse races going on at the same time as Self Help Fest!
NOS's parking was $15 for the regular parking. I believe you could pay more to park closer. The parking people were friendly, but gave no directions on how to get to Self Help Fest. My bf and I were lost, and killed a good 10-15 minutes walking around trying to figure out where the music was. Eventually we heard the music coming from a distance, and followed our ears to the entrance of the festival.
We got our tickets at will call, went through a quick security/bag check, and entered the festival. There were people EVERYWHERE. This is probably the largest festival I have ever attended besides Warped Tour.
Self Help had 2 stages - indoor and outdoor. We didn't even know about this until it was posted on Memphis May Fire's Instagram. We also had no clue where the indoor stage was... There were literally no signs ANYWHERE indicating where anything was, which was really frustrating for first-timers. Luckily Of Mice & Men was performing at the outdoor stage which was visible from the entrance of the park.
We made our way over to the outdoor stage, which already had thousands of people standing around, waiting for OM&M to perform. I usually like to be front and center, but with a concert of this size there was NO way I was even getting close enough to the pit. We were pretty far back but people were spread out and I was able to see the stage decently.
OM&M's performance was not the best I've ever seen. Austin Carlille, the lead singer, would NOT stop screaming "CALIFORNIA!" and replacing song lyrics with the word "California." It was really irritating and I swear he must have said it at least 50 times. I also felt like they didn't sound as put together or as clean as they do on their recordings. It was just a mediocre performance and I was not wow'ed by it.
The last two bands after OM&M were Bring Me The Horizon, who I definitely did NOT want to see after having a bad experience seeing them nearly 6 years ago, and A Day To Remember, who I like, but don't know well enough to really recognize a lot of their songs. My bf doesn't listen to them so we decided to start heading out.
Before we left, we had to check out the merch tables. I was determined to get some new CDs to add to my collection, and ended up walking away with an autographed copy of OM&M's new album, and a new CD and poster from Hands Like Houses. After that, we decided to leave around 8:30pm - MUCH earlier than we had anticipated on leaving. We actually spent WAY more time driving to and from San Bernardino than we spent actually watching bands...which was kind of a bummer.
Overall, my boyfriend and I were'n pleased with Self Help Fest. Fortunately 5 of the bands (2 of which are our favorites) from the festival will be performing at House Of Blues this Wednesday, so we are going to that to get the real experience we had expected from Self Help Fest. Maybe it was because this was the first year the festival was put together, but I can definitely say some major improvements need to be made in the future to make this a much better event.
