Welcome to Rockville heads for the finish line in Daytona
And here it is: Welcome to Rockville 2024 enters its final lap. And Happy Mother's Day!
The weather for Sunday could not be better. A smattering of rain early but temps have generally been mild, topping out at a high of 80.
Today's bands to close out the fest will include Breaking Benjamin, Evanescence, Sum 41 and Slipknot.
Oh, and if you look to the southeast at say about 8:53 p.m., you might even catch the launch of SpaceX Starlink rocket from Cape Canaveral.
Check back often for observations about the scene on the infield, interviews with fans and a look at the array of non-musical diversions, among other dispatches from the heart of Rockville in Daytona Beach.
Everyone is buzzing about pickpockets
Six Colombian nationals were arrested Friday in a wave of wallet and cellphone thefts at the fest. Volusia Sheriff's deputies arrested two more people on Saturday night.
Facebook had a lot to say about it. RockVillians, a Welcome to Rockville fan page, had plenty of posts about the thefts
"So are we not gonna talk about the over 200 phones stolen? Cops arrested multiple people involved and are returning everyone’s phones to them, if you know someone who had their phone stolen tell them to have a friend call the phone! A detective will answer and get your phone back to you!"
"Police officer that we talked to said this is the biggest bust of stolen phones they’ve ever had in Daytona, that they’re sure that there were more people involved than they have arrested so far." ― Natalie Rousa
"Folks, I caught a dude doing this day 1 at Skillet . . . wearing normal clothes, but usually not fest clothes ( no bands or outfits, fest shirts, etc) they move laterally with no reasonable purpose ( not towards the stage or out of the area, just moving along bumping people. They almost always work in a pair or maybe 3 if one's the bag man. They usually work the edge of the pit and they will do a swipe along the outside of your pockets to feel an imprint. If you catch them? Its a simple hand slip in a mosh pit, totally normal." ― LJ Toles
Keep an eye on your stuff and your neighbor, people.
― David Wersinger
Sports fans feel the service squeeze at Rockville
A busy weekend of music at Daytona International Speedway has coincided with a busy weekend of sports nationally.
And the overlap, along with shaky cellular service, left thousands of fans at Welcome to Rock like me without many options in the infield when it’s come to sports updates. And with the NBA and NHL playoffs in full swing with games each day and night, it’s become a nuisance.
Tyler Saunders is just one example. An Indianapolis resident with rooting interest in the Indiana Pacers who also supports Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic, Saunders has found it difficult to follow his teams throughout the weekend.
“It’s been hard with no service, I really haven’t been able to keep up with the scores,” Saunders, who wore a Doncic jersey on Sunday, said. “The best service is by the Vortex Stage and the Inferno Stage, they’re closer to the grandstands. But all this area (at the Apex Stage) and over by the Octane stage are just dead zones.”
Perhaps with all the amenities the festival provides, a sports bar may serve the fans well next year.
“It definitely needs something,” Saunders concluded.
― Ryan Pritt
Pickpockets, Part II
Rachel Pikarsky had a message for the thieves that marred the first three days of Welcome to Rockville.
She stood in the middle of the crowd on Sunday, holding a cardboard sign high above her head, the words “Pickpockets, meet me in the pit” scribbled on it.
To hear the resident of Miami tell it, she had a much nicer one until security confiscated it Saturday night. A helpful bartender slid her the cardboard and a pen early on Sunday.
No matter the quality, Pikarsky, who had her phone stolen during Mudvayne’s set on Thursday, said the message was the same.
“I’m very, ‘Kumbaya’ but they have pushed me,” Pikarsky said. “I go to Rockville pretty much every year and this has never happened. This is a good community and it really sucks that someone is out there taking advantage of us but those aren’t our people.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by many fans like Pikarsky and Todd Mrazek, who witnessed another theft during Slaughter to Prevail’s show on Friday. Mrazek gave an eyewitness account of the orchestrated method of the thieves.
“We were in pit and he started bumping into people and he tried to pickpocket the guy next to me,” Mrazek said. “He was like hey he bumped into me, put his hand in my pocket and tried to pull my phone. I looked and (the pickpocket) guy had backpack on u couldn’t see through and I was like, ‘How is he allowed to have that in here?’
“He was brilliant, actually because his immediate reaction wasn’t to say, ‘No I didn’t,’ he just got violent. It averted the attention away from the pickpocketing to, ‘OK, have a situation here.’”
And for festivalgoers who seek safety and freedom within the walls of the show, it’s been an eye opening and disappointing experience.
“Everything is in the front (pocket), anything I care about,” Mrazek said. “I go to concerts all the time and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
― Ryan Pritt
Banana Man in the house!
During Primus’ set on Saturday evening at the Apex Stage, bassist Les Claypool shouted out the presence of a large group of fans dressed up like bananas who were moshing and crowd surfing.
Claypool called it one of the coolest sights he’d ever seen from stage.
As it turns out, the explanation for the number of yellow-clad, costumed rockers isn’t nearly that deep.
“It’s the cheapest costume you can possibly find,” one such fan, who requested to be identified as only, "Banana Man," said on Sunday. “You go to Wal-Mart and there’s hundreds of them by different companies and every year they get cheaper and cheaper. It’s like the reverse of inflation.”
As for the suit’s comfort in the late spring Florida sun?
“Oh, dude, it’s awful,” he said. “It’s horrible.”
Banana Man, who had blood smeared on his costume from an unruly pit earlier in the day, added that the costume has provided a sense of community between the canary clad crowd members.
“We’re all the same person. It’s like a hive mind.”
― Ryan Pritt
Ooh you're a holiday, such a holiday
For a lot of fans, Welcome to Rockville is a four day holiday.
For Kiera Coulson, and so many other fans like her, Sunday literally was.
Coulson spent Mother’s Day with her family, including her husband, 14-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.
“I was going to go without them but I couldn’t do it, I felt too guilty,” said Coulson, who was most anticipating Slipknot’s performance Sunday night.
She added that the Rockville tickets were a Mother’s Day gift.
“I love it.”
As too did the mother of our aforementioned friend, Banana Man, who brought his mother along as well. Preferred to be known as only, "Banana Man’s mom," her festival experience was certainly a bit different than her son’s as she preferred to stay far away from the madness of the pit.
“Clearly, I haven’t seen him much but he’s easy to spot,” she grinned.
She added that she was there mostly to see Evanescence whose front woman Amy Lee, is a mother as well.
Certainly, being a rock star gets you, “cool mom” status. And so does taking your son to see a bunch of them.“Do you see his dad here?” Banana Man’s mom posited. “I am the cool mom.”
― Ryan Pritt
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Final day of Welcome to Rockville 2024 in Daytona Beach
