I made my own assignment for Rock on the Range – pretend like this is a Motley Crue concert with a few well-known opening acts (Avenged Sevenfold and The Used). While the rest of the black t-shirt nation spent 2 days soaking in the sounds of dozens of indistinguishable hard rock bands, I rolled up into the Crew Stadium parking lot (15 friggin bucks for parking) at 6:30 p.m. on day two of the festival, just 2.5 hours before the Crue was set to kick off their headlining sets.
At this late hour, the tailgating was non-existent. I did spot a few empty beer cans and bottles on my walk to the front gates but only passed a handful of people, most walking back to their cars, apparently done with the festivities.
Met up with Kirk shortly after entering the front gates and the first thing I noticed was how long the lines were for the ATM machines. “$8 a beer! I had to use the ATM machine yesterday after dropping about $100 between food and drinks,” Kirk told me, explaining why the ATM machines were more popular than the t-shirt booths and beer lines.
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