The volume was all the way up Friday night at Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain. That could only mean one thing: The 2010 Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival had invaded the mountain.
The high-octane heavy metal marathon entertained thousands of black-clad, tattooed metalheads starting in the late afternoon and carrying on well into the evening, with one volume-loving band after another taking to two stages.
Most came for the evening's big four - Halestorm, Stone Sour, Avenged Sevenfold and headliner Disturbed. Presstime prevented a review of Disturbed's show, but the band no doubt had a lot to live up to, considering the over-the-top theatrics of its counterparts.
Following Halestorm's frenzied set, Stone Sour took the stage around 7:30 p.m.
Led by singer Corey Taylor, best known for his mask-wearing shenanigans in the screamo band Slipknot, Stone Sour brings the noise with aplomb, but also knows its way around a melody.
This was evident on the band's rendition of its 2006 radio hit, "Looking Through Glass," a song that starts soft and progressively builds to a soaring crescendo. Mr. Taylor's vocals were spot-on throughout the 40-minute set, and he proved himself quite the showman with his good-natured taunting of the audience.
Avenged Sevenfold, meanwhile, began its set with a furious flurry of pyro and foreboding imagery, including a haunted-house backdrop and, most notably, a dummy hanging by a noose over the middle of the stage.


The band's performance was, in a word, intense, with plenty of guitar licks from hell and vocalist M. Shadows' guttural yelps.
The band was at its strongest on the song, "So Far Away," which was a tribute to former drummer James Sullivan, who died of a drug overdose last year.
Earlier in the day, up-and-coming metal acts Candlelight Red, New Medicine, Hail the Villian, Airbourne and Hellyeah played the festival's second stage.
"I think Hellyeah played best to the crowd," said Steve Frymoyer, 22, who came up from Reading with his friends to see the show.
After eight hours of banging their heads to the Uproad Fest lineup, Mr. Frymoyer and his pals most assured- ly made the trip home with a little ringing in their eardrums.
But that's part of the fun of these shows, isn't it?

Uong Jowo

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