ROCKLAHOMA ’09: EPIC FAIL

Our friend Allyson at Bring Back Glam has been reporting from Rocklahoma all week. She’s obviously a big fan of the event, given that a) she runs a site all about glam and b) she wrote the text for the Rocklahoma coffee table book that came out last year.

But she’s been making (perfectly valid) complaints about this year’s fest for the past ten months, taking issue in particular with this year’s line-up. And as it turns out, she was totally correct: attendance at this summer’s edition of the event was apparently abysmal.

Check out this photo Allyson took of the crowd. This was at dusk; if it was Ozzfest, everyone who skipped the second stage would be starting to pile in right about this time. No such luck for Great White, even though there was absolutely no chance of being burned alive at the outdoor venue:

Now, even if you hate hair metal – and I’m sure quite a few of you do – Rocklahoma has been successful in the past. So maybe it’s just the failing of this year’s line-up, which included non-hair metallers such as Anthrax, Overkill, Anvil, Metal Church and Saxon, in addition to acts like Twisted Sister, Stryper, Warrant, Ratt, Skid Row, Lizzy Borden, Jackyl, Nelson (Nelson are still around?!?) and Beautiful Creatures.

This was the third annual Rocklahoma, so presumably it’s been a much more successful event in the past. But the organizers better figure out what the fuck went wrong if they wanna keep it going in years to come.

Head over to Bring Back Glam for all of Allyson’s reports from the show, plus more photos of the very, very low attendance level.

-AR