Surviving Rocklahoma

We join this festival, already in progress

Day 3: Our Arrival

With the bulk of the travel behind us, we are a “short” 8hr jog away from our destination. Departing from Daytona, Florida, we can feel the surge of renewed energy as we awaken to the sound of waves crashing. We didn’t waste this unique opportunity to sleep with our balcony door open, in order to listen to the sea and breath the ocean air while we slept. There is nothing like waking up to the sound and smells of a beach. None that I can compare, thus far.

After a sound night’s sleep, we take a few moments to get some photos, load the car and set course for Key West. We missed two days of the festival due to last-minute lodging complications the week before and had to shave a couple of days off our trip in order to still make things work. This added more motivation for both of us to make sure we hit the festival this evening and maximize our time. With determination winning over both of our inner procrastinators, we make our morning pause to take in our surroundings and load into the car, and push forward.

However, just past Palm Bay, we learn to choose our words more carefully and we finally pay our penance for a perfect drive without issue when we hit a chunk of concrete that kicked up from a pothole in the bridge.

After a near panic attack and some excellent driving, by Angel, we were able to safely maneuver across several lanes of traffic in highspeed freeway traffic flow so that I can investigate. Fortunately, those annoying skid plates under the car, that we all hate working around, did their job and we were super lucky as it protected her car from any damage or anything to slow us down.

Finally, we’ve arrived! This boat is AMAZING! and we’ve got about an hour to get settled in before it’s time to hit the festival so we take a moment to get some photos and get familiar with the ROK Yacht.

Free of our seatbelt shackles and liberated from the confines of our vehicle, we decide we’ve smelled the ocean long enough and decide to eat something from it. You can not beat a fresh catch!

It’s time, we call ourselves a cab, and grab some sunset photos while we wait.

I have never, in my life, enjoyed waiting for a cab… until today. The view from the bow of our boat is breathtaking. The serenity that comes from watching the sunset suddenly adds validity to every sunset cliche I’ve ever heard. These are those roses that one must stop and enjoy.

Ok, enough of that. LET’S ROK OUR FACES OFF!!!

Rock Island Festival 2023 is underway, and the same spirit we know and love from Rocklahoma is very much present here. If you could take the classic ROK spirit we saw in its years past with the legends of eras past that still pulse with rock and roll and heavy metal, and ball it up and throw it onto a small island paradise, you’d have a taste of what we joined, in-progress, at the amphitheater just a stone’s throw from the coast guard. These guys who kept our heads banging on every mix tape in the late 70s through the early ’90s are still here living their best lives by doing what they love.

With Angel’s camera at the ready, we establish a base of operations. She heads for the exclusive areas we’ve been granted access to, thanks to the media credentials we’ve been granted by the festival’s organizers.

It’s with respect to this exclusive access that we are going to err on the side of caution in terms of what photographs we bring you from this area as we don’t want to get ourselves into trouble. Instead, in terms of some of the conversations I had with the artists we bumped into, I’m going going to limit the photos I gathered to those artists I actually got to speak with, hang out with, and/or invited me to share. There were a few, over the course of the next few days but those I spoke with on Thursday, may actually turn into a future exclusive in themselves!

From here, Angel began documenting the artists as they played on

This is the second year for ROK Island. The festival takes place in the Truman Amphitheatre.

The first year, brought many of the same artists that we have seen in Rocklahomas past, some of the same individuals involved in this festival in different capacities and roles as Rocklahoma makes a lot of the similarities, pleasant ones. The crowd here does feel very different from the ones we know in Oklahoma, where we see our festival’s attendance surge beyond 30,000 regularly. None of this is to take away from the one we will experience over the course of the next three days in Key West. The spirit is here, the music is here, and the artists are here and the dozens of folks I spoke with, as I work my way across the venue, agree that ROK Island is very much here to stay as a large portion of the festival attendees were returning after great experiences from the previous year.

This year’s festival did see one setback in the form of a lineup change that game from the previous week when Mötley Crüe’s Vince Niel, who was set to headline Thursday, was forced to cancel after discovering he had contracted COVID-19 less than a week before his scheduled performance. With himself and Wig Wam canceling, 38 Special and Lynch Mob stepped up and filled in respective slots.

Having seen Quiet Riot a few months previously at Rocklahoma 2023. I was stoked. They rocked the stage, despite a technical issue during “Run For Cover”. With the issue fixed, they’d go on for 12 songs, rocking the crowd and concluding with the staples “Cum On Feel The Noize” and “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)”.

The highlight for me was Rudy Sarzo’s bass solo. However, this could be in part because we caught up with him at Rocklahoma 2023 where he signed each of our guitars that we will be giving away this summer to a couple of ROK22 attendees.

Here we see him, at Rocklahoma, signing guitars donated by both Rocklahoma Bitches and Camp Rok-A-Vet.

Back to the present…

He was as gracious tonight as he was this past Labor Day and beyond as the guys made a point to stop, sign and get photos with as many of the fans as they could on their way to their trailers after their performance.

Slaughter would then come out and continue the energy with plenty of guitar mastery, including Mark walking across the stage with the mic in one hand while playing the guitar in his remaining hand. Their own set, spanning eleven songs beginning with “Mad About You” and a cover of Zepplin’s “Immigrant Song”, an insane drum solo from Blas Elias, and rounding out with “Fly to the Angels” and “Up All Night/ Won’t Get Fooled Again”.

More highlights such as this would carry on through the night as it heads more toward my rock and roll roots with southern rock staples, 38 Special. Fortunately, I was working and being the responsible professional that I promised I’d be. Because, if anyone was going to get me partying, tonight, it was 38 Special. And, they came close! They out to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”, leading into “Rockin’ Into the Night”, with a few classics before hitting their newer song “Back to Paradise” as well as a few covers before rounding things out with their 1980s hits “Caught Up In You” and “Hold On Loosely” before finishing out the night with CCR’s “Travelin’ Band”.

Normally, the after-hours is where we live and thrive. But we simply MUST get some rest. So we hail a taxi and make our way back to the boat to prep for a full day following. Tomorrow, we will be meeting some contacts at Smokin’ Tuna where we will be catching a few of their performances along with our first chance to actually see some of the island and the community that hosts this festival.

Over the next few days and weeks, We will have a separate page where the professional images captured during our trip will be able to be found. Due to agreements signed with festival organizers and artist representatives, we will be putting them in one location in order for us to ensure the photographs are shared properly and better protected from improper use.