M3 Festival 2010: Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia MD on June19th, 2010

Big hair, skinny pants, the days when men were men and boys were boys.. Okay rewind that bit, many of these boys looked like girls back then.

The second annual M3 Festival is now one for the books and what a success it was. The pavilion was sold out and the lawn was packed on a day that was full of sunshine and bands from the 80s. This festival is about 80s music and will always be about 80s music was the mantra for the day.

Bands such as Jetboy and LA Guns were back again this year while this year the Scorpions were headlining with Cinderella as direct support.

For us our day started out with Trixter on the main stage who I have to say look amazing and could easily blend in with an rock festival today. Unfortunately I wasn't into Trixter back in their heyday but nonetheless I did enjoy their set. From there we caught sets by LA Guns and Winger. The same LA Guns played the M3 Festival last year (there are two LA Guns bands out there now) but now on bass they have Kenny Kweens formerly of Beautiful Creatures. I hadn't seen him in years and he was a nice addition to the band. Have to say frontman Phil Lewis is looking better this year and I caught a photo of him taking a photo of us!

Winger were up next on the main stage. The only remaining member of Winger in the band is Kip Winger but don't hold that against them! Kip might be older but he still can rock out a show and definitely plays to the crowd in front of him. The last act I caught on the main stage was Vince Neil who is out supporting his new album . Vince looked great and sounded great. It was just very difficult to see him through all the fog on stage.. Up on stage with Vince were two members of Slaughter - bassist Dana Strom and guitarist

Up on the second stage I definitely wanted to catch sets by Bang Tango whom I thought rocked out a solid set and then Nelson. Nelson are the twin songs of Ricky Nelson - you know that "Travelin' Man". I had seen Nelson in concert at this same venue 20 years prior and one of the twins was sporting a concert t-shirt from that era. Nelson had Mark Slaughter playing with them which was a nice addition. Between bands that were playing we were close to having enough members of Slaughter present as well as enough members/former members of Beautiful Creatures present in order to play their own sets. Sorry though since Beautiful Creatures came out in a much later era. This was all about the 80s.