Editorials
5 Must-See Bands For Each Day At Rock On The Range
Tomorrow through Sunday in Columbus, OH, rock and metal fans will be descending upon the Columbus Crew Stadium for the 2014 Rock On The Range, which is celebrating its eighth year. With 60 bands performing this year, including headline performances from Guns N Roses, Kid Rock, and Avenged Sevenfold, it can get a bit hectic trying to decide who to see and at what time. So, I’ve whipped up five suggestions for each day that I feel are “must-see” acts. Head on below to check them out!
Kill Devil Hill – 12pm on the Jagermeister Stage
Featuring Rex Brown (ex-Pantera) and Vinny Appice (Dio, Black Sabbath), this supergroup band boasts some seriously stellar talent.
One Ok Rock – 3pm on the Jagermesiter Stage
This band is huge in their native Japan. Like, seriously huge. Since you never know when the next chance you’ll get to see this band, it’s worth it for this reason alone to see what other countries have to offer to the genre.
Killswitch Engage – 3:35pm on the Main Stage
Having seen these guys a few times, I can assure you they put on one hell of a fun show! Plus, they’ve got Jesse Leach back on vocals, so you know you’re into that!
Living Colour – 5:45pm on the Ernie Ball Stage
Do I really need to explain this one? Any chance you get to see this band is a chance you should be leaping on!
Down – 7:15pm on the Ernie Ball Stage
You thought Rex was the only ex-Pantera member to appear at Rock On The Range? Nope! Vocalist Phil Anselmo and his metal group Down are locked and loaded, primed to bring their New Orleans brand of ferocity to the stage and you better believe you should be there!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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