FALLING FOR FROSTFEST: THE FESTIVAL FOR MUSICIANS BY MUSICIANS

COVER PHOTO BY JABPHOTOGRAPHY

Tucked away behind some abandoned buildings and graffiti, stands a lone, open monument in Niagara Falls, New York. The Rapids Theater is barely ten minutes from the border of Canada and far enough upstate that the drive would take you through too many counties to count.

The parking lot filled in and people started gathering in the beautiful theater, the floor opened and the bands started to take the stage like each was willing to prove that they rocked harder. If you decided to take a turn around the theater and mingle with the numerous bands and fans, you’d find a man talking to everyone with a great smile, willing to talk anything and everything music. The man is Adam Drzyzga and he is the creator of Frostfest.

Frostfest is a festival curated by Adam as a showcase for local talent, a rock and metal festival for a community he had wanted to see on the stage. Frostbelt Entertainment was founded in November of 2022. The festival has become a moment of raising each other up with bands in varying levels of fame coming together to change music. Every show by Frostbelt Entertainment led up to Frostfest 2023, with 10 amazing bands lining the theater’s interior walls in perch booths, and watching as the crowd swarmed close to the stage to witness history.

The festival started with the first half of the line up of incredibly talented rockers leaning towards the alternative of the roster. Pale Hell was up first and opened the day beautifully, using their “chromatic bullshit” to light up the audience with a vibrating excitement with songs like “Hangman” and “Face Down In A Mass Grave”. I couldn’t have thought of a better catalyst to start the night.

When punk rockers, FaceFirst, took they stage, we were all still riding a high. Covering Blink-182’s “Dumpweed”, the band showcased the revival of punk rock with a setlist featuring some newly released songs by the band like “Speechless”. They laid a solid foundation for the next band that took the stage.

Without the Accent, a punk metal band from Annapolis, Maryland, took the stage with a setlist that featured songs like “Pulling Through” and "Sincerely Me” off their newest album Signals released in June of 2023. The moment they commanded the crowd to split and open up for the primal pit, the crowd listened and that was the start of the mosh pit the crowd had been anticipating since they walked into the venue.

There was no time to slow down as Alterist got in front of the crowd and effectively seduced them with a vampire-esq presence. The dark alternative metalcore band from Buffalo, New York was feasting on the audiences energy, playing their gothically charged setlist with songs like “Siren”, “Vampyre”, and “Medusa”.

Rounding out the first set of bands in the lineup, we were treated to Midwinter, a progressive metalcore band out of Cleveland, Ohio. When they looked across the audience, there was a buzz, an electric fire spreading through the crowd and we could only close our eyes and let the music take us. The band played “Origami Swans” which came out on the 28th and crowd favorites like “M.I.A.”. They have been working on new songs with the current line up, which had changed after Covid, as many other bands can relate to.

There we stood, halfway through the festival and still reared up for more. There was a buzz of anticipation in the air and when we were given the introduction to the second half of the show by Adam, we prepared for a much heavier line-up with the next five heavier metal bands.

Out of the fire and onto the stage, introduced by Adrian of Destroy//Create, Set for Tomorrow opened the second half with “the New Narrative” and “Vile Minds”. An instant success with the crowd, they knew how to command using their presence skillfully to the point of having every eye and ear on them mesmerized. The band from Richmond, Virginia, Set for Tomorrow went fresh off of Inkcarceration Festival this year to show off on the Rapids Theater stage.

Following amazing artists can be tough, but when the whole line-up is stacked to the brim by extremely talented musicians, it’s rather easy. Up before the audience next, before the lights could cool, was Perelandra, the post hardcore and metalcore band from Rochester, New York. Introduced by Jacob of Aphasia, they opened with “Never Going Back” and closed with the emotionally wrenching “A Chance To Live Forever”. Just having released “Taste of Betrayal” with Jacob, Perelandra is staying busy with shows sprinkled across the next few months.

How prepared were we for the next musician, I’m not entirely sure. The crowd new he had coming, most having seen him at least once before, and they thought they were prepared, but then Tim the Truth opened with “Inferno” and everyone pretty much forgot how to breathe. The singer-songwriter had a definitely nu-metal feel to his music, combining metal hardcore instrumentals with rap. The combination worked so well that the mosh pit was actually exhausted by the end of his set.

Rounding out the evening, Orange Grove Ave took the stage with “Burn the Witch”, “Toy Box”, and “All the Time”. After they took a break in 2019, the band came back this year with a vengeance. They released two new songs this year and have developed a strong fan base. The mosh pit that danced below them had a distinctly visceral reaction, as if the air was sucked from their lungs and replaced by the year long stress and anger that had been buried deep within. It was time to release it.

No better way to release it than going from moshing for one band to the last, Fight From Within. Introduced by Nik Falls of An Easy Death, Fight From Within closed out the night with an enthusiasm and ferocity. The upstate metalcore band showed us how to end a party, throwing a piñata into the mosh pit and letting the wild ones rip it apart with their bare hands. The discarded carcass of the piñata flew about across the audience way into the end of their set. Also fresh off Inkcarceration Festival, they release some new singles in May followed by their latest single release in July, “Reign”.

There was something tiring when the music finally ended. All that catharsis and energy spent on pushing all those negative things to the surface to be able to scream the lyrics to Tim the Truth’s “Find Myself” or Set for Tomorrow’s “Flaws of Nature” left us with space for new things. As the bands gathered their supplies and everyone started to grab the last of the merch from bands that they had now fallen in love with, there was a sense of community. The bands didn’t feel far away from the audience, they felt like us. That’s what Adam created and what Frostfest’s legacy is. It’s the way it reminds us how music brings us together.

Following Frostfest’s sold out success, Frostbelt Entertainment set their eyes for the next show in October. Frost Fright will be on October 21st at Evening Star Concert Hall in Niagara Falls, New York. Orange Grove Ave and Tim the Truth will also be performing at that, along side bands like If Not For Me and Nightmares. Take the trip and go experience what music can do for those that love it.