Ready to rock

The music was so loud Saturday concert-goers could feel the vibrations through the ground.

Children and adults alike crowded into the Lenoir County Fairgrounds on Saturday to rock out at 99.5's Xfest.

Twenty-somethings played hackey sack just inside the gates, kicking a small, bean-filled bag back and forth between them. Men and women with dyed hair, tattoos and backwards baseball caps crowded in front of the main stage, waiting for the next band to start playing. A woman with pink and blonde pigtails sat on a large man's shoulders, talking until Decyfer Down took the stage.

Susie Rogerson was at the festival with Bonnie Keaton and her 11-year-old son, Brian, for one reason: Buckcherry.

"I brought my little boy to see Buckcherry," she said.

Brian, who said Xfest was his first concert, said he likes the California-based band for a fairly straightforward reason.

"Well," he said, "they've got good music."

Brian, who along with Rogerson was wearing Buckcherry merchandise, said he was having a good time at the outdoor rock concert, listening to other bands such as Christian-rock group Decyfer Down.

"Just being here," he said of what he'd enjoyed before his favorite band took the stage.

Aaron Koehn stood near the beer tent with band mate Chad Hannah. Koehn said he and Hannah were taking part in the rock contest.

What was their band's name?

"King Kong and the Return of The Rubber Bicycles," he said.

Though Koehn said he'd been to last year's Xfest, he said he wasn't really interested in seeing any of the bands playing at the concert.

"We're just going to have fun, to get crazy, to have a reason to be retarded," he said.

"Not that we need a reason to," Hannah added.

Vanessa C. Shortley can be reached at (252) 559-1076 or vshortley@freedomenc.com. Check out Vanessa's blog at http://vshortley.encblogs.com.