Three days into my first major festival, I had finally learned how to move through the Gatlinburg Convention Center. I knew which staircase would save a minute, where the stages bled into the hallways and how long I could stay for one set before risking the next. Naturally, I figured all of that out on the final day.
Sunday felt different before a note was played. The rush was still there, but so was the knowledge that every set brought the weekend closer to done. I had spent Friday and Saturday chasing bands, photo opportunities and conversations through the building. Now the rooms were familiar. So were some of the faces. The Mountain had gone from a festival I was trying to understand to a place I was already going to miss.
The Day 3 schedule did not offer much time for sentiment. Bad Marriage, Luke Robert and The Cruel Intentions filled the early afternoon before SteelHeart, Vixen, John Waite, Warrant, .38 Special and Rick Springfield took the main arena toward closing time. There was still a full day of music ahead, and the first guitars were already waiting.
A place to land
Covering a festival like this means long days, late nights and very little time between the last ringing guitar and the next morning’s schedule. We want to sincerely thank our housing sponsor, The KiN Way, for giving us a place to recharge throughout the weekend and making this coverage possible.
Our gratitude goes to Channing and Rhiannon McGee for supporting independent music journalism and helping put IronTrakksMedia in the room for three packed days on the Mountain. You can find The KiN Way on Facebook or Instagram to learn more about the work they are doing and booking with them.
One more round, then SteelHeart lets it fly
Sunday began with familiar names earning another look. Luke Robert returned as one of the weekend’s promising younger performers. Bad Marriage stepped up for its third set in three days, including the late Saturday assignment created by Bret Michaels’ cancellation. Three performances could have turned into repetition. Instead, the band treated the final appearance as another chance to hit the room, not a contractual lap around songs everybody had already heard.
The Cruel Intentions came back too, with Oslo singer Lizzy DeVine out front and the band’s Scandinavian sleaze-rock bite intact. I had compared them earlier in the weekend to a collision of Guns N’ Roses and Ugly Kid Joe, but by Sunday they had started to register on their own terms. The guitars had enough dirt to scrape away the convention-center polish, and their third-day appearance carried none of the sluggishness that had begun creeping into my legs.
Then SteelHeart took the Mountain Stage and Miljenko Matijevic opened his mouth.
That voice remains a physical thing. The high range gets the attention, as it should, but the set would not have worked if it were only a contest to see how long Matijevic could hold a note above everybody’s head. He moved between the hard attack of “Blood Pollution” and the exposed melody of “I’ll Never Let You Go” without treating either one like a museum piece. “Everybody Loves Eileen” carried the snap of the first SteelHeart record. “We All Die Young” landed with the extra recognition it gained through the film “Rock Star,” where Matijevic supplied part of Mark Wahlberg’s singing voice.
The movie connection was not tucked into a medley or handled as a novelty. “Blood Pollution,” “Livin’ the Life” and “Stand Up” put three Steel Dragon songs near the front of the set, then the band turned back toward “Gimme Gimme,” “Everybody Loves Eileen” and the ballads that made Matijevic’s range famous. Seven songs, roughly 50 minutes and nowhere for his voice to hide. It did not need one.
Sunday had its first real jolt.
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Vixen refuses to coast
Vixen hit the Creekside Stage next and never settled into the easy pace a third-day crowd might have forgiven. Rosa Laricchiuta sang with a range and force entirely her own. She was not onstage to imitate the voices attached to the band’s earlier eras. Her phrasing sat heavier in the songs, especially when the set moved from “Rev It Up” and “How Much Love” into “Cruisin’” and “Cryin’.”
Britt Lightning handled the guitar work with a sharp, modern edge while Roxy Petrucci kept the backbeat planted. Julia Lage played bass with the kind of movement and intensity that makes a photographer start tracking one musician even when three other things are happening in the frame. Add her to my list of favorite bass players to capture live. She earned it.
Touring keyboardist Tyson Leslie rounded out the stage. I remain unconvinced that he sleeps. He seems to be constantly playing, traveling or working on the next thing, and he gave Vixen another layer without crowding the guitars. The midset run through “Runnin’ With the Devil,” “I Want You to Rock Me” and “Perfect Strangers” let each player stretch the room before “Streets in Paradise” and “Edge of a Broken Heart” brought the set home.
The important part was not that Vixen still could play these songs. Nobody in that arena needed proof of basic competence. It was the pressure they applied to them. Petrucci and Lage kept the rhythm section muscular, Lightning refused to sand the edges off her guitar and Laricchiuta sang like the songs belonged to the people onstage now.
John Waite and Warrant carry their histories
John Waite walked out with a shorter haircut that brought him closer to his 1980s look. John Waite, not John Wick—although the cut made the joke difficult to resist.
His 45-minute set moved through several lives without stopping to explain them. “Midnight Rendezvous,” “Every Time I Think of You,” “Head First” and “Back on My Feet Again” represented The Babys. “When I See You Smile” carried Bad English into the room. “Missing You” needed no introduction at all. As soon as that melody arrived, years collapsed into a few familiar notes and a voice people recognized before the lyric did anything.
The surprise was “Tears,” a Peter Criss cover tucked between “When I See You Smile” and “Act of Love.” On a weekend built around recognizable catalogs, that choice kept the set from feeling too orderly. Waite has enough hits to play only the expected songs. Pulling in “Tears” gave the middle of the performance a slight turn and made the better-known material hit differently when it returned.
There was no attempt to separate The Babys, Bad English and the solo years into neat chapters. Waite simply sang the songs as one body of work. That suited him. His voice has weathered, but not in a way that empties the melodies. “Every Time I Think of You” still carried its ache, and “Missing You” remained more complicated than the giant chorus people remember—a song built around denying the exact feeling the singer cannot shake.
Warrant followed with Robert Mason at the microphone and classic-era members Joey Allen, Erik Turner, Jerry Dixon and Steven Sweet around him. Was it Jani Lane? No. If that was what somebody came expecting, shame on them. We all miss Jani, but we also know he was one of one. Mason’s job is not to impersonate him. It is to front the band standing onstage now and give those songs the force they require.
He did. “Mr. Rainmaker” and “Down Boys” established the pace before “I Saw Red” pulled the room toward the more vulnerable side of Lane’s writing. “Big Talk,” “32 Pennies,” “Blind Faith,” “Machine Gun” and “Sometimes She Cries” kept the set from becoming a three-song summary of Warrant’s career. “D.R.F.S.R.” sounded as blunt as its title, then “Heaven” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” set up the inevitable closer.
“Cherry Pie” arrived with video and images of Jani worked into the presentation. That choice matters more than pretending the band can erase his absence. The men who helped build Warrant are still playing the songs, Mason is carrying the microphone on his own terms and Lane remains visible in the show. Respect does not require freezing a band on the worst day of its history.
Southern rock before birthday cake
My final concert set of the weekend belonged to .38 Special. The wild-eyed Southern boys opened with “Rockin’ Into the Night,” which is about as direct a statement of purpose as a band can make at 8 p.m. on the third day of a festival. They did not ease into the hour. Guitars came forward, the rhythm section locked in and the first chorus cleared whatever fatigue remained from Sunday afternoon.
The 15-song set reached across the catalog without pretending the band stopped recording years ago. “Wild-Eyed Southern Boys,” “Back Where You Belong” and “Teacher, Teacher” sat beside “All I Haven’t Said” from the 2025 album “Milestone.” That newer song gave the performance some present tense. It also made “Second Chance” and “Like No Other Night” feel like parts of a living set rather than entries checked off a greatest-hits package.
The final run did what it was supposed to do. “Fantasy Girl” opened the stretch, “Caught Up in You” tightened it and “Hold On Loosely” finished my time in the arena with one of those choruses almost everybody knows, even if they cannot remember the last time they chose to play the record. The room supplied the rest.
Rick Springfield was scheduled next for a birthday-closing set—77 years old on August 23, which is a pretty good reason to put your name at the top of a Sunday bill. I made a different choice. After three days of concrete floors, camera movement, meals squeezed between sets and more amplifiers than I could count, I went looking for food, a chair and comedy.
My apologies, Mr. Springfield. Happy belated birthday.
When the loud people become material
Punchlines & Backlines had been running at Smith & Son Corner Kitchen throughout the festival. Sunday’s guest was Chet Roberts of 3 Doors Down, and he was hilarious. Jim Florentine also took a set while Eddie Trunk and Don Jamieson were in attendance, putting all three hosts of “That Metal Show” in the room at once.
I hoped to get a photograph of the three together, but Eddie and Jim headed out right after Jim finished. Festival timing got me one final time.
The regular Punchlines & Backlines crew delivered their sets too, and the noisy people at the bar returned from Saturday night. This time the comedians did not extend the same mercy. The interruptions became material. After listening to those people talk over the show for two nights, hearing them get roasted was satisfying in a way polite journalism probably should not admit.
So I will leave it at this: they earned the attention.
Afterglow
Monday arrived too soon. Susan and I cleaned the room, loaded the car and went searching for breakfast. When I saw the Shoney’s sign, the decision had already been made. It had been a long time since the locations near home closed, and the breakfast bar still tasted like those 2 a.m. stops after the clubs—different hour, same exhausted appetite.
The ride home took us through Knoxville, another first on a trip crowded with them. My first Gatlinburg visit. My first major festival. My first bear encounter. Several bands I had waited decades to see, plus a few I had not expected to care about until they were playing in front of me. More important, it had been a genuinely good weekend with my wife. Susan let me disappear into the work I love and came along for every mile of it.
Two days after the festival, Tennessee lost one of its defining voices. Dolly Parton died on August 25 at age 80, reunited with Carl after a life that gave far more than songs to the state and the world. News like that changed the temperature of the memories almost immediately. We had just spent a weekend celebrating musicians whose work followed people across decades. Dolly showed what that kind of connection could become when talent, humor and generosity all belonged to the same person.
Godspeed, Dolly. Thank you for the music, the books placed in children’s hands and the example you left behind.
April and everyone at The Mountain Music Festival built something that held together through four stages, schedule changes and three long days. The crews kept the rooms moving. The musicians and comedians gave us reasons to stay after our legs had started arguing. Channing and Rhiannon gave us a place to recover. Susan made the trip feel like more than an assignment.
By the time we left Gatlinburg, my camera cards were full and my mind was still sorting through what had happened. I was grateful, worn out and already thinking about next year.
Until next time, get on trakk with IronTrakksMedia.
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