MUSIC

Verizon Wireless Theater presents Taste of Chaos Tour featuring Thursday. With Four Year Strong, Bring Me the Horizon, Pierce the Veil,  Cancer Bats.

ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK TASTE OF CHAOS continues to stake its claim as the preeminent winter rock package tour. Always an explosive, in-your-face affair, ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS features today’s biggest and on-the-verge of stardom hard rock bands. Blaring, boisterous and brutal, this year’s tour will be no different. Heralded by Florida’s Backstage Pass as “delivering some of the best known acts in the rock 'n roll world," past RTOC performers have included a who’s who of this decade’s most popular rock bands including My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Rise Against, Deftones, Killswitch Engage, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Used and over three.

Tour co-founder Kevin Lyman, always with his ear to the street and his hand on the scene’s pulse, chose this year’s cutting edge lineup after watching many of these same bands explode on the 2008 Van’s Warped Tour. By taking fan feedback to heart and personally handpicking artists that he feels will be breaking out in ’09, the lineup includes headliner THURSDAY, as well as BRING ME THE HORIZON, FOUR YEAR STRONG, PIERCE THE VEIL (all of whom will rotate their spot on the bill throughout the tour), and CANCER BATS. In addition, one local Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands winner will open the show at each stop.

“After listening to what fans had to say during Warped Tour and watching many of these bands with thousands of fans watching them perform,” Lyman explains, “these are the bands rock fans want to see. And I believe they’re all on the brink of breakout success.”

Last year, the Asbury Park Press praised Lyman for his forward looking approach to the tour, writing: "No wonder the Rockstar Taste of Chaos is known as the 'Winter Warped Tour.' Much like the highly successful summer rock jaunt, Rockstar Taste of Chaos is affordable and offers a wide range of bands. Lyman, who assembles the Warped Tour lineup, goes out of his way to put together a package of punk, hard rock and true alternative acts for the bill."

This year, fans can expect a low ticket price (between $20-25 per ticket) as well as the return of the fun-filled concourse offering a bevy of fascinating distractions in between sets guaranteeing that the pandemonium will begin as soon as fans enter the venue.

Tour co-founders, John Reese, Lyman and Darryl Eaton state: "We are very excited about the great bands and concourse activities planned for the 2009 North American Tour. ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK has been a great partner helping us bring fans a great package and a big show at a very fan-friendly entrance price. We’re really proud that the RTOC has become an important event on music fans’ calendars in the long, cold winter in the U.S. and Canada."

ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK Marketing Director Mike Kelso states, “Live music is very important to ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK and for the past four years the worldwide success of ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS has been instrumental in the success of our brand.”

With nearly 300 worldwide dates over the past fours years, playing in over 20 countries including the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, Japan, France, Mexico, New Zealand and Italy among others, ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS, the only worldwide lifestyle festival tour, is back with another onslaught of winter dates in the U.S. and Canada.

Head over to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtM6bwcOOgQ  to view a ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS EPK featuring all of this year’s acts.

For the last decade, headliner THURSDAY has released groundbreaking, essential albums like 2001’s fan-favorite Full Collapse and 2003’s breakthrough War All the Time, while always playing riveting shows garnering hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide. As the band approaches its tenth anniversary, it has dug deep to recapture the original fervor and fire to make its most honest and sincere record to date. Hailing from New Brunswick, New Jersey, the band recently signed with Epitaph Records and will see its fifth studio release, Common Existence, in stores February 17. The record was produced by former Mercury Rev member Dave Fridmann who has also produced The Flaming Lips, Weezer, Ed Harcourt, Café Tacuba, Phantom Planet, and OK Go.

THURSDAY frontman Geoff Rickly says of the new album: "This is the first time I've looked at a lot of life's events from an adult perspective." Pioneers of modern punk, THURSDAY is one of the biggest influences and leading bands in the emerging post-hardcore scene. Election Day 2008 also saw the band release a limited edition split LP with the band Envy.  www.myspace.com/Thursday

British metalcore outfit BRING ME THE HORIZON’S latest release, Suicide Season is now out on Epitaph Records. It’s not often scene kids, screamo fans and metal-heads can agree on a band, but after BMTH’s explosive rise in popularity, culminating in their breakout performances at Vans Warped Tour this summer, fans of all three genres have found their new favorite band. Hailing from Sheffield, England, Oliver Sykes (vocals), Matt Nicholls (drums), Curtis Ward (guitar), Matt Kean (bass) and Lee Malia (guitar) formed BMTH in 2004 and began setting the UK ablaze with blistering performances across the country. By 2006 the band had already won Kerrang!’s "Best British Newcomers" award and toured with groups like Killswitch Engage, Aiden, and Bleeding Through.

Later that fall the group unleashed their debut album, Count Your Blessings, which further cemented their place among the metalcore elite. BMTH explore the limits of its sound and abilities, resulting in tracks that will make you think as much as bang your head. Suicide Season is the perfect soundtrack to a life spent on the edge, where the rules don’t apply and darkness rules. www.myspace.com/bmth

Calling Worcester, Massachusetts home, FOUR YEAR STRONG has been making a name for itself as one of Alternative Press’s “100 Bands You Need To Know in ‘08” and Rolling Stone’s “40 Bands You Need To Know”. Frequenting the Smartpunk Top 10 sales and Purevolume’s “most played” charts, the band has garnered nearly 2 million plays on MySpace by simply making music the way they want it to be made. The band’s debut full-length, Rise or Die Trying, on I Surrender Records continues to generate an excited buzz across the Web, catching the ears of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz. Earlier this year the band announced its partnership with Decaydance Records, joining the ranks of bands like Panic at the Disco, The Academy Is…, and Gym Class Heroes. Equal parts melody and mayhem; however, its true talent lies in the ability to use these parts to create one exciting, infectious whole. www.myspace.com/fouryearstrong

San Diego’s PIERCE THE VEIL is a progressive post-rock quartet whose debut A Flair For The Dramatic on Equal Vision Records incorporates elements of fractured hardcore, prog-rock and metalcore into a unique amalgam of heavy music that is bound to turn heads and blow minds. Recorded by Casey Bates (Portugal The Man, Gatsbys American Dream) in Seattle, Washington, Pierce The Veil’s debut is a labor of love that the band put every ounce of creativity into. www.myspace.com/piercetheveil

Toronto’s CANCER BATS is fueled by a burning desire to rage harder, play louder and have more fun than any other band. Mixing hardcore, southern metal, and punk rock into a lethal rock & roll explosion, the four-piece has never rocked as hard as it does on its sophomore release Hail Destroyer. Co-produced by Eric Ratz (Big Sugar, Theory Of A Dead Man, Billy Talent), Kenny Luong (Billy Talent), and Greg Below (Alexisonfire), and recorded at Vespa Studios, the album features an edgier, much heavier, and finely tuned collection of songs. Featuring guest vocals by Cancer Bat bro’s Ben Kowalewicz (Billy Talent), Wade MacNeil (Alexisonfire), and Tim McIlrath, the no-holds-barred tracks on Hail Destroyer will definitely get the ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS party off on the right earsplitting note. www.myspace.com/cancerbats

Back as the title sponsor, ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK will once again be sampling its products, in addition to coming up with some great surprises for concert goers. Other sponsors include Ernie Ball, NAMM, DiNG and MySpace Music, as well as Alternative Press who will produce the Official Tour Program.

Ernie Ball’s 4th Annual ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS Battle of the Bands returns! Attention unsigned bands, sign up for the once in a lifetime opportunity to play live on the main stage of the 2009 ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS TOUR! Play alongside Thursday, Bring Me The Horizon, Four Year Strong, and Cancer Bats for the ultimate career-altering opportunity. Signups go live December 15th at www.battleofthebands.com , the premier website that gives your band limitless opportunities to play live.