Staind rocked Carolina Rebellion as the sun went down over Rockingham.  The band released their seventh album back in September of 2011.  Its been a bit of a contentious couple of years with Staind.  Front-man Aaron Lewis has spent a lot of time on his solo work.  Lewis released an EP entitled Town Line that was released in March of 2011.

Lewis' solo work resembles country music more than the rock that Staind is known for.  Staind's hit songs tend to be the slower, more acoustic sounding tracks like Outside and Its Been Awhile.  So, it is not a huge surprise that Aaron Lewis would want to dig deeper into that world.

Nevertheless, despite the troubles with Staind, they still delivered a strong mix of heavy and light in their set.  With a guttural roar, Lewis started the set by asking, "WHAT THE F--- IS UP?" Then, after the band's first song, Lewis returned to a normal voice and remarked, "there's a lot of people here," in a very matter of fact tone.

See photos from the Staind performance here.

When Shinedown took the stage at Carolina Rebellion, 16 bands had come and gone.  Many of them brought fiery anger to the stage.  Shinedown was just happy to be there.  Front-man Brent Smith told the crowd that they were in too good of a mood to act hardcore.

Shinedown cemented their spot in the stratosphere of rock with the release of their fourth album, Amaryllis.  The album was released on March 27th and sold 105,000 albums in its first week.  That made it the top rock album and fourth highest selling album in the country.

The success of Amaryllis and 2008's platinum selling Sound of Madness firmly establish Shinedown as one of the most successful rock bands of the new millenium.  Being a powerful band in their prime, it makes sense that Shinedown would headline a festival like Carolina Rebellion.

Behind the scenes, Shinedown proved to not only be one of the highlights on stage at Carolina Rebellion, they they were also a highlight off the stage.  Brent, Barry, Zach, and Eric are four of the nicest guys you will meet in music.

Woody, Wilcox, and Mel sat down with Brent and discussed their new song, Bully, and an old favorite, Simple Man. 

Click here to see more stage photos of Shinedown at Carolina Rebellion.

Shinedown backstage meet and greet photos.

 Pictured:  Munky and Head

As we reported earlier, Brian "Head" Welch, a co-founding member of Korn, joined the band on stage at Carolina Rebellion.  Front-man Jonathan Davis introduced Head:

"For a long ass time, this spot right here has been very lonely, very very lonely.  I want to bring out one of my truest and oldest and most beloved friends to come out and have some fun with this. You guys ready? My boyyyyyyy!”

The band then played Blind from their self-titled debut album.  Welch joined the band in 1993 after three members of L.A.P.D. (James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and David Silveria) decided to form a new group.  After recruiting Jonathan Davis to front the band, they decided to call themselves Korn.

Korn went on to release six platinum records with Head.  The band won 2 Grammys and became one of the biggest bands in rock and the leader of the "nu metal" subgenre.

Head left Korn in 2005 after a conversion to Christianity and battle with addiction.  He left a $23 million contract on the table.  The performance at Carolina Rebellion was the first time he played with the band since 2005.

It is unclear whether this is was a one time reunion or if Head will rejoin Korn.  Head is currently playing with Love and Death and they just released a new EP.  On the reunion, Head tweeted, "So amazing last nite playin w/KoRn. Reconciling w/family is always good. So much love on stage & from fans. Many tears shed. God is love."

"Halestorm is no effing joke.  Lzzy Hale is THE BEST female rock vocalist out there.  No arguments.  None.  The band was incredible."

DZL is convinced.  Saturday afternoon, Halestorm did a lot of convincing for the thousands in attendance at Carolina Rebellion.  Halestorm went on early in the day, at 1:25 PM, but electrified the crowd.  Lzzy has an incredibly strong voice and fellow female singer Amy Lee of Evanescence agrees:

"She has a beautiful voice...We've been a couple of festivals on this run, actually and I've never see her live before, I've heard their music.  But, I went and checked her live to see if this is the real deal.  She is the real deal.  She has a voice like power.  She's powerful."

"Its like a cult following.  Anybody that follows some female fronted bands, its like, their crazy.  We respect the crazy.  But, they're out of their freaking minds."

On stage photos of Halestorm

Meet and Greet photos with Halestorm

Woody, Wilcox and Mel appeared on stage to introduce Chevelle.  Check out what the crowd at Carolina Rebellion looked like.