Full catalog of photos can be found here.

Rockfest isn’t just a festival, once you’re there, it becomes somewhat of a community of music lovers. Language barriers and different tastes mean nothing once you enter the quaint little town of Montebello.

Waking up every morning to the sound of heavy metal, sound checks and more and more people flooding into such a small town, to make the biggest weekend it sees all year. Vendors galore selling out of most stock by the end of the weekend, people yelling non-stop in excitement, it’s all a part of the rockfest community.

The lines to get into the stores and even into the shows are inexplicably long and show the real dedication of the fans in attendance. Standing there for hours to get that front row spot, or even just to stand at the back, hear the music and absorb the atmosphere.

Thursday night is a relatively tame warm up to the weekend, with small bands playing, but still many people in attendance. Friday morning is quite the eye opener for the early birds who set up camp on Thursday, watching people flood in and seeing a town of a couple hundred, turn into jam-packed streets that never sleep.

The main stage could not have been broken in by a more energetic, happy, engaging band, other than the Mad Caddies. Waking everyone up with their horn instruments, upbeat ska songs and wicked attitude – they set the bar high for upcoming acts. In unison all the way to their sunglasses, these guys were dancing and jumping around and played upbeat, energy fueled ska from start to finish. There was no slow build up for these guys, it was straight to the point. They even went so far as to make the trumpet sounds deeper, by accompanying it with a plunger. Just all around fun. When the vocalist wasn’t engaging the crowd, he was shakin’ his hips and his “boobs.”