WhiskeyChick’s Road to Rocklahoma 2026: Festival Field Notes, Round One
It’s 105 degrees in the pit according to my necklace and I’m bawling my eyes out to Pennywise’s “Bro Hmyn” as bodies are floating over my shoulder all the way to the front. I’m home.
It’s been ten years since I made it back to Pryor, Oklahoma for Rocklahoma, the biggest independent rock and metal festival I’ve ever seen, and my emotions are all over the place. You’ll find plenty of folks sharing clips of their favorite moments and writing up what it was like out in the field, so I’ll spare you a lot of the repeat adjectives and just tell you how it felt in my heart. From the pre-party at the gates the Saturday night BEFORE you could even get into the campgrounds, and a FULL WEEK before the festival officially starts is like the biggest family reunion picnic and party you could ever ask for. In order to understand why I was crying, I have to take you back to the beginning of my Rocklahoma journey.
I first came to the festival as part of an artist’s team as merch & all around kitten wrangler in 2013. It just so happened that after making arrangements, and camping out for three days, promoting, making friends, and generally caring for five feral band members while learning the hospitality and down-for-anything crowd that calls these grounds home, a freak storm came through and we ended up waiting out tornado warnings in the concrete shower house for what felt like hours. The set got cancelled once the schedule got FUBAR’ed but through that experience I now had a few hundred brand new best friends that I still party with to this day.
In the years that followed I came back several times bouncing between media and artist support, and even did one year off the clock once my twins were old enough to attend. To be honest, the details of all those years blur a bit together, but the people stand out more than any lineup or weather condition. I don’t track the years by date, more by who I met and what happened. Mudlahoma was the year it rained so much our campsite became a 2′ thick swamp of sludge and we hid under the Axs tent shining flashlights on a central spot where a ton of local musicians led by Well Hung Heart were performing acoustic while we waited out the latest torrential downpour.
Then there was the year fan-ran Camp Jäger introduced us all to bands like Scattered Hamlet, RagDoll, and London’s Dungeon who stayed out in the field partying with fans all weekend long. Later down the road we would host these bands and be hosted by them in our homes as tours and timelines overlapped.
The year my son fell in love with Miss Rocklahoma from afar. The year I finally found an artist that made me tongue-tied when we first met (Neil Fallon of Clutch if you must know). The year guitarist Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal sprained his ankle and someone brought him to my camp to rest and recoup with a good meal and an NA drink… he was sober at the time and we had a great time talking about the logistics of navigating that while on tour. The year I saw Jerry Wilman running in his undies to raise awareness for neurofibromatosis. We lost Jerry a few years later to the condition and every year now we walk the Knotty Mile in his honored memory, along with anyone else we miss and mourn when we all get together.
We’ve lost a lot of friends over the years who I only knew because of this little party in the field. As Adam Richmond of Surviving Rocklahoma said best “we hope to see all of our friends come back every year, but if we don’t then we’ll carry their memory on our shoulders.” That punched me right in the chest because of how deeply he meant it, and how we ALL carry our loved ones through this field.
So as I sang, shouted, screamed along to “Bro Hymn” I did so with the memory of so many Rocklahoma family members on my shoulders front and center, right next to the pit, and I cried in so much gratitude for having a space like this. A place like this. OUR Rocklahoma where we all lay our hearts out and trust each other to take care of us. We deal with the conditions, and we support Sharon and Dave Giencke, the festival owners, as they hold true to what this festival REALLY means to us all. We protect each other and this sacred ground.
I’ll have a full set of reviews photos and videos coming soon, but I still have one more day out in the field that’s going to end by celebrating 40 years of Slayer’s “Reign In Blood” with the best metal fans on the planet. If you’re here today, meet a stranger and make them your family. If you’re thinking about going next year, just commit already. Join the online discussion groups. Tell folks you’re new here and they’ll adopt you into their crew lickety split.
Life happened, and ten years away went by alarmingly fast, but here this weekend it feels like the festival saved my favorite spot just for me.
