Pepper Rise To The Odd-Man-Out Challenge at Aftershock

September 14, 2014

Who booked a stoner-friendly hippie-baiting band of surfers from San Diego to play the almost all-metal Aftershock festival? It’s a confounding concept, but Pepper rose to the challenge in Sacramento on Saturday with a midday performance high on smiles and buoyant energy, riling up a crowd that initially didn’t seem to know what to do with a band far more in the Sublime world than the Rob Zombie one. They were all eventually won over, resulting in one of the strangest moments of the weekend – picture five thousand black-clad metalheads grooving along with chill vibes during a stoner-anthem feel-good jam. Weird, right? Nevertheless, the results were impressive.

Check out a gallery of the band’s performance below:

All photos: Johnny Firecloud

Pepper at Aftershock Festival

By Johnny Firecloud

Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival
Pepper at Aftershock Festival

Senior Writer

A senior writer at CraveOnline since 2006, Johnny has reported on music culture around the world for over a decade while setting a higher standard of reviews, editorials, photography and interviews with the industry's biggest names. Johnny has conceptualized and produced a wide range of original Crave features such as the long-running Band of The Month series, the CraveOnstage performance feature, the Music History video series and the Passport travel colum, among others. His Crave coverage spectrum has included Lifestyle, Travel, Film & TV, Politics, Sports, Fashion and Food writing.

A jack of all journalistic trades & master of several, you can also find his work on Antiquiet, Filter, Food Republic, Media Roots, The Owl Mag and beyond. His music photos can be seen on Instagram. Keep up with Johnny on Twitter at @JohnnyFirecloud, and on Facebook.