Who Should Rock The Mississippi Valley Fair in 2022?

The 2021 Mississippi Valley Fair is over.  Thursday night was our night with Shinedown and Alborn.  17,000 people filled the grandstand to enjoy a perfect night of rock.  Cool.  What's next?

The unveiling of the MVF lineup typically comes out in early spring and is one of the most anticipated announcements of concerts for the year.  6 days of huge nationally known acts coming to play in the Quad Cities.  For us, the announcement day is all about which day are we going to have our rock.  And yes, it is "day" not "days".  I'd love 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 days of rock.  But we know that isn't going to happen.  Jason Aldean had 25,000 people and Pitbull was even more.  The fair will always have more country than anything else but will always have a day of rock, and a day of pop.

You can be the next Alborn.

Before we get into the main act, let's take the time to once again talk about Alborn.  This was their biggest stage to date and they took advantage of every minute of it.  They filled the stage and the sound definitely filled that venue.  A great job by those guys.  (Reminder, you can see them for FREE Sept 3, at our 2nd Anniversary Concert & Party.  Details here!)  So you want your band to have that moment of glory as well.  You'll be able to.  Once again this spring at the Fair Grounds will be a Battle of the Bands with the grand prize being opening on the big stage.  Once the details on how to get your band involved come out, I'll be sure to let you know!

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Who won't play at the MVF?

Let's get this out of the way first.  For everyone that is already commenting "Metallica"...it won't happen.  Those guys are charging $90 a ticket for just them at Soldier Field.  They aren't going to play the MVF with 30,000 on a ticket that breaks down to about $20 a night.  With that said, prove me wrong Shawn!  The other rock band that I would also put on this list, but maybe give them a 1% chance would be the Foo Fighters.  Again, they are selling out huge venues at $100 a pop.  A chance, sure.  But on the list, not really.

These bands need to be big enough to bring in 20,000 people.

With the size of crowds that the MVF brings, this can't be a lot of the rock bands you and I love.  Hey I love Halestorm, Seether, In This Moment, Nonpoint etc. as much as you do.  But those are the type of bands we are going to bring to the Rust Belt (working on all of them!) for our 2000 rock fan shows.  So who can fit in that big enough for 20,000 but not so big they can do more than that?

One last question I'm not really sure of...

How heavy can this show get?  Shinedown rocked, but will it get to another level of rock.  Cause a band that would put 15-20k in there no problem, would be Slipknot.  But, will the MVF get this heavy?  The vast majority of folks at the fair Thursday night were there because they wanted to see Shinedown and Alborn.  There were some however, that were there cause they bought a fun card for the week and wanted to check out the show.  Imagine 80 year old Betsy rolling into a Slipknot show by accident.  It makes me smile, but I'm not sure if that is something they want to bring to the party.

These bands are the right fit for the MVF in 2022.

So where does that take us as we look for the next rock act in 2022?  This is the list I put together.

• Awesome but maybe to heavy:  Slipknot, Five Finger Death Punch, Disturbed, Korn, Godsmack, Rob Zombie
• Fantastic but can they pull in 17k:  Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Papa Roach, Mudvayne, The Offspring.
• Could bridge the gap between young, old, country and rock.  Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and I'll add in Foo Fighters and that 1% chance.

Anybody I'm forgetting?  If so, comment on the Facbook post cause I'm sure the folks at the MVF are already looking at the names for 2022.  Whoever it is, I'm already looking forward to spending another awesome night with my rock family to show em all how much the Quad Cities rocks...and to let all the people not from the Quad Cities know that their hometown rock station sucks ass.