M3 Rock Festival Announces 2023 Lineup

M3 Rock Festival in Columbia, Maryland is back! This year's event will take place May 6 and 7 at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Columbia, Maryland is close to Baltimore.

Bands include STYX, KIX, Slaugher, Winger, Great White, Extreme, Loudness, Child's Play and more. See the poster below for all the acts. Two-day tickets are on sale Friday via Ticketmaster (ugh!). The event is right after the Monsters of Rock Cruise and many of the bands are the same, which makes sense from a booking point-of-view. It would be nice to know pricing but apparently that information has not yet been released.

Comments

[Him]

If my tent was under an overpass near this, I would certainly go!

Thing is, it is not. And the outlay for this sort of adventure would be substantial, given that I live nowhere near this place.

And, if you squint, all looks fine. Right? But, then you start thinking about some of those bands and what they bring nowadays/who performs in them/what am I paying to see (granted, no costs yet). So I will reserve judgment until I see the actual prices for an event like this with bands like those.

This isn't me being snide, by the way. It's just me expressing some thoughts, and thinking about how I spend my cans and bottles.

[JT]

I remember going to M3 many many moons ago (and meeting Allyson and Eric there). It was fun. But I was much younger then, and had more tolerance for such events.

I've never seen Extreme live, and love Cherone and Nuno. But I'm not going to sit through a day full of other bands that I have heard before (and in better iterations) excepting Child's Play and whoever is below them (who is that? who is in that band?). Even if Extreme were to come near Cincinnati as a headliner with one or two openers, the cost would likely sway me from seeing them. I'm just not as impressed with concerts as I used to be, largely because I'm older and my knees can't take it anymore.

Like Him said, you have to consider who these bands are today--most are nothing like the bands of the 1980s and 1990s. Great White without Jack Russell is not Great White to me. Quiet Riot without Kevin Dubrow is not Quiet Riot to me. And which version of LA Guns is playing? I'm assuming Steve Riley, since they are billed so low, but can you call it LA Guns without Phil and Tracii?

Regardless of price, this is a hard pass for me, even if I lived in Baltimore.

[Bkallday]

Wish I was closer! I saw Britny Fox with The Wild Boyz(great band) back in the day. Great live band even though Michael Kelly Smith isn’t involved anymore these days(I think he actually teaches guitar). Met the guys after the show, too bad I have no clue how to post pics. Would love to see them with Tommy Paris again tho, cool dude with a great voice, albeit totally different than Davidson’s. They had a great catalog imo and were always vastly underrated imo, mainly due to the Cinderella connection. Anyway, I hope to be able to see them again someday soon! 🤘🏼

[fletch]

Bk: There's a lot of apparent acrimony in the britny camp. This version playing M3 this year is Billy Child's version, with him being the only original member. It's even more awkward, in that Tommy Paris will be at M3, too, as he is the keyboardist for Count's 77. Britny put out a somewhat scathing press release telling fans not to be fooled by this cover band. I'm actually siding with Billy on this one. I simply want to hear classic BF songs live. Most, if not all, bands at M3 don't have all original members. And, Id love for Billy and Tommy out aside differences and Tommy join Billy on stage for a few songs.

On a side note. Britny Fox is from my hometown. When they broke up, Johnny Dee and Billy Childs joined a well established local cover band, Lecompt (Mike Lecompt from Tangier fame). They played 5-6 nights a week at every dive bar/ local park/birthday party/bar mitzvah/ wedding/etc in this area. During the 90's, I saw them dozens of times at these venues. They often hung out with fans during breaks in their sets and were the coolest guys- still are.

[Bkallday]

That’s cool, Fletch. Sucks to hear that it”s not the version I was thinking though. Should’ve done my homework first. I know Childs is an original but I’d still probably not go see his version. Not just anyone can sing those songs and make them sound right, much like skid row & great white🙄. I agree though, that I wish they could patch things up. Really loved this band and I wish they would go out with a proper release. Springhead Motorshark or whatever tf it was, was not it(aside from Pain)! Oh well, like all the others, I still got the cds to listen to whenever I so choose. 🤘🏼

[fletch]

bk: if I can even name drop more. At one time, Rick Criniti was part of Lecompt. You know, the keyboardist from Cinderella (as seen in the 'save me video and later blackeye susan). Another cool guy, I met along the way.