Milwaukee Metal Fest Pre-Party at The Rave/Eagles Club (June 4, 2026)

Milwaukee Metal Fest – Thursday, June 4, 2026

Although widely advertised as a three-day festival, the Milwaukee Metal Fest is ever-expanding and growing every year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year, We♥Music was able to attend the Pre-Party show on June 4th. This fourth day is free for the three-day ticket holders as well as purchasable on its own. We highly recommend attending even if you were just in the area on a Thursday and hankering for a good show. This night kicks off the weekend and is at least a five-hour event out of the 30+ hours of the heaviest of metal.

Torn Open came onto the Blue Grape Stage and at one point, someone in the audience yelled in slurred speech, something along the lines of “Why you gotta go so hard right now?” It was true, I thought the same thing, they came out of the gate, loud and hard. Then Gasket came out, first time playing Milwaukee from Baltimore, Maryland.

From Boston, Massachusetts, came Bonginator, a band that was not afraid to dance. Seriously though, one of the funniest bands we saw. How could you miss front-man Erik Thorstenn in that mesh neon green shirt? He had almost thanked what sounded like the beginnings of “Minnea…” before correcting himself. There was a Copycats Records banner from Minnesota to the right of the stage so the confusion was understandable. They sponsored the smaller stage that would be known to us as the fun stage on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

This evening also included booths with horror movie icon Bill Moseley and DJ Katon (of Hirax). Mr. Moseley came up on the stage a couple of times in-between sets with a poem called “Killing me with Bacon” and a dad joke. Katon was in the mix with co-headliner Jamey Jasta (of Hatebreed) as well Trevor Peres (of Obituary) and Devin Swank (of Sanguisugabogg). Jasta bought the rights of the Milwaukee Metal Fest from music promoter legend Jack Koshick in 2022 (it was on indefinite hiatus since 2004), so Jasta received many thanks and call outs throughout the next few days for the invites.

New York, by the way of Connecticut, metalcore band Emmure ended the night with music that made the whole venue throb.

Photos by Kris Muzzy

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