The Abridged version:
- Aftershock music festival returns to Discovery Park this week, and bands with local ties such as Dance Gavin Dance, Oleander and Nekrogoblikon are among the acts.
- Oleander formed out of an Old Sacramento restaurant, played the first Aftershock in 2012 and reunited earlier this year to record new music.
- Nekrogoblikon lead guitarist Alex Alereza, a graduate of Jesuit High School, is part of a team building a 2,000-capacity music venue on Del Paso Boulevard.
Aftershock is set to erupt at Discovery Park, a mosh-a-thon with more than 140 acts from Thursday through Sunday. The festival has featured a “who’s who” of headliners over the past 14 years, from heavy metal and hard rock to alternative and hip-hop. This year, it’s My Chemical Romance, Tool, Limp Bizkit and Pierce the Veil topping Aftershock’s daily bills.
A combined crowd of 164,000 packed Aftershock in 2025, with most of the crowd and bands hailing from outside the Sacramento region. But in some cases, Aftershock is a hometown show, a chance to showcase the fruits of the local music scene with the masses.
Deftones, which rose from South Sacramento to selling out Madison Square Garden last year, performed at the inaugural Aftershock in 2012 and served as a headliner in 2015, 2018 and 2025. Papa Roach, the platinum-selling band that sprung from the Vacaville and Sacramento music scenes, rocked Aftershock in 2013 and co-headlined in 2022.
Native Sacramento bands on the underground have appeared as well, such as Destroy Boys and Trash Talk. 2026 marks the fourth Aftershock appearance from Dance Gavin Dance, the ferocious Sacramento post-punk band with an international following and imprint around town. A mural promoting the band’s “Afterburner” album is painted on the side of The Flame Club dive bar, and Dance Gavin Dance also filmed a virtual concert on the Tower Bridge during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This undercurrent of Sacramento bands and musicians continues this year, including one signature local band that recently reunited. In another case, a lead guitarist is eager to shred in front of his hometown. He’s also part of a team that’s preparing to open a 2,000-capacity venue on Del Paso Boulevard that could further bolster the local music scene.
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A rocking reunion
For the recently reunited Oleander, its set on Sunday marks a full circle moment. The band played the first edition of Aftershock in 2012, back when it was a single-day event.
Oleander’s history dates to the mid-1990s, when singer Thomas Flowers met bassist Doug Eldridge as the two worked at California Fat’s Asian Grill & Steakhouse in Old Sacramento. Eldridge was behind the bar, while Flowers bussed tables at the since-closed Chinese American restaurant.
From those humble restaurant beginnings, Oleander emerged as stars on Sacramento’s music scene. The band released a major label album in 1999, “February Son,” and nabbed rock radio hits with “Why I’m Here” and “I Walk Alone.” They played Woodstock ’99, toured internationally and landed on the “American Pie” movie soundtrack.
A few years later, the band went on hiatus. In a recent phone interview from Orange County, Flowers said the band was burnt out, ready to enjoy the comforts of home. Oleander regrouped a few years later, but the band’s kept a fairly low profile since 2018.
That is, until spring of 2026. Oleander was invited to join the “Summer of ’99 & Beyond Cruise” with such era-appropriate bands as Creed, 3 Doors Down, Filter and Collective Soul. Flowers and Eldridge felt the time was not only right to regroup, but write new material as well and released a new single, “Fourth of July.”
“We decided to get in the room and rehearse and see how that goes,” Flowers said. “It was all laughing and it was fun. And we just made a decision that there’s a lot of gas left in the tank.”
Eldridge and Flowers remain from the original lineup. They’re now joined by Dan Camacho (known locally for his guitar work with 7th Standard), guitarist Art Padilla and drummer Steve Brown, who plays with Oleander when he’s not touring with Tesla, one of Sacramento’s great breakout bands.
On a recent Sunday morning, the band was set up to rehearse at House of Hits rehearsal studios in North Sacramento — or at least trying to. The power went out in the building, a blow to precious rehearsal time leading up to Aftershock.
Still, the band remains undeterred, ready to play perhaps the largest hometown gig of its career. The road to Aftershock 2026 is paved with memories of gigs gone by at Old Ironsides and other local clubs.
“As I’m taking a trip down memory lane, I’m flooded with emotions about what that was like back then,” Flowers said. “The Sacramento scene was always so eclectic and so rich (with) so many great bands. I live in Orange County, but Sacramento’s home. It’s always been home.”
Rocking with goblins and growing the Sacto scene
Alex Alereza honed his mighty guitar chops while growing up in Sacramento. He graduated from Jesuit High School in 2005 and was a regular at The Boardwalk in Orangevale, scouring the scene for all things metal and rock. The local deathcore band Conducting from the Grave was an especially heavy influence.
“They were super shredders,” Alereza said. “They were the hometown heroes for me. Then you had the huge bands from Sacramento like Deftones that I also liked.”
Since those early hard rocking days, he moved to Southern California and joined the theatrical death metal band Nekrogoblikon, which performs Friday at Aftershock. In a phone call from his San Diego home, Alereza says he’s looking forward to the homecoming and soaking in Aftershock for the first time.
“I think of myself being younger and going to Ozzfest and Warped Tour,” he said. “That’s where I discovered other bands. For a theatrical act like us, festivals are fun atmosphere to bring that out.”
He plans to become a more prominent force on the local music scene. Alereza is part of a team that’s developing a 2,000-capacity venue on Del Paso Boulevard. Like the similarly sized Channel 24 in midtown, this new venue would help grow Sacramento as a market for mid-sized concert venues.
The team is behind a similar venue called 1720 in Los Angeles. He hopes the Sacramento venue will open by summer 2027 and feature music across genres.
“It’s leaning into more into that kind of warehouse aesthetic and grunginess of the atmosphere,” he said. “It’s keeping a bit of the culture there, but delivering on all things technically.”
Aftershock’s future
So, what’s the state of Aftershock 2026 as Sacramento’s music scene and festival market continues to evolve?
The festival has morphed over the years from the single-day event in 2012 with Deftones and Oleander, then expanding to four days in 2021. There was also a detour to Elverta’s Gibson Ranch Regional Park in 2015.
The feeling was somewhat anxious in 2025 on both the local and national festival circuit. Danny Wimmer Presents, which produces Aftershock, pulled the plug on its country-focused GoldenSky Festival following a two-year run.
Since then, Danny Wimmer Presents has doubled down on its presence in Sacramento. In June, a 10-year agreement was reached to keep up to three annual music festivals at Discovery Park, including the return of GoldenSky in 2027 with a three-year commitment through 2029.
Organizers had long envisioned a third festival in Discovery Park, such as one devoted to Americana music. That move isn’t imminent, according to Chamie McCurry, Danny Wimmer Presents’ general manager and chief marketing officer.
“We’re not currently focused on adding a third event,” McCurry wrote in an email. “But the benefit of a 10-year agreement is that it gives us the runway to think long term, explore what may be possible and determine whether additional opportunities at Discovery Park make sense in the future.”
Either way, it appears Aftershock is here to stay.
“We can look three, five and even seven years ahead and make thoughtful investments in site improvements, infrastructure, fan experience and the overall growth of our festivals in Sacramento,” McCurry wrote.
