On Oct . 23, the Halloween spirit was immense at mtvU’s very first Ulalume festival held at The Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

Ghosts, clowns, vampires, and everything in between, decorated the venue and the Halloween festivities were plenty.  There were rides and games galore, but the haunted house really put the icing on the cake.

Contrary to how it may have seemed, the Ulalume festival was not all about Halloween.  Right next to all of the festivities was the stage where an awesome set of artists put on an incredible show.  The line-up of artists included AFI, Paramore, Kid Cudi, and Chester Fennington of Linkin Park’s new band Dead By Sunrise.

Asher Roth was on the initial roster, to my, and many others’, extreme disappointment, he failed to make an appearance. 

Kid Cudi opened up the show with a song he collaborated with Jay-Z on called “Already Home” off of Jay’s BluePrint 3 album.  He also performed his hit featuring Lady Gaga and Kanye West “Make Her Say” and the track that gained him stardom which he cleverly introduced as a “new song” that not many people had heard before, “Day N’ Nite.”  Dead By Sunrise followed and rocked out to several tracks including “Crawl Back In” and “Let Down.”  Chester Fenningan’s energy was what made their performance for me, but it appeared the crowd enjoyed him topless more than anything else.  AFI took the stage next performing “Veronica Sawyer Smokes” and “Beautiful Thieves”, and Paramore powerfully closed the show.  They appeared to be the most anticipated band of the night based on the crowd’s reaction, and rightfully so.  It was honestly one of the best live performances I’d ever seen.  They played what felt like an entire album worth of songs including their hit “That’s What You Get”, “Decode” and one of my favorites “Misery Business”.  Despite the length of the performance lead singer Hayley Williams didn’t stop moving for a beat.  Paramore’s performance gave me nothing but good vibrations and almost cured my Asher Roth blues.