Epicenter, aka ‘Southern California’s Rock Festival,’ celebrates its fifth anniversary this year with a lineup that pays tribute to its Southland roots. Local alt-rock heroes The Offspring, Bad Religion and Pennywise will be performing alongside new homegrown bands like Pierce the Veil, Fidlar and Plague Vendor. The lineup on the main stage will also feature A Day To Remember, All Time Low and Falling in Reverse.

Epicenter returns this year to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater this Saturday, Sept. 21, marking the third consecutive year that the event has played the renowned Irvine venue.

Loudwire had the opportunity to speak with a couple of the artists that will be performing, including bassist Greg K., a founding member of The Offspring, a band who formed in Orange County where the show will take place. As he explained to us, hometown shows are a bit of a double-edged sword.

“On the one hand it's a little stressful thinking about who needs tickets, who needs backstage passes, where people are sitting and all that sort of thing," says Mr. K. "Obviously there are always lots of family and friends that want to come to the show and so it takes some time to sort all that out. The best part comes once you're on stage and you look out and see all of those familiar faces in the first few rows. That's always kind of weird thing seeing friends you grew up with watching you on stage.”

He also shared with us that growing up in Orange County, he didn't visit this venue too often, spending his time at punk clubs rather than big, fancy outdoor venues. “Down in Irvine you might have Billy Joel or Bon Jovi playing, which was fine but wasn't my thing back then. I would've been going to local clubs like the Doll Hut or Fender's Ballroom to see bands like TSOL and Youth Brigade.”

The Offspring have played the Epicenter venue more than a few times in their career, but for Ronnie Radke and his band, Falling in Reverse, it will be the first time. As Radke told Loudwire, “We are really excited about this show. One guy in my band grew up going to this venue and he's told us all how awesome it is and so were really thrilled. There's a lot of history there so we know it's can be a very cool experience.”

Radke also shared that he's anxious to get some more live feedback on some of his new rap-based material. “When I did the rap stuff I had the intention of shocking people while at the same time making it good. When it was released, there was a ton of backlash. There were some good things to, but the backlash really kind of got to me and made me wonder if I'd maybe done something wrong. But then last week at the Aftershock Festival the crowd reaction was just amazing. We haven't been playing a lot live lately so these are like the first few shows to test this stuff out and so I can't wait to see what happens on Saturday.”

For more information on tickets to this weekend's Epicenter Festival, go to the official Epicenter website.

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