College Dropout Festival a Successful Event for the Heavy Metal Community
Brady Lyons
He/Him
Staff Writer
4/28/25
On March 28th and 29th, Plymouth State welcomed its first heavy metal music festival in the HUB Hage room, the College Dropout Festival, curated by Avery Hazelton.
For the past five months, Avery Hazelton has been planning and organizing this music festival, pulling bands from all across New England to reach Plymouth State. For Hazelton, this has been a major passion project, bringing his love of heavy metal music to PSU and sharing it with the community.
With two days of rock and roll, the College Dropout Festival consisted of 16 bands performing over two days. Day 1 consisted of six bands to kick off the festival, featuring the likes of Hazelton’s own band Last Words, Cleansed, and Hazelton’s older brother Jared Hazelton’s band, Alchemy.
Band FFO Chillin started the festival off loud and strong, with Last Words following, keeping the energy going. They were followed by Outnumbered, Pocket Knife, Cleansed, and Alchemy who closed the night off with an electric performance.
As Day 2 came, the energy didn’t falter, as more bands, more people, and more speakers showed up for the day ahead. Day 2 started out with the band It’s Always Better Late Than Never, followed by Drowned in Discharge, a secret set for the audience, Knives, Secret Work, Stepdäd, Sowing, Peace Breaker, Gumskab, Voices In Vain, finishing off with Edict.
Throughout the two-day festival, over 100 people were in attendance, consisting of PSU students and guests from all over New England. People from Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut made their way up for the weekend to enjoy the lineup Hazelton created.
“It’s great that we can bring this energy here, I think Plymouth lacks some energy sometimes and some metalheads here brings that energy,” said Carter Fredette, a student at PSU. Students and guests showed their love for this genre of music and expressed how excited they are for the next time PSU can host an event like this.
“This is the most diverse, supportive, and acceptive group of people in the world,” Hazelton said, speaking on how inclusive the heavy metal scene can be. One of the lead singers in the band Pocket Knife, Alyssa Catochi, shared how she feels proud being a female figure in the metal community, leading her band as the vocalist and a role model for young women as well. The same feeling was shared by singer Maddy Coburn of Cleansed.
The metal community doesn’t care how old they get, either, they still love playing their music at ages reaching the 50s. A performer for Outnumbered stated, “I’m having fun like I used to in my twenties and thirties, and getting to play for a younger generation is all what this is about.”
For the Hazeltons, heavy metal has been a community akin to family, both in the metaphorical and literal sense. The two brothers both grew up on this music through a shared love for it with their father, helping to influence their love for this kind of music, and growing the Hazelton boys into the musicians they are now.
In the past, the older Hazelton has played for some of Hazelton’s other shows, and vice versa. “It’s super cool cause Avery’s been coming to my shows for so long, so it’s cool to kind of have the tables flipped,” shared Jared.
The two getting to play together at a festival of this magnitude was certainly an emotional ride for Hazelton, bringing together the twoday festival in a celebration of heavy metal, punk, and the community found within.