Date: Saturday July 18th 2026
Venue: Ohio State Reformatory
City / State: Mansfield, Ohio
Subjects: Bad Omens, The Used, Poppy, King 810 and More…

King 810 playing the Infirmary Stage at Inkcarceration 2026.

It was then time for us to head to infirmary for one of our favorite bands and best live bands KING 810.‍ ‍The stage was still having sound issues and that set King’s set to start nearly 15 minutes late. As the house music went down and the guitar notes of “Kill Em All” filled the area the band took the stage, vocalist David Gunn with his patent Black pants and a hooded robe. He took the mic and contorted himself as he does taking us all through the song while the place exploded. The band ripped through a 5 song set Including brand new song “Hungry Gods” and closing out with “Alpha and Omega”. What started with such force ended in what felt like seconds as they powered through with no talking, no asking for mosh pits, no wall of death requests just a simple “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you” after the final note. What a set. We then made our way to the Yard for one of our most anticipated bands of the weekend. Hatebreed was all set up but then… Evacuation time. Though the skies looked brilliant the festival’s weather expert saw some oncoming storms and they chose to get us out with plenty of time before the storms hit.

We stood there and listened to the loudspeakers telling us to either head to our cars or to the prison. The consensus was to hang for a minute as the clouds had not begun to roll in yet but eventually we all made our way out to the car. We were parked towards the drop off and rideshare area. As we made it under the bridge we were instructed to head back in as it was business as usual. We then were told by another officer that “no, its full evacuation”. So again, we made our way back to the car. At this point we hung out in the car for roughly 2 hours I believe it was. The storm did come and the skies were dark but from my vantage point I did not hear any thunder or see lightning however it was raining extremely hard. Some concert goers were having fun on the hill in their lot, while others walked to a gas station and loaded up on cheaper booze and got loaded in the parking lot. Finally, around 6:30 we got word that the grounds were opening back up. We all made our way back into the festival patiently waiting the new set times. As we got back in and headed towards VIP for a pizza (which was not available) they put the new times on the app as well as the screens by the stages. The only two bands that ended up getting cut were Hatebreed and Machine Head. Which really sucked if I’m being honest because we were really looking forward to both of them especially Hatebreed.

There was a lot of talk throughout the day about POPPY who no showed her festival appearance the day before due to the Air Quality. Though the set was cut to 30 minutes she was indeed here in Ohio. They put on a spectacular performance with all band members wearing masks and Poppy herself was in bright form. Playing a shortened 7 song set including “The Cost of Giving Up” and closer “New Way Out”. At one point she called for a wall of death and was denied which was comical but whatever. They still crushed it. Next up was SLEEPING WITH SIRENS. I’m going to be honest and say I am not super into them. Though I will say they put on a good show. The band attempted to play a bit longer than their given time slot and they were cut off. The time was extremely tight as it was already scheduled to run til midnight and that’s 100% curfew. Next up was another band I was really looking forward to THE USED. They are one of the best live bands and are so damn fun. Vocalist Bert McCracken constantly has a smile on his face even when flicking off the crowd playfully. The set was extremely short as they did spend a lot of time in between songs to chat with the crowd. They played only six songs including the greatest song in the whole world “A Box Full of Sharp Objects” which they closed with. Not before putting in a quick “Smells Like Teen Spirit” snippet. They were followed by GOJIRA on the Redemption stage. When you talk about a band bringing the Thunder these guys from France put on one of the most riff heavy sets of the weekend full of pyro and fireworks. The bands drummer Mario was unable to make the trip, so they enlisted Luigi Paraventi who completely crushed it. The band put on what most fans called the performance of the weekend. They did end up playing over 65 minutes which cut into Bad Omens set, which I’ll get to a bit later.

A little before 11PM the lights dimmed for the final time and a tape with Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy) began to play over the speakers. Then the stage began filling with smoke and Noah Sebastian took the stage opening up with “Specter”. BAD OMENS were the first band to play Inkcarceration on the small stage in 2018, now just 8 years later close out Saturday night. The band played a set heavy on the album “THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND”. One special surprise was they brought Poppy on to sing their collaborative track “V.A.N.”. the one two combo of poppy and Noah works even better live. They also included the newest songs like the opener as well as “Dying To Love”, “Left for Good” and set closer “Impose”. Throughout the evening, they interjected more the Tape's that they used to open the set. The set ended just after midnight, and the lights went out and the band left the stage. after a minute or two the band came back out and Noah announced that “We are getting Fined, this is a $10,000 song so you better go nuts”. The band was likely fined by the township for going past midnight. The band has grown possibly faster than any other heavy rock and metal band in the last ten years. Day 2 was now in the books.

BAD OMENS SET-LIST:
Tape 1
01. "Specter”
02. “Glass Houses”
03. “THE DRAIN”
04. “THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND”
Tape 2
05. “Dying To Love”
06. “CONCRETE JUNGLE”
07. “Nowhere To Go”
08. “Limits”
Tape 3
09. “ARTIFICIAL SUICIDE”
10. “V.A.N.” (w/ Poppy)
11. “Left For Good”
Tape 4
12. “What it Cost”
13. “Like a Villian”
14. “Just Pretend”
Tape 5
15. “Impose”
ENCORE:
16. “Dethrone”

GOJIRA SET-LIST:
01. “Born for One Thing”
02. “Backbone”
03. “Stranded”
04. “The Cell”
05. “Flying Whales”
06. “The Heaviest Matter of The Universe”
07. “Love”
08. “Gind”
09. “Silvera”
10. “Lenfant Sauvage”
11. “Amazonia”
ENCORE:
12. “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ca ira!)”
13. “The Gift of Guilt”

We decided to hit the venue around 1:00 today in time to see HEAVY//HITTER on the Infirmary Stage. These guys were intense and had a hell of a wall of death for 1:00 in the afternoon. The band brings a heavy Kublai Khan style to the stage. The sound was still a bit messy on that stage, but they were able to fight through that and still sound good and bring the thunder. The next portion was a split between CASKETS and GUILT TRIP. Guilt Trip was really good and I hadn’t ever seen them before. I was really impressed with them. Caskets is a hard rock and metal band that has some real sing along chorus’s that had the crowd all roaring. Now today they were calling for some nasty weather around 3:00ish and then possibly some strong storms around the 5:00 hour. At this point in the day, it was looking beautiful. I had listened to some bands on my spotify getting ready for the weekend and this next band was one I hadn’t heard much of but was excited to see. LANDMVRKS took the Redemption stage. These guys really put on a show. The power of the band’s music on stage just makes you want to move. I am a new fan of these guys. Coming out with “Creature” and not stopping the onslaught for the full half hour. Following that was the Italian metal band LACUNA COIL led by the beautiful Christina Scabbia. They blend the screams from vocalist Andrea Ferro and the cleans from Christina. They blend a lot of different elements but are metal at heart. The gothic nature of the band is what really comes through. The band focused mostly on the newest record “Sleepless Empire”. The band was on point as they always are.

Poppy Performs at Inkcarceration 2026

The Used perform at Inkcarcertion 2026 at Ohio State Reformatory.

TOP 5 BANDS OF THE DAY
01. Bad Omens
02. The Used
03. King 810
04. Gojira
05. Poppy

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Heavy//Hitter
Landmvrks