Festival season is in full swing at Penn State as the second all-day concert of the semester, Music as a Weapon IV, lands at the Bryce Jordan Center.

The headlining bands this year are Disturbed, Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil and Chimaira. The show starts at 7 p.m. Friday and tickets, which were still available as of press time Tuesday, are $41.75.

Music festival fans at Penn State have a number of different options this semester. There was April 4's Movin' On and Wallypalooza debuts in a few weeks. Music as a Weapon IV adds to this list, focusing on a distinctly different style of music from those aforementioned festivals: heavy metal.

Tour spokesperson Tahnee Brown said Music as a Weapon IV is a traveling festival like Warped Tour and Ozzfest. Like those shows, the tour brings a full day of music and other entertainment to the towns on its itinerary.

"There is a festival component to this show," Brown said. "It features outdoor and lifestyle events."

Music as a Weapon is known for a few things beyond heavy music, Brown said. The show also includes a number of sponsored events beyond the music portion, including an appearance by the Red Bull X-Fighters motocross team, the Ernie Ball second stage, and several other entertainment options.

The outdoor festivities, which begin at 2 p.m., start well before the headlining bands are scheduled to perform.

In particular, the Music as a Weapon tour has a tradition that has become one of its defining features and sets it apart from other touring festivals.

Along with the bands that tour with the show, several nationally known tattoo artists also appear during each performance. The artists, including Vic Back, Oliver Peck, Will Card, Carl Hallowell and Emiliano, will all be available at the BJC show. Fans interested in getting tattoos can do just that.

"You can actually book appointments with those guys on the day of the show," Brown said.

Disturbed, which first formed in 2006, created the first Music as a Weapon tour in 2001 to showcase hard rock-metal music. The band is one of the most successful hard rock groups in recent years. According to the tour's press release, Disturbed is one of only seven "rock groups" to release three consecutive No. 1 albums, the others being Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Van Halen, U2, Metallica and Staind.

Previous Music as a Weapon tours have featured a number of high-profile bands in the genre, including Adema, Drowning Pool, Chevelle, Taproot, Stone Sour and Flyleaf. This year's entries hail from all across the country, and the globe, with Lacuna Coil being from Italy.

The Music as a Weapon tour's festival aspect means it also has a second stage and full complement of bands beyond the four headliners. Brown said the second stage will be located outside the Bryce Jordan Center. The lineup of second stage bands changes for each stop of the tour; the bands appearing on the BJC's second stage are Suicide Silence, Spineshank, Bury Your Dead and Crooked X.

Ernie Ball, a company that produces guitar strings and other musical equipment, is sponsoring Headbang for the Highway, a competition that gives unsigned local acts on each stop of the tour a chance to perform on the second stage.

The winners of the State College portion of the competition have not yet been announced, but Brown said the local bands will play 20-minute sets beginning at 2:30 p.m. The other second stage acts will follow with longer sets.

For Josh Angstadt (freshman-engineering), getting tickets to this event was an easy decision.

"Disturbed is my favorite band," Angstadt said. "I love the vocalist, David Draiman, and the guitarists."

Angstadt added that the tour coming to State College is significant for metal fans in the area because national metal acts don't usually play here. He said the bands on the bill represent a selection of different approaches for fans of heavy music, which further adds to the value of such a concert.

"I like the big variation in styles with the four headliners," Angstadt said. "Lacuna Coil has a more mellow, Evanescence-esque sound. Chimaira and Killswitch are more hardcore-screamo, and Disturbed focuses more on the thrashier, alt-rock genre."

Brown said those who attend the show will be pleased with the atmosphere during Disturbed's live performance.

"I have seen Disturbed live, and it's a lot of fun," Brown said.

Though Brown hasn't attended one of the current tour's shows, she said the Disturbed shows she's seen have a common factor fans can expect at every concert.

"The fans really like the band, so it's a higher-energy show than most of the concerts I've been to," Brown said.

Fans' enthusiasm and devotion to the band certainly extends to Penn State students.

Jeremy Hauck (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said the effort the members of Disturbed put into their music is what he appreciates about the band.

"I like Disturbed's intensity. They're a real band with real music," Hauck said. "It's music you can actually get into, and they don't hold anything back."

Angstadt agreed, saying Disturbed's performances are one of the reasons why he likes the band so much.

"I know Disturbed is amazing live, so I'm expecting more of the same from them," Angstadt said. "The show is going to be freaking amazing."

He added that he's heard good things about the groups Killswitch Engage and Lacuna Coil's live show as well.

Unfortunately, Hauck said, the demand for floor tickets to the show was so great that he was unable to buy his for the student price in time.

"I really wanted to go," Hauck said. "But the general admission tickets were sold out when my friend and I went to check."

Tickets first went on sale on Jan. 30, with a $10 discount for Penn State students.

However, Hauck is undeterred.

"I haven't been to one of their shows, and I was really bummed when I couldn't go to this one," Hauck said. "But if they come back next year, I'll be one of the first ones in line for tickets."