(Drivebycuriosity) - It is August again, time for Psycho Las Vegas. My wife and I pilgrimed again to Nevada to attend the mega rock festival. The event had moved again. After Hard Rock Hotel & Mandalay Bay this year`s heavy metal festival happened in the Resorts World complex at the north end of Las Vegas`famous Strip.
Psycho Las Vegas 2022 also got much larger and offered over 4 days (and nights) more than 130 performers on 6 stages - an all you can eat buffet.
Unfortunately the Resorts World complex is not really fit for a giant rock festival. I missed there the large concert halls with stadium seating I had enjoyed @ Mandalay Bay, so most of the performances happened on tiny stages which are part of fast food restaurants.
But we got compensated by the quality of some of the performers. Many bands shook halls & burger joints with their highly amplified and very low tuned blurred guitars, called drone guitars.
The highlight for me was the outstanding performance by Amenra, who played early Sunday afternoon in the half-filled Event Center (capacity about 5,000). Front man Colin H. van Eeckhout acted sometimes like a buddhist priest and sang with a fragile and tender voice in Flemish (a kind of Dutch language), than he exploded, turned berserk and shouted like a wounded soul; his band amplified his show and converted atmospheric melodic phases into super-heavy riffs. Meditation transformed suddenly into fierce eruptions - and the show ended with sheer inferno. The experience got intensified by the stylish light show which changed from artful sinister graphics & videos into stroboscopic and blinding flash storms. Breath taking and mind blowing.
And there were more highlights:
Liturgy performed heavy metal as an art form. Female voices, amplified by electronics, were used as an additional instrument and the high pitched infernal screams & shrieks of two girls melted with blurred and very low tuned guitars into an outwordly experience (actually bandleader Ravenna Hunter is a transperson but shrieks & screams like a girl)
Indian: Highly intense & extremely vicious riffs accompanied by the maniacal shouting & hissing of the vocalists shook the venue. It sounded like stoned gods making love - pure mayhem.
Primitive Man showed that their name is misleading. The Denver band delivered complex structured pieces. Their gig started with super-massive drown guitars accompanied by deep growls and turned then into a strange buzzing, humming & fuzzing - creating kind of psychedelic scifi spectacle.
A Year of no Light, a instrumental band from France, created post-apocalyptic and hyper-massive acoustic scenarios.
Mizmor turned filigree guitar tunes into massive sound waves - producing an intense and psychedelic atmosphere.
At the opening pool party impressed Eyehategod. Frontman Mike IX Williams delivered a funny and somewhat sick show enhanced by the band`s very heavy & bluesy guitar riffs. They called their gig "End Time Blues".
King Woman showed an amazing performance. Front woman`s Kristina Esfandiari strong voice combined with the drone guitars of her band mesmerized her audience.
Wolves in the Throne Room generated an intense & hypnotizing atmosphere which suddenly turned into fierce explosions and massive base riffs culminated into annihilating assaults. It seemed like the "Wolves" attacked the civilization and ripped it apart.
The Body
was just a duo, a man with a guitar and a percussionist. But the two shook
the Rose Ball Room with massive sounds. Pure guitar magic.
The Mexican Band Violencia, lead by front woman Gobi ( violenciahc.), delivered an explosive show as well. Muchas Gracias.
Acquired Taste
I got surprised by Uniform, one of the pool bands from Thursday. I had not liked them when I checked the bands in advance on YouTube. In the begin of the concert I disliked the spastic jumping & running of the front man but after a while his performance - together with the massive drone guitars of the band - made sense and I liked the show more and more.
I had much fun watching Starcrawler @ the pool concert. The front woman - dressed in a kind of white bikini - performed like a go-go girl. Her show combined with the strong drone guitars of the band was awesome - the perfect band for the pool.
Hippie Death Cult performed in the Dawg House, one of the fast food restaurants, powerful rock and Soft Kill`s fourceful music impressed as well.
It was also fun to see Dreadnought again, whom we had seen at Fire in the Mountains in July (my report ).
There were a lot bands who where not in the category of the above mentioned but where strong enough:
We also watched head liners Merciful Fate,
a real crowd-pleaser, who filled the Event Center (capacity 5,000
people) at 10pm. Where did all this people come from? I did not see them
before at the festival. Anyway, we left after some minutes, enough
entertainment - and not our taste. The same with Mayhem, another headliner.
We also loved the early morning swim in one of the many hotel pools and enjoyed the beer. On top of this post you can see a graphic my wife had created.
Looking forward to next year`s Psycho Las Vegas.
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