The canals show how this area got her name. I like the lush vegetation along the canals.
The architecture their is interesting as well.
Stay tuned.
I had followed both bands from Las Vegas where they performed the day before @ Psycho Las Vegas, the mega show with more than 130 bands and some thousands attendants. Apparently both bands are unknown in California`s hip crowd, so there were not many people in the small "Disco Room". Fortunately for me because I could watch their performances from close and did not risk to drown in the masses.
Meditation & Inferno
It was the fourth time I enjoyed a gig by Amrena (2019 Psycho Las Vegas, 2020 Mexico City, 2022 Psycho Las Vegas). The Belgians (Vocals: Colin H. van Eeckhout, guitars: Mathieu Vandekerckhove & Lennart Bossu, bass: Tim De Gieter & drumms: Bjorn Lebon) own in Europe quite a reputation for their spectacular and hyper-intense shows. On Monday they justyfied their reputation again.
Frontman Vandekerckhove acted sometime like a 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.
Here some quotes from professional reviewers from former shows:
"Amenra use indescribably intense sections of the music to create an all-consuming wall of sound, a chaotic yet somehow ordered cacophony. More importantly they contrast this with quiet, brooding build-ups which are at times near silent" ( mancunion).
“Their unique musical style, characterized by brooding atmospheres and spiritual intensity and their live performances, accompanied by visual art, have been described as entrancing communions” says Wikipedia (Amenra).
The Independent wrote that their "avant-garde post-metal" music "pushes
the boundaries of extreme music by being heavy in practically every
conceivable way; sonically, emotionally and spiritually (independent ).
Heavy Metal As An Art Form
Liturgy, who opened the show, performed heavy metal as an art form: Female voices, amplified by electronics, were used as an additional instrument. The band from Brooklyn, New York (Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix (vocals, guitar), Mario Miron (guitar), Tia Vincent-Clark (bass) and Leo Didkovsky (drums)) describe their music as "transcendental black metal" (wikipedia ).
The high pitched
infernal screams & shrieks of two girls melted with blurred and very low tuned guitars into an outwordly experience (actually Ravenna is a transperson but shrieks & screams like a girl).
Thank you so much Amenra & Liturgy for this exceptional experience.
The festival finale brought the return of Amrena. We had sad seen the Belgian band first at Psycho 2019 and then at Doom City festival in Mexico City, February 2020, just at the begin of the Covid19 pandemic. Their show was again an outstanding experience. Almost silent meditative phases turned into fierce explosions, amplified by the light show.
Indian, another favorite of me, mesmerized with highly intense & extremely vicious riffs accompanied by the maniac shouting & hissing of the vocalists shook the venue. It sounded like stoned gods making love - pure mayhem.
A Year with no Sun, the French instrumental band, created post-apocalyptic acoustic scenarios.
The Body was just a duo, a man with a guitar and a percussionist. But the 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.
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.
Stay tuned.
Already at 11 am performed Mizmor, the discovery of the day. Filigrane guitar riffs turned into massive sound waves creating a psychedelic atmosphere.
They were followed by Indian, one of my favorites. The band delivered again an outstandig performance. 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.
The Greybeard & Belzebong in the Dawghouse played solid stoner & psychedelic blues.
Then, oh fun, followed Primitive Man. The name is misleading, they delivered complex structured pieces. Their gig started with super-massive drown guitars accompanied by deep growls and turned then into a kind of psychedelic scifi spectacle.
Liturgy performed heavy metal as an art form. Female voices, amplified by electronics, were used as an additional instrument the high pitched infernal screaming of two girls combined with blurred low tuned guitars an ohztwordly experience.
Blood Incanation entertained with their rough and violent sound
To be continued
Unfortunately the Resorts World complex, where Psycho is happening this year, is not really fit for a giant rock festival. I miss there the large concert halls with stadium seating, so many performances happen on tiny stages which are part of restaurants.
Fortunately Wolves in the Throne Room, one of my favorites, performed in the "Theater", also called Event Center. The venue is a makeshift hall, a huge tent outside the hotel buildings. They created 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.
There also were some interesting discoveries. King Woman delivered in the Rose Ball Room amazing performance Here strong voice combined with the drone guitars of her band mesmerized her audience.
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, who had performed at Fire in the Mountains in July.
We also saw Mayhem in the Event Center but left early because we got bored.
To be continued
(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 and is now happening in the Resorts World complex at the noth end of Las Vegas`famous Strip.
Psycho Las Vegas 2022 also got much larger and offers over 4 days (and nights) more than 130 performers - an all you can eat buffet.
The festival started as usual at the pool. Sunshine, bikinis and more or less heavy sounds. Unfortunately the pool event happened in a smaller place than last year at the Mandalay Bay Resort and a larger crowd got crammed between pools, cabanas and the stage.
In the evening happened an unusual rain shower and crowd darling Elder had to brake up their concert. The winner was Eyehategod, my favorite for the day, who could start their gig earlier as scheduled. Frontman Mike IX Williams delivered a funny and somewhat sick show enhanced by the band`s heavy & bluesy guitar riffs. The called they show "End Time Blues"
I also enjoyed the gig by Uniform. This is an acquired taste. I had not liked them when I checked the bands in advance on YouTube. In the begin of the concert I disliked the spastic show of the front man but after a while his performance - together with the massive drone guitars of the band - made sense and I liked it more and more.
I had much fun watching Starcrawler. The front woman - dressed in a white bikini or such - 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.
I also saw Rifflord & Early Mood early in the afternoon.
To be continued
But the book price implosion also pushed technological progress, economic growth and the advance of our civilization. Cheaper books reduced the price of information considerably. Learning about everything got much easier and cheaper fostering progress in medicine, agriculture, ship building, business administration, finance etc. etc.
The book price implosion supported revolutions, because more people learned about it - and faster. The decline of the once monopolist Catholic church was made possible by much cheaper & available books because many people learned about the theses of Martin Luther and other reformers.
Today we are witnessing a similar development: The Internet reduces the cost of information swiftly - and makes it much faster. The price of information is imploding again. I suppose we are still in the low-left (south-west) corner of the image and we can expect that information gets much cheaper soon thanks to smart phones which give access to cloud computing, artificial intelligence & quantum computing.
Again learning about everything is getting much easier & cheaper fostering progress in sciences, finance, technology, business administration etc. etc. Radically cheap & fast information made it possible that we got vaccines against Covid-19 in less than a year - because the researchers could exchange their ideas easily and an immense amount of data pushed the research.
The increasing and accelerating flow of information will help us to get answers to the rapidly developing mutations of the virus. It also will foster general education (especially in low income countries). Cheaper information also promotes economic growth because investing gets easier and the markets for goods & services - including restaurants, hotels, flights - are getting more transparent and efficient.
