By Lisa Burke
August 17-20th 2017, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas NV: As a true fan of all kinds of rock n’ roll and heavy metal, what could be better than a four-day festival featuring just shy of 100 bands inside a hard rock themed casino in Las Vegas? The answer is not a whole lot, especially if you enjoy hiding from the sun and still seeing music during the day, as opposed to attending outdoor festivals.
Psycho Las Vegas only has the pool stage outdoors, and besides the Thursday pre-party, the bands only come out at night. For my second attendance at this festival located in the Hard Rock Casino, from August 17th- 20th I unfortunately had to miss the pre-party day which featured an exciting line up of bands with Conan and Pentagram at the top of the running. Also, as opposed to last year, Pentagram featured no Bobby Liebling which meant Victor Griffin took over the vocal duties and word on the street says it was still worth the viewing and then some. Similar to last year, right after this was going on, inside at Vinyl was another sub-show that was an extra hefty ticket price to attend, which this year featured two bands YOB and Subrosa. No matter how good a show this may have been, it seems very unfair to charge extra for it and in my opinion it’s only worth a mention to call out its failure.
When submerging oneself in Las Vegas, there are a few known secrets to survive, especially when there are three days of 12-plus hours of metal ahead. The first key survival tip is pacing your drinking as well as your standing, followed by planning your schedule so you don’t miss out on all your favorite bands, and also take carb breaks such as pizza on the run if you are dead set on seeing as much as you can. Before I get into the highlights of the three days in band terms, I want to share the overall experience here. Last year the rules changed daily as far as what and how you could drink inside the venues and this year the first day was a bit of a shit show in this regard as well. If you buy a drink in the venue you should be able to venue hop with it from Vinyl stage to The Joint stage and this year they only used the entrances to both that were super close to each other, so for the first half of the day I hopped around with my drink until that one time around 5 PM where I couldn’t anymore and when I questioned the authorities I was told it was because they didn’t want to be responsible for the roofies I might acquire on my travels. That idiocy was rectified for the next two days and after figuring out that the same drink costs $14.00 at the pool, $12.00 at The Joint, $10.00 at Vinyl, and $8 at The Circle bar in the casino, you quickly learn to drink at the bar between sets or in your room if time allows. As far as timing goes, this year had just over 70 bands in three days while the previous year had just over 90, not counting the pre-pool party days of course. They got smarter for sure and spread it out just a bit where the day also started at one in the afternoon most days and went till 2 or 3 AM as opposed to starting at 11:30 AM and ending at 5 AM. Seeing all your favorite bands and newly discovered favorites all get close to an hour set was perfection and all the stages have enough intimacy where you can have a great view as well. In my opinion the Joint set up is the most perfect venue set up where you can choose what kind of experience you want to have as it also includes an upstairs with seating.
On to the bands, perhaps the greatest part if it all was that everyone chose their own metal adventure for the weekend running into old friends and making new ones along the way. For me there were a few highlights and low lights day by day and here is how it all unfolded. On Friday, noteworthy bands included great sets from Mothership who were the first to play on the Joint stage, and despite the sound still figuring out kinks, these Texas brothers rocked down the house with complex riffs and doomy stoner beats, as well as Wolves In The Throne Room also featuring brothers from Washington with their hair whipping black metal ambiance. They among a couple other bands found a great way to mix black metal with serenity, and the success is overwhelming. This is the future of black metal and I couldn’t be happier. Speaking of black metal, some of the regular crowd from the last years were a bit hesitant to enjoy black metal but anyone who did had the time of their life because none of these outcasts were your ordinary fix. The unfortunate black metal band of the first day however was Black Anvil and while they have some great tunes, by the time they played they seemed a bit intoxicated and there were moments I was reminded of a YouTube video of Slash in the mid eighties botching riffs left and right while stumbling around the stage. It was minor in comparison, but I still left midway through just because I know they are better than that and I’ll wait for a more sober show before I judge the performance.
In the stoner doom category, Slo Burn featuring John Garcia from Kyuss made a wonderful come back and the way they master the timing from slow to fast and back again sets them apart from the normal. Then the best band of the day by a landslide happened to be Khemmis from Colorado, whose mind blowing heavy riffs and vocals in the intimate setting of Vinyl stage tore out the hearts of all in attendance. They had some stiff competition with the Melvins playing at the same time in the Joint but the best decision I made was to leave that set for Khemmis as the Melvins tend to put on a very similar stage show set list despite having put out an album a year for over thirty years. The Melvins are still quite the treat live but a more varied show for those die hard fans would be recommended. Royal Thunder and The Rods were among other rock n’ roll treats that if you had the chance to catch were worth missing a bit of Sleep over. Speaking of Sleep they went on 45 minutes late and no matter who or why that was, there was some man behind the curtain ego pre-jamming happening just before the set started and once it did start, the trippy window pane stoner video back drop and deep doomy riffs did not quite keep the attention I wanted to have for them. It was still a great show nonetheless, but it was just that in the context I needed to run free and explore the other options. Pelican on the pool stage held their own with their eclectic style that is mostly instrumental stoner riffs mixed with punk and other melodies flowed in as well. At one point, as you can only hope to fulfill this fantasy in your lifetime at least once, there was a mosh pit in the pool and it was better than any synchronized swimming you’ve ever seen. Lastly, the headliner of the evening was The Brian Jonestown Massacre which was really not my jam but worth a glance into the wild and weird of the evening. It was similar to a rock n’ roll cult that worshipped the tambourine a bit too much but some fun dancing moments were there in the middle of all the bliss.
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