In Vegas, the land of no sleeping and no deciphering day from night while trapped in the grueling smoke filled and booze soaked casino life, you tend to sleep less than normal hours between metal times. That said Saturday, the one sold-out day with King Diamond as the headliner started at a gracious hour of 1 PM which made the rough transition into Vegas life less painful. Cough was the first band up and rumor has it worth the wake up call, and of course Diamond Head also added to the aroma of a good day in the life of heavy metal. Then the second best band of the day, Myrkur blew minds and captured the hearts of anyone brave enough to attend. This is another of those black metal to serene bands that with their female vocalist Amalie Bruun from Denmark leading the helm the outcome is as magnificent as leather and lace. From her white full length empire lace dress, to the rest of the players in black hooded tunic jackets, to the clean beautiful vocals that turn scream on a dime in select moments, to her badass guitar tones she plays only selectively, this band is a must see. They could only be followed by the best band of the day, Carcass from England. As one of the few death metal grind bands on the plate they also are not so typical and can be appreciated by a wide range of metal genre lovers. Jeff Walker is one of the most excellent front men out there and he played a non stop extremely aggressive set where he threw a large multitude of bass picks into the audience because he really enjoys switching from fingers to pick so much so that the roadie had to refill his pick supply every ten minutes. Another great part of the Joint is that it is wide enough to stand towards the middle front where the pit should be and still be unaffected by it. There were quite a few bands I had not seen from so close before that even at a sold out show I could be front and center for, which was the best of all.
The best new discovery of the day on Saturday was a band called Celeste which is sludge driven black metal with hardcore elements from France. They had red light head gear on and they busted ass on stage at Vinyl which was a super delightful surprise and brilliant escape from the bad awkwardness of Ace Frehley in the Joint. I’m sorry, but I must say if you take away the nostalgia of imagining Kiss while he’s playing, you are left with a boring band with bad riffs. I had better times to have that evening, so choosing my own adventures in metal led me to walk out of Ace’s set after five minutes with no regrets.
Then it was Weedeater on the pool stage which was a fun experience as always, and although I will always be a fan of the first drummer, I have grown to love the current one, and the only part missing from the exceptional musicianship all around here is that the drum set wasn’t close enough to the front of the stage like it usually is but there was probably a good reason for that. Canada’s Blood Ceremony was also at the pool and sadly I felt they belonged inside on Vinyl stage because they seemed to be a bit cursed with equipment cutting out etc. Regardless, this is a wonderful doom psych band featuring female mastermind Alia O’Brien who plays the flute, keyboard, and sings. Her mysterious hex took over the audience’s souls and it was a unique experience I was glad to miss part of Gojira for. I still saw plenty of the French grooves and blasts of Gojira and their exciting light show as well. They are becoming quite the mainstream metal band and are well deserving of that title and praise to say the least.
Just when you thought it could not get better, Neurosis raided the stage as powerful and slow as ever, followed by King Diamond with an intermittent moment of a new discovery well worth a check out of badass all female band Heavy Temple in which their name describes them perfectly.
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