Holy Grail & The Binges Rock Pasadena For Humanitarian Cause

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

My rating:

Holy Grail Setlist | The Binges Setlist

May 21st 2011, Levitt Pavilion, Memorial Park, Pasadena CA: The recent Japan mega-disaster shocked not only the people in that country but more or less the rest of the world as well, and relief efforts have been ongoing ever since. Today I was extremely glad to see two of the brightest talents in the local metal community, Holy Grail and The Binges, come together to put on a show in their endeavor towards the cause. Holy Grail frontman James Paul Luna and his family had a major part in it and took it upon themselves to organize everything exactly the way it should have been. The end result was an evening that truly rocked one and all.

The atmosphere was amazingly relaxed here, in this outdoor park venue, and the stage itself had a very endearing, romantic sort of look about it. The Binges took the stage at around 7 PM, but before they got into playing their music, guitarist Mayuko announced that this was their final show as The Binges, but promised to return soon as a new band, under a new name. With that out of the way they started doing what they do best, play loud music and rock the crowd. I enjoyed every minute of their performance, and from the looks and sounds of it, so did the rest of the crowd. I spoke to a few people after the show and all of them said they were impressed by this band, quite rightly so.

The highlights of their set were the songs "Wake Up The Devil" and "Hear Me Out", while every other song brought something of its own to the set as well. Their fill-in singer did a terrific job and it was very hard to even believe that he was a fill-in, that's how good he was. I would in fact recommend them to hire him on a full-time basis for their next project. If ever a guitarist reminded me of Slash, it's Mayuko Okai, and to support her on the other side of the stage is her sister, bassist extraordinaire, Tsuzumi. Their music, attitude and stage presence completely exemplifies what a 'rock' band should be about. I thank and commend them for that, and wish them all the best in their future endeavors. One thing is for sure, The Binges will forever continue to binge!

It was a very cool metal family moment as Jesus Luna thanked everyone for attending the show and supporting their humanitarian efforts, after which he introduced his son's band on to the stage. They wasted no time in kicking off their set, melting our faces off by the sheer strength of their incredible musicianship. They played all but two songs off of their only album "Crisis In Utopia". Their slower songs sounded amazing tonight, more so than ever before, perhaps because of the ambience, an outdoor setting on an evening as serenely pleasant as this one. I could just feel those guitar melodies hit parts of my brain that had never been reached before, such was the impact it had on me.

But in addition to the slow songs, there were the obvious fan favorites like "Immortal Man" and "Fight To Kill" that rocked everyone's socks off, almost forcing people to bang their heads and raise their fists. This is why I love Holy Grail this much, their music just automatically makes me rock out. And for this reason I will go ahead and say that they are the best thing to happen to metal in a long, long, long time. Guitarists Eli Santana and Alex Lee gelled together for the twin guitar segments. When you see such tight musicianship right in front of your eyes, you can't help but yell out a huge "Yeah!!" every time. Needless to say, Luna was fantastic at hitting those high notes. It's heartening to see Blake back playing bass with these guys again, whilst Tyler Meahl apparently played the drums a little extra hard tonight, ending up with a broken snare! Overall, their performance was every bit as great as I expected it to be, and then some. Today's talk was all about the supposed "rapture". I'm pretty sure the rapture happened, because I certainly felt like heaven after seeing this show. And for that reason this is the first and last review on this website that gets an 11 out of 10 rating.

An endearingly memorable, heavenly experience, without a doubt.

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