July 21, 2011: Humilitate / Napalm Raid / Life's Torment @ Yayo Taco
I had been looking forward to this gig for a while now. Life's Torment are pretty fucking great and Napalm Raid were gonna be bringing the D-Beat Noise Not Music down all the way from Canada. I was pretty hyped, to say the least. Apparently I was among a very small group that was. The Las Vegas Music Scene really sucks sometimes. Phooey. I raced down to Yayo Taco to find pretty much nobody there. Figures. Bands were mingling about, looking bored and hung over, and a couple of Punx were being loud and giggly. Oh joy.
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E.O.N. had dropped off the bill, and so Life's Torment dragged things out for a bit before beginning to play their set, and the wait for them was soooooo worth it. Life's Torment went from 0 to 600 in the blink of an eye, unleashing a fury of Metallic Punk Madness that was both captivating and downright scary at times. Insanely brutal monsoon sized riffs pounded out in equal parts intricacy and caveman rudiments, with the Vokills (when they're there) Intense, Loud and Angry. The guitar work is menacing, barbaric, fast and furious, more noise than music, all while being propelled to even greater heights by some of the most insane drum work that one could possibly imagine. The drummer dude is a flurry of hair and sticks with his arms and legs always moving at a most breakneck of pace. He goes from 4/4 to blast beats in the blink of an eye, and I was majorly impressed with what he was doing. I love watching a good drummer, and this guy was the shit! The bass player looked like one of the living dead, with a slight sunburn and roaring and shredding and thrashing about with his instrument, pounding out some ferocious, wicked bass runs through a rig that was loud enough to pulverize gravel. The band sounded sick, and the few brave souls in the audience were compelled to slam along to almost everything they were laying down. In front of a huge group, this band would wreck the place. Life's Torment played a great mixture of songs with vocals and songs without, only stopping long enough to tune up or to let the drummer catch his breath, or to chug some beer. They played for a much too short of a time, their set went by in the blink of an eye, and after a bit it was all over, with the silence after their annihilating set a fantastic contrast to the aural assault they had just laid out. Life's Torment just killed it, and made it look quite easy while they were doing it. One of the Best bands in Vegas right now. Fuck yeah!!
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Napalm Raid set up quickly with little to no fanfare and after a few seconds of silence the guitar squealed and screamed to life, and this raggedy scarecrow punk rock dude started attacking it with his hands and the bass player and the drummer come crashing in on the 4 and that was it - Napalm Raid's set had begun! LOL They fucking sounded like a bomb going off, with massive waves of noise not music being showered across the room in all directions, making you either wanna start slamming around in glorious ignorance to the people around you or to fucking stand there stunned by what the band was playing, which was this amazing kick ass punk rock brooootaaal D-Beat noise! I was in Heaven!! <3 The drummer was bashing the ever loving shit out of this small ass blue drum kit, all the while screaming back up vokills, and the bass player, sporting a knee brace just like mines, just brought out the rumbling back end wall of thump that just emphasized the Napalm Raid 1-2 1-1-2 neck snapping beat. The poor over driven P.A. system kind of added to the bands nasty ass sound, making slightly unintelligible words and lyrics now completely non-understandable! LOL The crowd of kids were enthusiastically slamming around and into each other and random people who weren't paying attention to the pit action, and I stood off to the sides and tried to take pictures when I could, avoiding the cheap shot artists in the pit who would hit me while I was trying to take pictures, the fucking pussies. When I was looking out for them, not taking pictures, they stayed the fuck away from me, but when I wasn't looking and trying to take pictures, suddenly they got brave. Assholes. Anyways, Napalm Raid played for like, a half an hour, which, for them, was like 20 songs, songs that I couldn't tell you came from what album, and when the band finally stopped playing we all kind of stood around Speechless, Stunned and Satisfied. Napalm Raid had just fucking KILLED IT and I felt like I had just gotten ear raped. I went to the merch table and chatted up the bass player while buying every piece of vinyl that I could. Fucking Epic!!! :-)
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I had seen the singer from Humilitate wandering around the Yayo Taco parking lot before the gig began. He looked pretty out of it, and I toyed with the idea of going up to him and chatting with him a bit, but drinking beer had more appeal so I went with that instead. After watching the band perform, I'm glad I stayed away from him, because that dude was pretty fucking crazed and intense! LOL Humilitate are a band from Spain who were on Tour here, playing this little taco shop for a crowd that didn't seem to know a bit about them. I liked that fact. The drummer came up to me after Napalm Raid's set and asked me if I would take pictures of his band and if I could send them to him via email. I thought that was cool as fuck and told him I would do just that, and gave him a couple of onethirtyeight.org stickers and told him to keep an eye out, because I would post them up soon. So I got into a nice position right in front of the band because like I said, no one seemed to be into what Humilitate were about to play, but once they began, that all changed. They sounded really good. Energetic, catchy, a nice mix of Punk, Metal, Hardcore, whatever, and the crowd quickly warmed up to them and some more pit action busted out. They reminded me of Poison Idea or R.K.L. or maybe S.N.F.U., or some other band that used initials as their name, I dunno. The guitar attack was pretty sharp, slamming out some busy riffs that sounded like something Slayer would play, and he was rocking the fuck out while he was doing it too, adding back up vocals whenever necessary. Hard working dude, to say the least! I think he was the drummers brother too, because they both looked a lot alike, but I'm not sure. The bass player just kind of stood in one place riffing hard on his Epiphone and looking like he was having fun. I saw him locking in on what the drummer was up to, which is always a good thing to see. It's all about the rhythm section man. ;-) The drummer was pretty good, playing all these fast as fuck drum rolls and lots of cymbal accents and tempo changes with little to no effort. He had a hard hitting right leg too, keeping that back beat solid. Cool stuff to watch and complete Drum Nerd stuff, I know. :-) The singer was a great front man, howling and screaming and interacting with the crowd, all with this possessed look on his face. I wasn't sure, but I think he kept rolling his eyes into the back of his head, showing only the white parts of his eye, looking like a zombie or some sort of undead creature... LOL He gave these interesting little diatribes in between songs about what things were like back in his home country, using these little speeches to set up the next song, which, again, because of the P.A., I couldn't tell if he was singing in English or Spanish! hahahaha It didn't matter really, because Humilitate were playing some really good tunes and the crowd was appreciating it. After a bit it all came crashing to an end, and the people who stuck around were glad that they did. Humilitate played a fantastic set, brought to you all the way from somewhere in Spain. Good stuff.
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After the gig I hung out for a bit, clearing my clove case of any illegals I had left in there, and took in the spectacle of the Pyrate Punx who had been hanging out in the parking lot of the gig all night, sneaking into the gig without paying, and feigning poverty when asked for a donation to help out the touring bands. I couldn't help but notice that these douchebags kept skating back and forth to the Circle K on the corner and coming back with bags full of brews, which was even more insulting to the Promoter and the Bands who had just played. So this was what being a Pyrate Punk is all about, huh? Fucking Poseurs. I finished my spliff and headed to Artifice to watch my girlfriend work. Pyrate Punx... what a Farce. Fun night @ Yayo Taco. Too bad it was such a piss poor turnout, because you guys that stayed home on a Thurs. night missed out on some excellent bands. Oh well. You suck. :-)