This is DA REAL #1 concert of the year. I wanted to put this into separate posts since there's a lot to cover for a 3+ day festival. It's also cheating to choose a festival with 80+ bands as my favorite "concert," but what really makes this #1 boils down to the one band that made me buy a ticket.

The Psycho Las Vegas lineup was STACKED this year. Spread across three stages throughout the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, I had some very tough decisions to make when multiple bands I wanted to see had similar set times. I won't cover every single band I saw, but below are some highlights from the first day.

Chelsea Wolfe

Sacramento's Chelsea Wolfe is a favorite among metalheads. While she may be non-metal / metal adjacent, her music is dark and heavy enough to appeal to the metalhead crowd. It's best described as Nine Inch Nails meets Lana Del Rey.

From the get-go, her alluring voice coupled with droning guitars had the crowd in a trance like state. She was really captivating without being needing to animated. Aaron Turner of Sumac, who makes a guest vocalist appearance on Hiss Spun, made a live appearance to sing a song with Chelsea. This was a rare treat, as I don't think Sumac and Chelsea Wolfe will often be in the same place very often. Her set flew by quickly, and her performance was impressive.

Magma

I've never heard of French Zeuhl progressive rockers, Magma, until I saw them on the flyer. Here I was thinking Koenjihyakkei were such a unique band, when in fact Magma were the true Zeuhl pioneers. They were one of the standouts of the Psycho lineup, and given the attendance and audience reception at this show, they certainly baffled a lot of metalheads.

The day was already running late due to the longer than planned  break down / set up times. Magma went way over the usual allotted time anyway. Their set was essentially made up of two songs. In fact, I don't even think their first song was done before their allotted set time!  

Their songs do take a long time to develop, often repeating sections for minutes while everyone stares awkwardly wondering what the hell is going on. Couple that with the made up language that they sing in, and you've got one hell of a unique experience. Eventually it all pays off when they reach the many climaxes of the song. It's like one of those movies that you think keeps ending but it still keeps going.

By the time they were finished, I was 100% on board with the band, and went off to buy some merch at the designated merch room. Towards the end of day 1, most of the good merch was already sold out, but lo and behold, there were plenty of Magma shirts!! 

Mulatu Astatke

The final band that I saw on day 1, was another curveball for metalheads. This wasn't anything close to metal, but rather, an ethio jazz band. Considering the sheer amount of instruments and the fact that they probably had to be mixed / mic'd differently, it took way too long for the band to get properly set up. By this point in the day, the stage was at least an hour behind.

Once the curtain opened and the music kicked in, the crowd of metalheads were surprisingly receptive to the ethio jazz master. I saw some headbanging, dancing, smiles, and just the look and energy of pure fun. The star of the show, Mulatu Astatke, was very low in the mix, at least on the vibes. Thankfully, you could hear him fine when he was jamming on other percussion instruments (that cowbell tho). 

Unfortunately, since the sound check took so long and the festival was so behind, the curtain closed on them a song too soon. The crowd was audibly dissapointed, but given how late they were running, I suppose it was necessary.