<\/p>\n
The sky opened up, and a whole lot of mosh pits followed suit.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was fitting that heavy cloud coverage greeted the return of heavy music festival Sick New World on Saturday at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, leading to brief showers at the end of the night.<\/p>\n
After all, the sounds here leaned toward the dark and overcast.<\/p>\n
For nearly 13 hours, 50 bands performed on four stages amid a vast landscape of inflatable devils, skateboarder half-pipes, System of a Down-themed stir fry specials (chop suey, of course, available at the Hibachi Express food truck) and vendors hawking \u201cFreak on a Leash\u201d n\u00fc metal pet gear.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it was a lot to chronicle \u2014 especially on wet notebook pages.<\/p>\n
Here are five highlights from our long day of heaviness:<\/p>\n
Clothes black, face caked in white, Marilyn Manson pried open a wormhole on the Purple Stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s take you back to 1996,\u201d he said by way of introducing an assaultive \u201cAngel With the Scabbed Wings,\u201d culled from his breakout second album, \u201cAntichrist Superstar,\u201d released in October of that year.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a significant month for this crowd: A week after \u201cAntichrist\u201d hit shelves, firing Manson into the mainstream, Sick New World co-headliners Korn dropped their second album, \u201cLife Is Peachy,\u201d which became the first n\u00fc metal record to debut in the top five of the Billboard Top 200, igniting a scene that still burns bright three decades later as evidenced by the tens of thousands in attendance here.<\/p>\n
Korn played a rare B-side from that album, \u201cProud,\u201d during their 75-minute set on the Green Stage, the first time they\u2019d done so in 15 years. They also debuted a new tune, \u201cReward the Scars,\u201d whose title says it all: Turning emotional tumult into songs of down-tuned triumph is what these dudes do best.<\/p>\n
Korn\u2019s success paved the way for their L.A. scene mates System of a Down, who once again headlined Sick New World on the Purple Stage.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re a fractious bunch, which guitarist Daron Malakian alluded to at one point, albeit as a call for unity in divisive times.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can be on stage with different thoughts and different beliefs, you can be together, too,\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n
But System puts this creative tension to good use, their sound as all-over-the-place as their contrasting political viewpoints \u2014 manic, emotive, manically emotive. Their 25-song performance somehow managed to be equally fierce and heartfelt, absurd and poignant.<\/p>\n
About a half an hour into the band\u2019s set, it started to rain intermittently, dampening a whole lot of black T-shirts, but not a whole lot of spirits.<\/p>\n
1996 wasn\u2019t all about baggy pants and the \u201cBeautiful People.\u201d<\/p>\n
For industrial metallers Ministry, it was also about extending a middle finger to their own commercial success via their borderline impenetrable sixth album, \u201cFilth Pig,\u201d released that January.<\/p>\n
After going platinum with 1992\u2019s fast and righteously furious \u201cPsalm 69,\u201d the band did an about-face on its follow-up, slowing things down into a series of lumbering, guitar-heavy dirges that trawled the darkest recesses of frontman Al Jourgensen\u2019s psyche.<\/p>\n
On the Spiral Stage, they performed the album in its entirety (well, almost), although not in its original running order, playing some songs live for the first time ever, like the aptly titled \u201cBrick Windows\u201d and the scabrous \u201cUseless,\u201d for which the band was joined by former bassist Paul Barker.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, their time ran out before the band could play what was supposed to be a set-ending \u201cThe Fall,\u201d much to Jourgensen\u2019s chagrin.<\/p>\n
It was a bummer, but also strangely appropriate: Nothing about this album goes down smoothly, so why should its live debut be any different?<\/p>\n
It was a full-on dance-off at the Spiral Stage.<\/p>\n
First up, darksynth troupe Carpenter Brut put the hammer down on Michael Sembello\u2019s \u201cFlashdance\u201d soundtrack staple \u201cManiac,\u201d outfitting the song with thrash riffs and seismic drumming in place of leg warmers and sky-scraping, Aquanet-abetted \u201980s bangs.<\/p>\n
Not to be out done, a few hours later, post-punk revivalists She Wants Revenge catalyzed some serious boogeying with their set-closing smash \u201cTear You Apart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGot a big plan, this mindset, maybe it\u2019s right \/ At the right place and right time, maybe tonight?\u201d frontman Justin Warfield sang, turning that \u201cmaybe\u201d into a \u201cdefinitely\u201d on the evening in question.<\/p>\n
It was an overcast day, but we\u2019re pretty sure that even if the sun had been out, it would have taken a smoke break once Acid Bath hit the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you bring the dark clouds with you?\u201d singer Dax Riggs wondered of himself between songs on the Green Stage.<\/p>\n
No, he brought something far, far darker: Acid Bath\u2019s hauntingly bleak and beatific songbook.<\/p>\n
A year ago to the day, the New Orleans sludge metal forebears played their first show in over 3\u00bd decades, a reunion ecstatically embraced by the band\u2019s rabid cult following, which grew mightily during their dormancy.<\/p>\n
Acid Bath released just two albums during their initial run, the most recent being 1996\u2019s \u201cPaegan Terrorism Tactics\u201d (that was some year for heavy music, no?).<\/p>\n
But those records\u2019 influence has far surpassed their modest sales, Acid Bath\u2019s by-turns melancholic and menacing sound blossoming like a black rose in the years since. Its petals were on full display here, Riggs\u2019 soulful melodies buoying songs indebted to deep grooves and an even deeper sense of despair.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you feel the cold death that rides along your spine?\u201d Riggs questioned during an epic \u201cBleed Me an Ocean.\u201d \u201cLet the blackness roll on.\u201d<\/p>\n
And on and on it rolled \u2026<\/p>\n
Jazz hands incarnate, Davey Havok hit the stage like an exclamation point Ziplocked in leather.<\/p>\n
The A.F.I. frontman possesses a physical exuberance suggestive of the late, great fitness guru Richard Simmons hooked up to a Red Bull IV drip.<\/p>\n
His ceaseless, breathless bounding across the Purple Stage powered A.F.I.\u2019s hit-heavy set, in which the band connected the dots between the shout-along horror punk of The Misfits, the emotive gloom of The Cure and the dark electronic undercurrents of Depeche Mode.<\/p>\n
This was the group\u2019s first stop in town in support of their latest record, \u201cSilver Bleeds the Black Sun,\u201d in which they fully cannonball themselves into their \u201980s new wave and post-punk influences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the sun drops out of sight, it leaves me free,\u201d Havok sang on new tune \u201cHoly Visions,\u201d sounding fully emancipated on this gray afternoon.<\/p>\n