Metaleros de La Plata

"Freaking Yanqui Metal!" My Colombian friend Oscar yelled, "you love this stuff!" While I couldn't condone the current travesty of a "metal" band we were viewing, in truth, it was probably closer to the melodic type of stuff I do listen to.

My friend Ihintza had brought us to the North end for a metal show that goes down every couple of months. The venue was cozy and reminded me of venues I'd played during my punk rock days. The first band took the stage and was a mix of "hardcore, metal and prog." The singer couldn't sing but had an amazing penchant for the dramatic. Halfway through a song, he throws down the mike and runs off stage. The music continues to crescendo to its most epic moment, when suddenly, he appears ABOVE the crowd in the rafters, screaming down (sans microphone) onto the audience. It was a cool moment. Though the band's songwriting abilities were questionable, their stage presence was great. They won me over when the singer started a song by stomping in the middle of the crowd, who soon followed suit until the whole venue was shaking.

The second band continued some of the stage antics by having the singer jump and mosh into the crowd during their set. But they were all over the place with their songs. The guitar player, who was wearing a Misfits shirt announced "Les gustan los Misfits??" before launching into a cover of "Saturday Knight," the Misfits WORST song and Danzig's obnoxious crooner ballad. To make matters worse, this was one of two covers the band played, the second being a Limp Bizket-type version of Britney's "Hit me baby one more time" with screaming on the Choruses.

The third band was decidedly most metal on a night that didn't really have any metal but by then (3 AM), everybody had already left the venue. Ihintza and Oscar were not the only ones disappointed. About a dozen other goths and metaleros congregated in the lounge during the screamo/hardcore bands, drinking beer and complaining about the lack of "brutality." Regardless, we had a fun time and on the walk home, I even got a train to toot its horn for metal by throwing up the horns of "rawk". All in all great night, as any night with live music usually is.