“Loserville lands in Argentina: Limp Bizkit’s festival makes Parque Sarmiento shake.”

Dec 16th, Parque Sarmiento, Argentina

As Slipknot has “Knotfest”, Ozzy had the “Ozzfest”, and in recent years, more bands have decided to create their own music festivals, like Slash or Dream Theater. Limp Bizkit came up with the idea of “Loserville”, a festival where you could watch performances from bands that play modern Metal, in between Rap artists and Alternative ’90s bands. Genres that fit strangely well with the music of Limp Bizkit, who always had a unique sound within the Nu Metal wave. Combining Rap and Metal as they were the 21st century Beastie Boys.

The festival landed in South America in the first week of December, as it was prepared to be the perfect way to end the year.

Something unusual was the fact that there weren’t any local support bands. But it makes sense, it was a 6-performance festival that started around 16 pm, it was early enough to put one more band at the beginning.

The first band was Slay Squad, a young Californian band that gave an incredible performance, and even when they played to a small crowd, everyone just fell in love with them. They started the first mosh pits of the evening. With a combination of Metal and Trap fragments, the 5-member band blew our minds with songs like “GUMBO”, “Full Throttle”, “Fye Fye Fye”, “X”, and “BEAM”. The guys looked like they were having a lot of fun, and they were very thankful for being able to play there.

The second artist was Riff Raff, a rapper that came onstage with only his vocals as weapon and backing tracks, the contrast between the first band was pretty huge, but the dude was a total showman, and songs like “I Want a Ferrari”, “De Chicas”, “Neon Hong Kong”, Ain’t Giving Up My Truck” and “Carlos Slim” were a perfect company to the people that was drinking some beers below the heavy sunrays of the afternoon.
Even the guys from Slay Squad joined him onstage in the middle of his set to jump around and cheer the crowd.

Then, it was time for Ecca Vandal, a young lady from South Africa, who was accompanied by a drummer and a guitar player/DJ. The crowd seemed to really enjoy her performance; she had a total stage attitude, and her songs had a Pop Punk/Rap Rock style that fitted very well with the energy of the people. Songs like “Came for The Loot”, “Bleed but Never Die”, “Ghosts”, “Vertical World”, and “Sorry! Crash!” easily proved that this frontwoman has a long and successful career ahead. Oh, I forgot, the Slay Squad guys joined her too; those guys didn’t want to stop partying for a single minute!

The next band was 311. They were celebrating 35 years of career but landed for the first time in Argentina, so many frustrated fans could fulfill a dream.
The Rock band combines elements from Ska and Reggae, which makes every song have a unique style, and with two vocalists (Nick and Doug) with different vocal ranges, that becomes even more remarkable.
They started their set with “Come Original”, “Beautiful Disaster”, and “Freak Out”, followed by a Reggae cover of “Lovesong” by The Cure.
After playing “Applied Science”, the drummer (Chad) played a drum solo, in which the other members joined by hitting floor toms synchronizing accents with the rhythm. It was a very musical and technically studied drum solo.
Their set ended with “Ambers”, “Creatures (for a While)”, and “Down”.

One of the biggest names of the line-up was next, Bullet for My Valentine, the legendary Metalcore band that joined Loserville with a tour that celebrates the 20th anniversary of their debut album, “The Poison”, one of the greatest albums of the entire genre.
The show started with the intro tape of that album sounding in the background, then the band appeared onstage with “Her Voice Resides”, making the crowd go really crazy and starting multiple mosh pits. Until that performance, the crowd seemed a safe place, but then everybody went crazy. It was easy to see how many fans of BFMV were in that crowd.
The band played the exact tracklist of the album, so the next songs were “4 Words (to Choke Upon)”, “Tears Don’t Fall” (“the song that changed our lives forever,” said Matt), “Suffocating Under Words of Sorrow (What Can I Do)”, “Hit the Floor”…
The band sounded very tight and powerful; many of these songs hadn’t been played in years, and it wasn’t noticeable because of the huge similarity with the sound of the album. It was as if 20 years hadn’t passed at all, and instead, it was just a week.
The performance continued until it reached the end of the album. “All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)”, “Hand of Blood”, “Room 409”, “The Poison”, “10 Years Today”, “Cries in Vain”, and “The End” were played and completed a real fan service set.
The end of the show came with their 2008 classic “Waking the Demon”, from the album “Scream Aim Fire”.

The intro for Limp Bizkit was totally emotional, they just appeared and sat down looking at the screen behind, a videotape was being played, it was a tribute to Sam Rivers, the late bassist and co-founder of the band, who passed away a few months ago.
After that, the set began with “Break Stuff” and “Hot Dog” (with a short snippet of “Master of Puppets” by Metallica played by Wes in between). “Show Me What You Got” was the next song, followed by “My Generation” with the intro of White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”. Limp Bizkit always knew how to glue songs that you thought wouldn’t fit in any case.
After a quick DJ Lethal vinyl lesson, the band played “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)” and then invited Ecca Vandal to the stage to sing “Sabotage”, the Beastie Boys classic song.
“My Way”, “Re-Arranged”, and “Eat You Alive” were the following songs on the setlist. And if BFMV gave a rude awakening to the people, Limp Bizkit just made the whole place shake. No kidding, thousands and thousands of people jumped simultaneously in almost every song, and it felt like the ground was going to collapse at any minute.
Then came “Boiler”, “Behind Blue Eyes” (with only Fred singing onstage while sitting and the music coming from a tape), “Dad Vibes”, “Nookie”, and “Full Nelson”, where Fred picked one guy from the crowd to sing with him. The guy was happy as hell, of course!
The set ended with “Faith”, “Take a Look Around” (“dedicated to the ones who have to go to a job tomorrow, make it count,” said Fred), and “Break Stuff” again. It is becoming a good and funny habit that in recent shows they’re always starting and ending the set with that same song.

Photos by Eliana Fernandez

Review by Agustín Lopez

Produced by Fenix Entertainment.

Press María Nolte, Nicolás Tavella, Natalia Fiore.