Going to The Bloody Beetroots show in Nashville on May 18 was sort of like entering Jesse’s living room in an episode of Breaking Bad. Leave it to the Italians to bring the weirdest show to Nashville this spring. Fans were pressed up against the front of the stage shouting their deepest roars along this heavy metal meets Emo meets electronica band.
I’ve never seen a crowd so excited over a lead singer jugging a bottle of water just so he can spit it back out over the audience like an instant rain shower. At times Rifo was dumping entire bottles of water on heads, yet it seemed like some sort of religious experience to his fans. I suppose if you jump up and down for an hour straight, you need that sort of refreshment.
I must admit: these guys brought quite the show, wearing their black Venom masks with LED lights blinking in the shape of the eyes, and jumps so high you wanted to enroll them in the Olympics. And just when you thought the weirdness had reached its climax, the band broke out into some 60’s song, teasing with happy tunes, just to fall back into heavy metal screams wishing for someone’s death.
Lead singer Rifo ran through the audience at one point, playing his guitar. But most impressive was Rifo’s black grand piano center stage, with a connected synthesizer allowing him to produce remarkably unique sounds. This talented incognito nutjob sure understands how to push music boundaries and invent an altogether brand new sound. I might have gone home that night feeling a little angry and weird about life, but at the same time incredibly impressed and enlightened about this genre of music from which I had been so sheltered.
