DAY 1: MAYHEM IN NEW YORK CITY

Posted on May 24th, 2009

We sent roving reporter Justina Villanueva on the road with this summer's darkest tour, Blackenedfest. She will be checking in constantly with dispatches from the tour. Catch up with all her tour diaries, as well as a ton of photos at the Blackenedfest hub.

Day 1

First lesson of the tour: If the tour manager gives you a photo pass, don't loose it.
I got to Irving Plaza 5 hours after I said I would have. After spending hours staring at my luggage because I could not do the whole toiletry Tetris shuffle, I spent 90 minutes in traffic. By the time I got to the venue I was on another planet. Which explains why when Cartel (tour manager) handed me my photo/crew pass I put it "somewhere" and didn't see it for the rest of the night. And, because a tour laminate is not good enough for Irving Plaza crew to recognize someone as part of the tour, I had to run around during Lair of Minotaur looking for Cartel to fix my mess. But, don't worry, Lair of Minotaur will be catching up with the tour again in a couple weeks. I'll get pictures of them then.

Marduk
Everyone on the tour (bands and crew) have heard different stories and has begun to speculate their own version of what could be the issue. Including the ol' "maybe they're not even a real band" joke. All I can tell anyone is that I really don't know when/if they will join the tour.

The Show @ Irving Plaza
There is not much I can say about the show besides it ruled. Everyone in the photopit was hoping for blood and we did not get it. But, we did get an exhilarating opportunity to shoot a great performance artist, Attila. The show didn't pack Irving Plaza the way I thought it would, but everyone who was there had dropped jaws. Which made me realize, HOLY SHIT I get to do this every night!

Withered