By ERWIN CHLANDA
The crowd was dressed in black but their mood was everything but.
The Blacken Heavy Metal concert over the weekend, the fourth, and this year “reborn” as a two-day festival, as organiser Pirate puts it, had them jumping to the in-your-face music from 20 bands, nine from interstate.
The new venue, the beer garden of the Gapview Hotel, was perfect, palm trees in the gentle breeze and sparkling pools contrasting with the skeletons and skulls branding the event.
Some 600 came through the gates, counting repeat visitors over the two days, inter-staters camping out on the grounds, giving Blacken the bush flavour Pirate is aiming for.
Southeast Desert Metal (see video), one of his proteges, from Santa Teresa, made the point that outback bands can do more than folk and country.
PHOTO AT TOP: Southeast Desert Metal.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/7EuEkhma6ks[/youtube]