For those not familiar, Reverence is the annual festival held in Madison, WI. Possibly created under a Matt Fanale (Caustic) fronted conspiracy to assure that Stomkern headlines festivals, while claiming to be broken up, and playing their “last show.” All that aside, it’s an impressive undertaking to organize and hold a festival in the Midwest. There’s always a somewhat intimate feel to it and a fair chunk of odd surprises.

It was not feasible for me to stay in Madison for 5 days, so I had to skip the first day of the festival. Even though I would highly recommend all the bands that played the first day. DefCon, Ctrlshft, and Breath and Decay are all bands that I would have really enjoyed to see play. In my opinion, Wednesday, was probably the best night of the festival. But the plan was to get to the festival on Friday.

I woke up on Friday with full intent of driving to the festival. I had packed some fancy clothes and cigarettes the night before, and was ready for the Wisconsin driving-adventure. However, the night prior, some (mis)adventures involving a drunk, some quarters, and a big fluffy dog made my keys disappear from the known universe. That might sound like an excuse… there’s an actual reason why I didn’t make it to the festival on Friday: Cervello Elettronico! I’ve gone to concerts where he’s been on the bill at least 6 times. If he’s playing, it’s a guarantee that I’ll be late to whichever event I’m attending. It’s unfortunate, because I dig a few of the tracks off his last album, and have still yet to hear ‘em live.

So I finally arrived at the festival on Saturday, going directly to the Inferno. If you’ve never been to the Inferno in Madison, I highly suggest checking it out. I’ve been to a lot of clubs worldwide and the Inferno is one of my favorites. The staff is friendly and the drinks are relatively cheap — even if you do get charged radically different prices for the same drink. There’s also a novel aspect to the club, as it seems to be someone’s souped-up basement-club. My only complaint about past shows at the Inferno: a)the sound is a bit quiet for live acts and b)it’s a fucking inferno in there. The club was sounding a lot better then it had before, but the inferno still feels like a fun place to catch a heat-stroke (in these types of situations, you really start envying the folks that wear outfits that could fit into your pocket).

There were a lot of ups and downs through out the course of the day, with as much camp as anything that Matt Fanale would put together. Some of the more amiable moments included the passing around of Marching Dynamic’s conical hats, Boole’s mad dance moves, the Gothsicle’s rick-role, the return of Noonerschaft, and the performance of a headless Stromkern known as “Stromberg.” To preserve the possible-original motive behind Reverence, a few of the members of Stromkern were joined on stage by various random-wanders while a highly enthusiastic girl blirted out the bulk of the Stromkern lyrics she knew (no one really knows what the hell Ned Kirby is saying). Now that’s not something you see every day…

Marching Dynamics was the first band that played and was by far the most impressive act I saw that night. I had heard a few preview tracks, which I didn’t like that much. But hearing them live was by far worth the drive, as they sounded great in the club (even with the technical glitches). I didn’t really understand the wacky outfits and conical hats (ala Raiden from Mortal Kombat), though watching them on stage seemed to be a satisfying experience. I really wanted to dance during their set but was a bit tired from the drive. My main complaint was that my view was obstructed by the cute punk girl with the 20-inch-fluffy-mohawk… but well, these things aren’t supposed to be comfortable or easy.

The worst part of the festival was choking through Ego Likeness. I’ll preface this by saying that there aren’t that many goth-rock/darkwave bands that I enjoy (though there are a few). On the upside, I think the singer’s voice sounds rich and in key — a relative rarity for the genre (as it seems too many bands just don’t care if there female vocalist is a terrible/annoying singer, as long as she’s female). This might have also rekindled the painful memories of seeing Blind Faith and Envy play at Reverence ‘05. But damn they are boring to watch, and their songs start to blur together. The setup was fairly typical: somewhat attractive singer, backing track, and a guitar player. Out of pure concern it was difficult not keeping an eye on the guitar player; it seemed like he had a squirrel trapped in his pants. It didn’t help that most live guitar parts were drowned out by the backing track (I blame the Pod).

Soman headlined the festival, closing the night out. His music never really did it for me, as it always seemed like power noise for people that don’t like power noise (nowadays, some of the kids call it TBM or something like that). It’s a bit boring, though sometimes this kind of music is fun to hear in a club or done live. It was entertaining to watch Kolja go nuts behind his equipment — showing motivation often times lacking from the performance of electronic music. This was really fun for the first 20 minutes, but the redundant beat drove me from the dance floor and to the bar.

Overall, I had a great time, and am looking forward to the next installation of Reverence in August. My main regret was not taking advantage of the hot dog stand. Next year, I hope that either Endif or Caustic would be in the line-up.