ZiX live at Metal Days 2016 [chronicle]

At 4 a.m. on Saturday, July 23, we set off — Ziad the bassist, Ziad the drummer, and his wife Helen — heading for Ljubljana. The reason? ZiX performing **live at Metal Days 2016**. Yes, the moment to finally show the result of so much rehearsal work in Lebanon was arriving [post: ZiX warm-up concert].

After a layover in Belgrade, where we met up with Jelena Dobric, our shiny new backup singer, and for the first time left Lola in the plane's hold (hello, panic), **we got to Ljubljana**, where two hours of minibus through the mountains toward Tolmin awaited us.

Photo: Juan, Jelena, and Ziad. ZiX in Belgrade.

We arrived. Dropped our gear at the hotel (which the organization kindly booked for us) and set about the task of ~~drinking a couple of beers~~ going to the camping area to **hand out flyers** for our Monday concert. The vast majority of this promo work was handled by the PR man par excellence, Mr. Bardawil. His strategy was basically to approach anyone wearing an Iron Maiden shirt and/or speaking French.

I wore myself out **looking for fellow Latin Americans** but had no luck until Sunday night, when I found some fellow Mexicans, and a week later a couple of Chileans in Ljubljana.

On Sunday, Walid (the other guitarist) and Joelle, our tour manager for those days, came to meet us. After the proper greetings and catching up, we kept hammering away at the promo.

This time, with our **artist credentials**, we got to go up close and see the brutal stage we'd be playing on a few hours later.

Photo: Walid and his poncho.

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Pre-orders began for ZiX's debut album: "Tides of the Final War." Classic **heavy metal** with some folk and oriental twists. On this record you'll find top-shelf guests like Kenny "Rhino" Earl (*Manowar*) on drums; Paul Di'Anno, Blaze Bayley (*Iron Maiden*), Tony Martin (*Black Sabbath*), Ronny Munroe (*Metal Church*) and many more on vocals; and a couple of beasts on guitar like Jack Starr (*Virgin Steele*), Stu Marshall (*Death Dealer*), Ross Friedman, and David Shankle (*Manowar*). *Pre-order until October 28.* Cover: `https://i0.wp.com/juancarrizo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ZiX-Tides-of-the-Final-War-front-cover.jpg` — Buy

The day I shared a stage with Testament

Monday morning we woke up, I made myself some mate, we ran through a couple of arrangements with the bassist, and went to **soundcheck**. The soundcheck went great — they treated us like royalty, the gear was flawless, and the stage… THE STAGE was gi-gan-tic. Suddenly 6 meters of cable was very, very little :p

In the "100% Argentine" section: I had new strings, of course, BUT I didn't have wire cutters, so I was walking around with all my strings frayed like fringe — which, besides being ugly, is a constant risk of poking your eye out. Luckily, while I was soundchecking, the Testament guys were calibrating their instruments, and yeah, I bummed a pair of cutters off Alex Skolnick's assistant \m/

Remember I told you about the giant stage? Well, when Testament got up on it, it looked like a toy. What presence those guys have. It was my third time seeing them, but never so close. A true steamroller from start to finish.

Photo: ZiX with Testament. During some little break from our promo duties, we went for a dip in the river, and just like that, casually, we ran into Chuck and Alex of Testament \m/

[backstage] shoulder to shoulder with the greats \m/

We spent a lot of time in the backstage area networking with other musicians and promoters. Among them, the guys from Kreator and Napalm Death — whose bassist, to our surprise, had heard our EP and knew the band :) — and the Russian from Arkona, a phenomenon.

The Insomnium guys, who we treated ourselves to telling "hey lads, you stole our album title" amid laughs. Dragonforce, Skindred, and MY idol Hansi Kürsch of Blind Guardian — who closed the festival with a killer show.

In the Insomnium pit, besides dueling it out with assorted young Vikings, I lost my thermal cup. RIP Estanislao Jr. You served us well.

Officially live at Metal Days 2016

The show went very well. We opened with "Heaven's Eyes" — with a little problem in my guitar that was quickly sorted, and by the second round of the intro it was already running. We followed with "Crucible," the **album's first single**. As we played, more and more people came over to watch and headbang with us.

It's worth noting we were the **first band on the first official day of the festival**, so nobody left us a crowd beforehand. All those souls gathered because: - a) they knew us from the web, - b) we'd handed them a flyer the day before, - c) they heard the furious heavy metal and couldn't help themselves.

We went through "Shadow of a Dying Sun" (with an epic blunder from yours truly) and the now-classic "Night of Evil." For "Dark Days of Babylon," since the solo on the record is played by Jack Starr, I set about writing a **new guitar solo** (not the one I recorded on the EP) during my days in Beirut — it came out really nice, so much so that I filmed it so I wouldn't forget it :p [once the record's out, I'll put the link here].

We closed the concert with **"Tides of the Final War,"** the album's second single (out 10/28 via Pure Steel Records) — a song that's already become emblematic for us, telling the story of the Battle of Souk El Gharb during the Lebanese civil war.

🎵 SoundCloud tracks: `https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/259012276` · `https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/286302257`

By the time the show ended we had around **400 souls screaming** "we want more! we want more!" An amazing moment I hope repeats soon! Were there mistakes? Of course! But it all came out great, and one of the things that put me most at ease was seeing every single one (EVERY one) of the players during the festival flub things as much as or worse than we did.

THE lesson, then, was the **ease and professionalism** with which they resolved it. Sometimes you get so used to the dynamics of recorded music that you forget the human factor of imperfection — but well, that's another post.

Photo: Honorable mention to the front-row crew. Firas, Helen, Walid, Anthony, and Abed.

After our **40 minutes of glory** — where, luckily, people kept arriving the whole time (we started with about 50 and ended with 400) — I expected to put on my swim trunks, crack open a beer, and eat a dead cow. But no! The work was just beginning.

The next 4 hours were **interviews** with various outlets from around the globe. Some of these pieces are already circulating online. We were interviewed by many international outlets. The highlight of the unusual? Macedonia.

Photo: ZiX with photographer Olga Herndon.

**Interviews & videos:** Galleries — Alheimia, TK Metal Shots, Olga Herndon. Videos — [We Don't Care [interview]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwTz5jjnMtg), [Hard n Heavy MK [interview]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSFgxqfczNc), [Night of Evil [live clip]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39kbiqM-4GQ).

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Digital Impact: Behind the scenes, optimizing our web presence and structuring our band's digital footprint (SEO/AEO) was crucial. It allowed international labels and musicians to discover us organically and validate our professional standing before committing to our music.