It's 36 degrees in the middle of February, it's about two in the afternoon and I've become engulfed by a big dust cloud caused by a few dozen giddy metalheads rampaging around in a giant circle pit. Behind them is the frontman of Thai prog metallers The Darkest Romance, bass guitar slung around his neck, sunglasses hung on his face, singing and screaming his guts out in the middle of the field as another hundred or so metalheads sit totally bewitched around him in near-silence. I can't understand a word he's saying but I feel every syllable of it, such is his passion and sheer magnetism.
It's one highlight of many at this year's Rock Alarm festival, Thailand's biggest dedicated rock and metal event of the summer. Taking place at Warehouse Stadium, around a 50 minute drive outside of Bangkok, it has historically amassed the biggest and best of the Thai rock scene, from scabrous crossover to histrionic emo and fuzzy alt rock.
