Oof, there’s a lot to cover in this review. Initially an impressive three-band lineup, we ended up with four entertaining acts with the addition of transatlantic grouping Tarah Who? Leading lady Tarah was ed by two new bandmates (one very new) to throw out a punky grunge sound designed to shake of the last vestiges of any late Easter angst.
Billing themselves as the band to see if you have any rage you just want to scream out of your system, they played up to this well. Given their late arrival (blame the Glasgow one way system) and resultant lack of sound check, they sounded great with the right balance of noise and riffage. Especially pleasing was the size of the crowd there to watch them especially given the early door time of 6pm. Those who arrived promptly were definitely treated to a band who did what they were there for – get the audience warmed up.
Next up were a band I was very much looking forward to seeing again. Some years ago I got to see Italy’s Sick n’ Beautiful at Ivory Blacks on a headline tour. The show was great, but there were pitifully few people there to watch them. A shame as they are very much a band to be seen live. Tonight was far better, with the Cathouse pretty much packed by the time they came on stage with a slightly cut down (due to venue limitations) show.
Despite the lack of pyro and fewer props, the show was no worse for it. The great costumes, lasers and (of course) music were all that was needed. The five really work well together and really push their GWAR-esque personas and back story through the show… and indeed afterwards where they posed for photos with fans!
Their industrial sounds came over well, the crowd loved them and all this despite their full stage setup (or a sound check). Herna’s vocals disappeared once or twice, but otherwise no complaints. Few bands work harder than this bunch and they really deserve to be on a big stage with a matching budget some day. In the meantime, do check them out and pick up some of their very reasonably priced merch.
Taking the main slot were south coast rock monsters South of Salem. I swear not a week goes by without seeing these miscreants on some poster or other. This tour comes right off the back of the recent WASP outing, and they’re already to be spotted on some festival lineups including Manchester’s SOS Fest in late June.
I gather they are featuring a new guitarist at the moment, but I’d not have guessed. The singer was struggling with a sore throat, so much of the between-song chatter was handled by his bandmates, but this didn’t detract from an incredible set. Absolutely no prisoners were taken as SoS blasted rocker after rocker at us. There was no time to draw breath as they squeezed everything they could out of their allotted time, leaving the stage sweaty and smiling. Coincidence – so were the audience.
South of Salem take gritty rock music and strip it to the bare bones. There are some great riffs in there, and they are all about getting the audience going. As a act, they’re spot on. But based on this performance they are very much headlining material. Give them time to work up a bigger catalogue of music and we could be seeing the birth of something wonderfully big and noisy.
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With the early doors, it was kind of expected that the show would finish early-ish. That was until the acts were gifted more than 20 minute slots. By the time Wednesday 13 came on stage it really did seem like tonight was going to be stupidly good value for the ticket price, and so it proved to be. Eighteen songs, just under ninety minutes and a great performance was the rich icing on a very delicious cake.
There was little chat from our cowboy-hatted horror lord, with most of the verbal onslaught contained within the songs. Like Sick n’ Beautiful earlier, tonight was cut down in of stage show and costumes, though I didn’t notice anything as it’s the first time I’ve seen him (other than a Murderdolls show back in 20011!). Certainly his promise of keeping the focus on the music wasn’t empty words as the hits (and slashes and stabs) just kept coming.
“Blood Sucker” and “Scream Baby Scream” had the man himself, and the audience, in full foul-mouthed flow. “Look What The Bats Dragged In” and “My Home Sweet Homicide” highlighted the Wednesday 13 methodology of writing a song. Find a grisly / horror-related pun and then wrap lyrics around it. These little verbal gems are present in so many of his songs, often in the titles, and are as much a trademark as that hat.
With the visual aspect of the show mainly being some flashing lights and a bit of smoke, we could really enjoy the band themselves parading around the Cathouse’s surprisingly spacious stage. Every one looked at home, posing on the monitors, encouraging the crowd to sing or clap, and making daft faces for photos. Basically, having a ton of fun while creating an amazing racket.
Even the drum solo was good, featuring a new addition to the band (apologies, I didn’t catch his name). By popping in some nice little horror clips, it even fitted in with the rest of the set, and the drummer himself was great fun. Not the usual “sit there and look at me”, but very active and obviously loving the attention.
The set really hit a high, though, towards the end when a couple of covers snuck in. I mean, are they really covers when you wrote them in the first place? Regardless, Murderdoll’s fantastic “Nowhere” was dedicated to the legend Joey Jordison and bloody hell… I’d forgotten what a great song it is. This was followed by “Die My Bride” (originally by Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13), another belter. Indeed, the gig as a whole was wrapped up with another FDQ song, “I Love to Say Fuck”, thus bracketing the show nicely. Start with motherfuckers, finish with fuckers.
Given the number of albums this man has released, we could have done three hours. However, I didn’t see anyone complaining about the hour and a half we enjoyed. The only let-down was that the tour t-shirts were only available in small (I assume a supplier cockup). Oh, and the drunk guy with the mohawk who kept winding people up all night eventually pushing one guy too far to the point where things almost got nasty. To the chap he elbowed: you did the right thing. Well done on backing off and being the bigger person. Everyone there had your back, fella.
Small downsides ignored, this was every bit the awesome gig I was expecting. All four acts deserve huge praise for walloping out hours or great music, and for a bargain ticket price. If there are still dates (and tickets) left on the tour when this post goes live, then I doubt you’ll get better value this year. Enjoy a packed night out!
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Pics by Shaun Hulme
[…] of Salem were part of the package the last time Wednesday 13 hit town, and it’s always a pleasure to see them. We caught up with then at Bloodstock this year where […]