S.A. Sebastian: A View From The Bottom

Wednesday night’s Nine Inch Nails concert at the IZOD Center, in Rutherford, NJ, was an amazing performance and multi-media event. I would love to say that the band put on the unbelievably rawkus and energetic show, they have been know to put on in the past. For the most part there wasn’t a lot movement and action onstage by the band, except when they played songs like “March of the PIgs,” or “Head Like a Hole.” Robin Finck often looked awkward and clumsy, moving almost like a cross between Jerry Only and a guy in a horse costume. He even had a Guns ‘n Roses moment ripping out a very 80s blues-metal solo during Terrible Lie. The best comparison I could draw about the band itself is that they were like going to see an orchestra, concentrating more on playing the music than performing the music. But that didn’t make the concert any less cool, or exciting. The musicianship and the song list alone was enough to make any NIN fan happy, whether they jumped around like idiots, or not; playing songs from Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, Downward Spiral, The Fragile, With Teeth, Year Zero, Ghosts and The Slip for over two and a half hours. What the band lacked in visuals, was made up for in the amazing lighting and visual effects. 

I don’t think I can describe the stage setup and do it any justice; so I’m not really going to go into details. There was a wall of lights along the back, were 2 transparent curtains and a giant LCD wall. Sounds boring, but the transparent curtains were actually a video display, and together with the wall-sized LCD, made the most amazing 3-D visual effects; AND was interactive. As the band came near the front curtain, holes opened to reveal the band standing behind, the closer they got to the screen the less obscure the band got. See, I really can’t do it justice, so just check out the pictures.

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Psychobilly/horror-rock band the HorrorPops rolled into New York City to play the Blender Theater at Grammery last night with the Cute Lepers and the Pink Spiders opening up. I have been a big fan of the Horror Pops since they were still a band from Denmark and it was impossible to find their first album in the States. So, I had high expectations for this show: and the trio did not disappoint.

Surprisingly, the crowd was pretty diverse, filled with rockers, punks, Goths, jocks and “normals,” in addition to the rockabilly crew that is the typical fan of bands like the HorrorPops. I was completely surprised at the huge turnout for this band that I discovered on the Internet 4 years ago - I still envisioned them as a pretty small band. They hit the stage promptly at 10pm, lead by Patricia and her trademark white bass with skulls, red diamonds and jesters, and tore through songs from all 3 of their albums, Bring It On!, Hell Yeah! and the newest one, Kiss Kiss Kill Kill. They were also joined by 2 “corpse brides” who had choreographed dance routines to every song. For just over an hour it was a HorrorPops sing-a-long (even the jocks and normals) to songs like, “Trapped,” “Girl In A Cage,” “Kool Flattop,” “Freaks in Uniform,” “Hit’n’ Run,” “Julia,” “Drama Queen,” “Miss Take,” “Where They Wander,” “Baby Lou Tattoo,” “Heading For The Disco,” Copenhagen Refugee,” “Private Hall of Shame,” and the most requested “Walk Like A Zombie.” On their albums they sound like a mix of the Stray Cats, the Misfits, the Cramps and Madness, but in concert they sounded purely pyschobilly. During “Kool Flattop” the band mocked the obligatory stadium rock drum, guitar and bass solos with drummer Neidermeier playing the sampler’s demo track and then playing a few standard rock beats, followed by guitar player Nekroman grabbing the upright bass and seemingly jumping around the fretboard randomly picking notes and sliding around the neck and licking the strings. The “solos” were finished up with Jessica taking back the bass and making lots of slapping noises before returning to the song. An excellent, fun set!

The opening bands were very good, as well, making for an excellent concert overall. The Cute Lepers played a short set of 70s influenced pop-punk that was totally not like any of the Warped Tour bands. It was nice to hear a new punk band with pop influences that aren’t emo! I mean, I like emo as much as the next guy, (well actually, more. People my age HATE emo.) but enough whinin, already. The band looking like the were extras in the TV show Square Pegs, added a nice touch by having 2 female background singers, looking like they were also out of the 80s in slinky black dresses with bright pink earrings.

The Pink Spiders, looking very much like the Ramones, started out their set playing some catchy 80s influence pop-punk, but quickly devolved into the Warped Tour emo sound. They didn’t play anything memorable, but they played well and were very tight. One thing, though, the Lepers and the Spiders were screwed over by the 4, yes four “sound men” who apparently didn’t know that you need to hear the guitars in a rock show. During the Lepers’ set only the vocals and drums were in the PA, and during the Spider’s set the lead guitar wasn’t in the PA. There were 4 guys at the sound board just hanging around bullshitting, and not doing sound, making the 2 openers sound horrible.

The Cult played at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC Friday night with Action Action and Brand New Sin opening up. Brand New Sin were pretty cool 4-piece rock band that’s sounds like a cross between the NYC-rock sound of Circus of Power and the Southern rock of Pantera. They only got to play 4 songs, which was a shame, because Action Action was lame-ass boring Killers wannabe shoe-gazing crap that almost put me to sleep. They played for 40 minutes, most of that time I wanted to hear more of Brand New Sin.

I saw the Cult on their last tour, the one that they filmed for the DVD release, and it seemed like they were phoning it in. But this show, the band was totally on their game. Even Billy was having a great time and even got on the mic a few times to talk to the crowd. Both of them did a lot of hipster bashing, and Williamsburg bashing, which was pretty entertaining. The songs, in no particular order:

From the new Born Into This: I Assassin, Dirty Little Rock Star, Savages and Holy Mountain

from Love: Nirvana, Phoenix, Revolution, She Sells Santuary, Love

Electric: Love Removal Machine, Wild Flower, Electric Ocean
Sonic Temple: Fire Woman, Sweet Soul Sister, Edie (Ciao Baby)

The Cult b-side : the Witch
Beyond Good and Evil: Rise

Rock may be dead in NYC, but for one night the Cult brought it back.

On Monday, October 29 I saw Type-O Negative at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City on with Lordi opening up. I had never seen either band before and was looking forward to them both. That night Lordi filmed their show for a future DVD release. And it seemed like they picked a good night. For the most part the band had the crowd, but there were a few people shouting Gwar throughout their set. The stage show was pretty good, big guys in silly costumes is always fun. But the music really stood out. These guys from Finland really can play. I have been describing their music as late 80s to early 90s Alice Cooper-the Trash and Raise Your Fist and Yell albums come to mind. They play with evil themes but with high energy, good time hard rock music. My favorite song of the night had to be “Satan Is My Bitch.” Their set was given a boost by appearances by 2 members of Twisted Sister. Dee Snider provided the band’s intro and Jay Jay French came out and soloed on a song.

Even though I was looking forward to Type-O Negative, having heard their 10 minute opuses made me kinda wary. That, and I’ve met Peter Steele a few times and he is kinda hard to get a long with-he’s rubbed everyone I know the wrong way-I didn’t know what to expect of him as a front man. Well, he’s a big a jerk on-stage as he is offstage, yelling at the band in the middle of songs, and screaming at the crowd. But they all ate it up. After seeing this I get the joke. That’s his shtick and people love it. Seeing Type-O on the big stage of Irving Plaza was kinda weird because they are like a bar band. They perform on the big stage as if they are playing in the back of a bar with everyone within arm’s reach. I knew that everyone in the band were monsters on their instruments, except Pete. On the record he plays what fits the song. In concert he opens it up and shows off some chops, which was pretty cool. They played some new songs and a lot of old songs. What sucked was that Pete used a music stand with cheat sheets for the new songs. Oh well, if Axel Rose, Ozzy, Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger can use a teleprompter, Pete can use a music stand.

Well, even though there was a lot to be impressed by, I was ultimately bored by Type-O. The previously mentioned 10-minute songs were stretched out and seemed to go on for hours. Boring, Sidney, boring! Some people really got into it, but I just wished that they would have stopped at 4 or 5 verses and choruses instead of 7 or 8! And a few less extended jams would have been nice. But, it was good to finally see the band.

Morrissey played a 5 night run at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom beginning Monday, October 22. For this 5-show run Live Nation could offered fans a special package of tickets for all 5 shows. In order to keep things interesting Morrissey performed a different set of songs from his huge Smiths and Morrissey catalog. If you only had tickets for one night there was a chance you might not get to see him perform your favorite songs. Luckily for me, the October 23rd show that I went to was full of my favorite Smiths and Morrissey songs.

To get everyone ready for the show they played some video clips of some really strange, campy 50s and 60s songs from France and England-even a Bridget Bardeau song. These were followed up by a very strange video of James Dean’s East of Eden wardrobe test. Odd. Then was a very amusing montage of clips from an episode of the Untouchables which featured a villain named… Morrissey. They episode was edited down to all the parts where they mentioned Morrissey. Very clever. “It’s Morrissey’s gang they’re down at the docks!” “Where’s Morrissey? We gotta get Morrissey!”

The show opened up with “Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before” which was very cool. A lot of friends didn’t want to go because they heard that Morrissey is depressing and goth. Well, Morrissey live was fun and exciting. He and the band were so full of energy even “Death Of A Disco Dancer” wasn’t a downer. And, Morrissey was jumping around having a great time, and was telling jokes and poking fun at himself all through the show. He played for about 2 hours, and during the encore was attacked by almost a dozen gay men rushing the stage. One guy was reaching for the stage and Morrissey pulled him up and lead him off to the side. This encouraged dozens of gay men to try the same. When Morrissey didn’t oblige they tried climbing the barrier and jumping on stage. Several made it, and many more were taken out by the security team. After that assault Morrissey cut things short and ended the show.

It’s too bad that Morrissey decided to quit performing live, because he is a great singer and very dynamic. At least he hasn’t quit his recording career.