BITE ME! Wednesday 13 Live

Wednesday 13 & The 69 Eyes

Islington Academy (London), 4/13/05

Body parts are strewn across the stage like Jason himself was here, but this is Wednesday 13, not Friday. Tonight the Islington Academy is more like L.A’s Roxy than the Roxy. Everyone has polished their new ‘rock’ boots, black mascara is running off pasty white faces, and Camden has sold out of Manic Panic. Why you ask? Because the singer of Slipknot’s Joey Jordison’s side project The Murderdolls has got himself a side project too, Wednesday 13, playing coincidentally on Wednesday the 13th in support of their new album Transylvania 90210 (see what they did there?)

The show opened with Finland’s The 69 Eyes, who do basically what The Hellacopters have done before them but with a baritone voice worthy of Type O Negative. Imagine if you will, a mash up of LA Guns, The Mission, and Type O and you’ll be heading in the right well trodden direction. Despite the history lesson on stage the kids lapped it up like they were starving to be entertained. It has been a while since I went to a gig in London and it was nice to be reminded of how crazy people get at these shows even if the band said, and I quote that old chestnut.....ready for it...,"are you ready to rock!" At the Whiskey the crowd would probably respond with a hundred middle fingers, but here where it’s 1988 again, everyone loves it, and this was just the beginning.

By the time the main event emerged, the room was drunk and smelly as Wednesday 13 did their Rob Zombie crossed with old Manson thing, and I found myself pushing to the front to pump my fist like I was 17 again. Wednesday puts on a great show as he screams his horror tales with abandon. The line between his other glam metal circus The Murderdolls and Wednesday 13 is so thin that when the guys launch into the Dolls song “Grave Robbing USA” nobody notices. They join in and the swarm sweats even more as the stench of body odor overwhelms your scribe.

Smoke was sent skyward, confetti was pulled from skulls, and laser guns were pointed from the band’s coffin shaped toy box. Production values are high and it appears hat a lot of effort and cash money has been poured into what seems an obvious labor of love. Song of fucking corpses, zombies, vampires, and black caskets pour from the stage as everyone revels in the obvious absurdity of it all. Come on, this shock horror thing isn’t new or unique (how long ago was the Misfits?), but the way these guys pull it from their magic hats shows that this monster isn’t dead yet. –Glen