Wednesday 13 + Sign + Exoterik
Glasgow Garage, 20th May 2008
Calling all spooky kids, babyglams, nu punks and glamma-nanas! Come out, come out, wherever you're hiding – your spiritual leader is back in town. He sleeps in a coffin, hangs out in cemeteries with Vincent Price and likes to say f*ck. Yup, it can only be the legendary Wednesday 13.
We only catch the end of the set from openers Exoterik, who want to be Evanescence but actually come off more like perky goth vampires Faithful Dawn. Someone really should tell them that having a nice looking female vocalist doesn't give the rest of the band carte blanche to stand around lamely in the background wearing cardigans. Next! (Incidentally, it's been pointed out to me that this is a rather lazy, uninformed review, for which I apologise - and with which I probably agree - oops!)
Next are Icelandic rock mob Sign. Their skinny blonde frontman Zolberg may resemble a twiggy reject from Hanson who looks as if he'd blow away in a stiff breeze, but he sure has a powerful pair of lungs on him and is an entertaining bundle of nervous, angular energy on stage. Most of Sign's songs seem a bit same old same old nu rock nonsense, but their current single, 'The Hope', is a cracking slice of driving rock with a catchy, melodic chorus, My Chemical Romance stylee – and their cheeky cover of Skid Row's 'Youth Gone Wild' kicks ass.
And so onto the main event. With his lank hanging dreadlocks and deathly white pallor, ex-Murderdolls frontman Wednesday 13 is a cut price shock rock legend for the J-horror generation and I just love him. Like a B-movie to Alice Cooper's main feature, if Richard O'Brien could really make you a man, he'd make you Wednesday 13.
Bursting onto the stage with 'Gimmie Gimmie Bloodshed' from new album Skeletons and surrounded by a band who really really want to be the Misfits (including Murderdolls compadre Acey Slade), he treats us to a marvellous medley of twisted tracks from the darkside, songs drenched in blood and guts and tongue-in-cheek creature feature humour robbed from the grave of Ed Wood and beamed in live and kicking from Planet 13.
The high points are definitely the marvellously kitsch 'I Walked With A Zombie' (complete with a hilarious shambling appearance from Day of the Dead's Bud), an unexpectedly brilliant cover of Tom Petty's 'Running Down A Dream' and the powerful, gut wrenching title track from the new album. The gloriously naff 'Rambo' (cue plastic AK47) is rivalled in ridiculousness only by Wednesday's theme tune, 'I Like to Say F*ck', a song that makes 'Sex Party' look subtle. If I was too old to wave my middle finger in the air six years ago, I'm definitely too old now.
Not so much cut from the same cloth as Alice and Marilyn Manson as patched together from their remnants, Wednesday 13 is a gorgeous, glamorous underground god who knows his target market like the back of his gloved hand and isn't afraid to take the piss out of it. Long may he continue to haunt the underbelly of the goth rock circuit. Emo my ass…
Wednesday 13 + Hanoi Rocks + The Haze, 31st October 2008
