Body Count (support act: Slope)
Zagreb / ŠRC Šalata / Croatia
Sunday, June 16, 2024, from 7:30 PM onward
Body Count visited Zagreb for the third time in their career. The first was a staggering 27 years ago, the second when they completely sold out Zagreb’s Boćarski dom (a.k.a. Zagreb’s ‘bowling club’) six years ago. What a band! When it comes to delivering a direct shot to the head and throwing one hell of a party! In every sense. And at the center of all that is their unique presence and ceremonially career-long walk, which comes down to? The figure of an unmistakable personality — Ice-T himself (and his whole ‘figurescape’). A sharp-tongued wordsmith and, in many ways, the core generator of the magnetism behind this ‘unholy’ musical force, which has been thrilling fans worldwide since at least 1992, when the ‘soul-tearing ace of aces’ Cop Killer dropped!
The crossover fortress known as Body Count is indestructible these days and is already busy cooking up a new studio album! A new European tour with the bulk of dates concentrated at festival venues brought them to another standalone Zagreb show — and for mid-June in Zagreb, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more fitting venue than ŠRC Šalata.
Before the ‘gangsta rap metal’ legends took the stage, the German five-piece from Duisburg, Slope, warmed up the venue and turned out to be a very handy support act. We caught their set from very, very far back, but that was more than enough to see how their vivid mix of metal funk, HC elements and groove-heavy riffs — backed by slogans of anger and rage — kept pulling all eyes to the stage. The crowd, still streaming toward the stage during their set, showed no signs of indifference toward the energetic and razor-sharp performance. In just over half an hour, the band essentially ran through their entire EP “Loosin’ Grip” and unveiled two brand new tracks. They made great use of the time they had, laying down exactly the right bed of hot coals — which were then fanned into full flame by the arrival of….
Body Count! The crowd packed and pressed as close to the stage as possible, though with ‘in-between — side pockets’ where you could breathe and survive. Because Body Count attacked Šalata without a shred of mercy — opening right out of the gate with the career classic Body Count’s In The House and then pouring gasoline on the fire with the Slayer classic Raining Blood/Postmortem. The crowd instantly launched into the delirium of that desired ‘otherworldly’ experience, wrapped in the unique atmosphere these colorful gangster gentlemen conjure.
The core of the band remains the unique pairing of Ice-T and Ernie C. Everything starts there. Ernie once again put all of his guitar mastery on full display, with no shortage of diverse tricks and adaptations threaded through his phrases. The crown jewel was his solo passages, dropped in exactly the right doses (in exactly the right places)! Ice-T’s presence is hard to sum up in just a few words. A verbal thunderclap and granite-hard shouter with no equal — all rolled into one! Cutting yet also peace-bearing messages, plus a bag full of razor-sharp wit (a particularly fine run of humorous asides, say), and you simply can’t resist. The rest of the crossover misfit crew has been a fixed lineup for several years now. That’s: Vincent Price (before joining BC he worked with the metallers Steel Prophet), drummer Ill Will, resident hype man Little Ice (Ice-T’s son), Sean E Sean (backing vocals, sampling, third original member of the current lineup) and guitarist Juan The Dead — the only light-skinned member of the group, known to many as the frontman of Evildead (who dropped a new album this year) and as guitarist Juan Garcia of the unforgettable Florida speed metal legends Agent Steel (anyone whose everyday path happened to lead them to Ljubljana’s K4 on January 30, 2000, by some miracle, had the chance to meet him in person — back then he still had long hair and no ‘Taliban’ beard).
The band steadily built the intensity of their show, firing off two more classics from the debut in the first third of the set (Bowels Of the Devil, There Goes the Neighborhood), then presenting the first of two new singles (the band is promising a new studio album “Merciless” this year) — namely the track The Purge, worth noting as proof that the band loses none of its theatrically raw power even in their later years. Ice-T, who has clocked a not-so-modest 66 years, shows no sign of vocal or storytelling wear and maintains his pleasing agility, sharpness, and (by now practically legendary) mandatory badass mockery. Nobody can take that from him — the stage is his sanctuary! The band also paid tribute to their heroes The Exploited, ripping through a vivid Exploited trilogy of War, UK 82 and Disorder, then surging forward with the Born Dead classic Drive By. During the “Manslaughter” killer Talk Shit, Get Shot, Ice-T arrived on stage with his daughter on his shoulders as the stage bathed in ‘blood red’ in sync with the song’s message. Much like Ice-T had done over nine years ago — specifically on June 7th, 2015, when Body Count played at Ljubljana’s Križanke, sending his then-24-year-old son Little Ice into the spotlight in the closing stretch of the concert (real name Tracy Marrow Jr.). Then comes the seismic jolt of the expected Cop Killer, and people completely lose it in the finale. Bodies spinning in a vortex, all the beer airborne once again! Full unleashed disconnection into ecstatic final delirium! Exactly what the crowd came for. A jolt that knocked the entire planet from its ecliptic orbit — with just one flaw: it didn’t last long. One hour and ten minutes.
The band didn’t leave the stage for the obligatory encore — they mounted Šalata one last time! Full throttle! With the classic detonation of Born Dead. The gates of hell fly open and the venue is consumed in absolute chaos by the last tongues of flame. Through This Is Why We Ride, the band slides into a fun take on the Floyd classic Comfortably Numb, which Ernie C opens with his version of Gilmour’s famous solo, while the band — with Ice-T delivering a spoken-word passage — holds on the same phrase, using the line ‘Hello, is there anybody out there’ as the chorus. A clever finish at just over an hour and twenty minutes of play! After the show the crowd lingered, visibly hungry for more…. Letting go of the stage wasn’t easy.
So this was no trick reeking of nostalgia and trading on past glory! Body Count remain unshakeable craftsmen of a persistently preaching uniqueness that has hit a mighty peak in the band’s recent years! With their relentless performance in Zagreb, Body Count proved they’re forged from stainless steel. The band with Ice-T stays untameable, and on stage, genuinely unbeatable. The steady flow of new studio albums with which they reward their loyal fans only confirms that Body Count, even in the more mature chapter of their run, are nowhere near stopping. The new album is already on its way. And with it — let’s hope — a new visit to the old European continent as soon as possible! The countdown has begun.
text: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Body Count – setlist:
1. Civil War (intro)
2. Body Count’s in the House
3. Raining Blood / Postmortem (orig. Slayer)
4. Bowels of the Devil
5. There Goes the Neighborhood
6. The Purge
7. Point the Finger
8. Manslaughter
9. Necessary Evil
10. Psychopath
11. No Lives Matter
12. War / UK 82 / Disorder (orig. The Exploited)
13. Drive By
14. Talk Shit, Get Shot
15. Cop Killer
—encore—
16. Born Dead
17. This Is Why We Ride
18. Comfortably Numb (orig. Pink Floyd)
