Reborn Blackie and the Gang Sting and Bite Their Way Through Media Center (October 2025)
W.A.S.P.
Wednesday, 29 October 2025
Media Center, Ljubljana, Slovenia
“El-ou-vi-i …”
Vesp (as us metal wannabes called them back in grade school) stopped off in Ljubljana for the second-to-last date of the Album One Alive tour, where they played the debut album in full, in tracklist order — something that apparently drove their frontman Štef Duren, metal-named Blackie Lawless, absolutely mental. Somewhere mid-show he grumbled that this is the first tour in the band’s history where they don’t open with On Your Knees.
To start from the beginning: it seems that metal expeditions from the Slovenian Littoral toward the capital in a white van are doomed to trouble and failure. After the odyssey to the Riot V show in Medvode back in May (report here), this time we got stuck on the Primorska motorway for two hours because of an accident up ahead. That pit stop resulted in a beer (whisky, vodka) or two more than planned, which proved fatal for some of us toward the end of the night.
Worse still, we missed the first three and a half songs. We burst into a pleasantly packed Media Center halfway through B.A.D. and immediately got swept up in the headbanging madhouse that Blackie and the crew had cooked up. I wasn’t mad (just royally pissed off) about missing The Flame, which is genuinely my favourite track on the record. But there was no time to mourn, so I threw myself straight into the fever of 1984 — back when that raw debut from the menacing wasps ripped through the LA glam scene from top to bottom. The thing hits considerably harder than its contemporaries; that raw energy and in-your-face production, not to mention Blackie‘s monstrous vocals, won over the hearts and eardrums of all of us who’d been craving something heavier from the glam revolution.
The first thing you noticed about Blackie‘s silhouette was that the man has seriously gotten himself back in shape since the last Ljubljana show (report here). Surprisingly lean and agile, in pretty solid vocal form, he commanded the stage without much back-and-forth with the crowd. The setlist (you can check it here) was, given the format and the classic length of a W.A.S.P. show, damn near perfect. Personally, the organ medleys do get on my nerves, but the boss has been clinging to those for a while now, so what can you do. The man knows what he’s doing — which is also why we didn’t hear anything older than 1989 (the album The Headless Children).
I loved the closing duo from the debut: Tormentor and The Torture Never Stops — the latter embodies merciless heavy metal in the truest sense of the word. The classic semi-ballad Forever Free hit hard; it still cuts through your guts like a katana at harakiri. Blackie happily took advantage of the fact that the original album was released without that controversial number about the sexual lives of human animals, and didn’t play it this time either. He also skipped the chance to throw in the bonus track Show No Mercy for a laugh, or even — God forbid — their brilliant cover of Paint It Black. Oh well.
This report wouldn’t be complete without a mention of my favourite power metal drummer, Aquiles Priester, who has now been in the band for eight years! Ever since I first heard him on the album Rebirth (2001) by Brazilian prog-power masters Angra, he has held the undisputed top spot on my personal power metal drumming maniacs list. He spices up the relatively straightforward rhythmic sequences of W.A.S.P. songs with percussion accents, fills, and double bass pedal playfulness — a genuine pleasure to listen to. It’s obvious the boss rates him highly too, because he spent the whole show shooting him fond glances and pointing him out to the crowd.
In my humble opinion the sound was pretty good. I won’t go into the backing tracks this time, because there were really only a token few. A lovely, controlled-yet-wild metal evening it was!
We hung around the stage door for a while in desperate hope of a photo or an autograph, but the most we managed was a glimpse of Aquiles demolishing his hard-earned dinner. So we headed off for some “grape soup and meat salad” and then home. This time without any traffic jams.
An honourable mention goes to the two unwavering pillars of His Dark Majesty’s operation: bassist of the last three decades Mike Duda, and perhaps one of the most overlooked guitar wizards in metal, Doug Blair, who has contributed his magical parts to the last four god-and-devil-forsaken W.A.S.P. albums. If you have any taste for the heavier stuff, go listen!
Text: Igorac
Photography: Aleš Podbrežnik
W.A.S.P. – setlist:
1. I Wanna Be Somebody
2. L.O.V.E. Machine
3. The Flame
4. B.A.D.
5. School Daze
6. Hellion
7. Sleeping (in the Fire)
8. On Your Knees
9. Tormentor
10. The Torture Never Stops
—encore—
11. The Big Welcome
12. Inside the Electric Circus / I Don’t Need No Doctor / Scream Until You Like It
13. The Real Me (orig. The Who)
14. Forever Free / The Headless Children
15. Wild Child Play
16. Blind in Texas
