Location: Hluk / Sportova Hala / Czech Republic
Date: Friday, 24.11.2017
W.A.S.P. are metal and rock’n’roll legends today. Over the years they’ve built up a cult status as bloodthirsty glam metal shock troublemakers and turned into an indestructible machine of their own brand of controversial stage excess, which won hordes of music lovers over to their side. Of course, it’s not all theatrics. You need a quality body of music standing behind you. Original, self-written music that’s instantly recognizable and sounds unique. And that’s always been true of W.A.S.P. too.
This year marks a “hefty” 25 years since the release of one of the most beloved albums, and for many W.A.S.P. fans their best studio album: »The Crimson Idol«. Originally meant as a Blackie solo album, it’s conceptual in nature. We all know the story of the concept. Its ending is tragic, and in many ways it’s an imprint of Blackie Lawless’s own life, as during its creation he took on an alter ego named Jonathan Steele. The story is comparable to concept albums like »The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars« by David Bowie and »The Wall« by Pink Floyd.
To cut a long story short: the band decided to play the entire »The Crimson Idol« album again on a new tour. W.A.S.P. named the tour “Re-Idolized: The 25th Anniversary of the Crimson Idol”, and one of its stops, on Friday 24.11.2017, landed in the Czech Republic too, where W.A.S.P. dropped by Hluk, in Czech Moravia, southeast of Brno and south of nearby Zlín. So roughly 20 km from the Slovak border. Why the trip to Hluk? Simple. Because of a new concert vacation. After that Friday came Sunday 26.11.2017, and with it the Helloween show in Bratislava, Slovakia. Right after the Bratislava stop, it was well worth stretching the trip with a vacation day on Monday 27.11.2017 and showing up in Vienna, where Alice Cooper and Europe played together (both reports to follow).
Anyone who went to the W.A.S.P. show in Treviso, Italy, at the end of October 2007 knows full well that W.A.S.P. were already playing the whole »The Crimson Idol« back then, for the album’s 15th anniversary. So this tour is a kind of recap of the one from 10 years ago. As far as ticket demand goes, the whole tour seemed pretty euphoric. Not just because of some venues selling out in advance, but also because of the band management’s harsh reply that, precisely due to the exceptional demand, they were turning down practically all accreditation requests and, in our case, granting them only to a handful of the biggest Czech media outlets. Whatever. Even with the show possibly sold out, and even though Helloween in Bratislava on 26.11.2017 “painfully” clashed with Testament, Annihilator and Death Angel in Ljubljana, the motivation for a new road trip was so strong that it was worth risking ending up outside the hall without a ticket and just telling yourself: “No big deal, we’ll go for an indefinite number of rounds of beer, we’re in the Czech Republic!” And when you’re in the Czech Republic, nothing bad can happen to you, period. Only good things happen. But this time the thought of risk turned out to be totally pointless. The show wasn’t sold out. In the style of the good old days, when fan frenzy was still boiling over, and with a fan pit wristband on, Nataša and I walked into the multipurpose sports hall that holds 6,000 people. It was already merrily bubbling inside, since the Czech hard rockers Gatecrusher were up on stage. Lyrics in Czech. Gatecrusher are surely well known in the Czech Republic. They come across as very confident and tight. Totally self-assured, which hinted at a longer track record behind them. The band has already played with names like Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Deep Purple and Lordi. So they’re well known at home. The lavish “merch table” also showed the band is doing well. It almost overshadowed the one belonging to W.A.S.P. Anyway. Gatecrusher are celebrating their first ten years on their current shows, and this one was dedicated to that too. W.A.S.P. only let them play for half an hour. That doesn’t mean the guys didn’t find their feet or couldn’t make the most of it. They gave it their all, dressed the stage with their own backdrops, and, unbelievably, managed to blast off a few smoke curtains during the set. A quartet that knows what it’s doing and can make very good and more than solid hard rock. Still, the Czech lyrics “put the brakes” on how catchy such songs can get, even if the idea for the original riff can be seriously good. The band would honestly earn a decent grade if it wrote English lyrics, but from the standpoint of a Slovenian fan of this kind of music, they mean less than last year’s snow.
So, on to W.A.S.P. As mentioned, in the first part, the regular part, they played the entire »The Crimson Idol«. Blackie prepared for the new tour down to the last detail. To that end, he brought in a drummer from the progressive metal world. That’s Aquilles Priester, a Brazilian drummer who once served time with the excellent prog-metallers Angra. And you could really tell. Priester’s contribution, I mean. As far as the drumming goes, the live version of »The Crimson Idol« is a tough bone to chew, since some of the songs are literally riddled with multiple series of demanding drum fills, where the toms notoriously bend under countless cannon-like swings that demand speed, focus and precision all at once. Aquilles has all of it, and Blackie and company could play »The Crimson Idol« totally relaxed and with the greatest possible enjoyment. Next to Blackie, bassist Mike Duda and guitarist Douglas Blair are still positioned on the left and right, and both did their jobs at a consistent level that was more than excellent.
And Blackie? He’s shed a nice pile of excess pounds. The tall singer and guitarist, whose stature supposedly scared even Arnold Schwarzenegger himself when they were picking his opponent for the movie Terminator (the story goes that Blackie was offered one of the lead roles in that film), looks rejuvenated and fresh, and is going through a real little renaissance and a thorough personal makeover. The latest and still current studio album »Golgotha«, which, by the way, is more than excellent, already hinted at it, and so did the band’s tour last year. »The Crimson Idol« is an album you have to listen to from start to finish. Throughout the Hluk show the stage lighting was almost nonexistent. Just a few fleeting glimmers shyly “licked” at the musicians’ silhouettes. In the background, backdrops with projection screens strutted about, showing a film about Jonathan Steele. Blackie delivered the show at a better level than anyone could have expected. Vocally, he held up incredibly well. And with his mountainous charisma and demonic charm, he proved once again that he’s still the one true, die-hard rock’n’roll »motherf***er«, with no equal. The energy he gives off on stage remains real, contagious and essential in its dedication. For all his mannerisms, Blackie still radiates that biting mischievousness and comes across as slightly arrogant and unapproachable, in the style of his well-known hooliganism, without which W.A.S.P. is impossible to imagine.
So there wasn’t much talking. Just playing. In »The Crimson Idol« it’s not hard to pick out some gems from rock’n’roll’s recent past that have always inspired Blackie. In Doctor Rockter you hear The Who’s influence, in Gipsy Meets The Boy early Uriah Heep, and the stage development of the dramatized concept often brings the movie »The Wall« to mind. The band got excellent and superb support from the crowd, who sang along loudly and with real feeling. A few backdrops, tape-sourced backing vocals, keyboards and special effects are actually a concert staple for the band, and this time was no different. And, as said, all of it was played at a really high level.
The promo announcements did promise a show in two parts. In the first they’d play the whole Crimson Idol, in the second the best-known classics. The band, which has sold over 12 million copies of its albums in its career, is “known” for shorter sets. And despite the promises, this Hluk show was among the shorter ones too. Instead of a second part, W.A.S.P. came back for just an encore of four songs, which, with a virtuous atmospheric swing, lifted the crowd for 20 minutes one last time into “W.A.S.P. heaven”: L.O.V.E. Machine, Wild Child, the new Golgotha, and the closing, properly stretched-out thunder of I Wanna Be Somebody. An hour and a half, then! A concert get-together at a high level, executed with great distinction, with Blackie in excellent form. Only with that mildly bitter aftertaste that creeps up on every W.A.S.P. concert-goer, that this get-together with the unique igniters of shocking glam metal perversions was, once again, simply too short.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
The Crimson Idol
1. The Titanic Overture
2. The Invisible Boy
3. Arena of Pleasure
4. Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)
5. The Gypsy Meets the Boy
6. Doctor Rockter
7. I Am One
8. The Idol
9. Hold on to My Heart
10. The Great Misconceptions of Me
Jonathan’s Farewell (taped outro)
—encore—
11. L.O.V.E. Machine
12. Wild Child
13. Golgotha
14. I Wanna Be Somebody
I Wanna Be Somebody (Jumpin’ James version, taped outro)
