Artist:  Wednesday 13, Glamour Of The Kill, The Chelsea Smiles

Venue:  02 Academy, Newcastle

Date:  31 March 2009 

The horror, the screams, the tears, the bloodshed, the anguish ... and that’s just the young horned minions running into the venue to get front stage ... and this can only mean one thing ... Wednesday 13 is back in town.

But before the king of Goth stalked onto the stage we were treated to two fine hard hitting bands, firstly LA’s The Chelsea Smiles, and after catching these guys sound checking earlier in the afternoon, I was really looking forward to seeing how the younger crowd were going to react to Todd Youth and the rest of the band.

I recently reviewed the bands latest self titled album and was suitably impressed then however since then the band have had a slight change around and Youth has now stepped down as frontman due to advice from his doctors, so now Skye Vaughan Jayne takes up the mike leaving Youth to do what he does best and play outstanding guitar.  The band line-up is completed with RJ Ronquillo on guitar, Johnny Martin on bass and Karl Rosqvist on drums and to be honest, the band have a whole new sound that will see the band in good stead for the future.

But back to tonight’s show, the band opened up in superb style with ‘Action Going Down’ which instantly made the young crowd sit up and take notice and with with Vaughan Jayne leading the attack the band could do no wrong.

The band carried on with ‘Take You Away’ with Youth and RJ just torturing the guitars with some snarling guitar licks, the pair were just superb alongside Vaughan Jayne who was simply having the time of his life as frontman.  

The hard-hitting punk sleaze continued with the likes of ‘Leave You Cold’ the rifftastic ‘On The Run’, but one of the songs of the set for me had to be the superb ‘Little Misfit’, to which Youth dedicated to all those in the crowd who had been fucked with because of how they looked, he then went on to say that its Halloween Everyday in his life, a sentiment that sent cheers around the room.

The band ended on something rather special with a excellent cover of Michael Monroe’s 'Dead, Jail, Rock N' Roll', a song the majority of the crowd hadn’t heard of but for me this was the icing on the cake from a band that will be making headway in 2009 for sure if all the live shows go like this one.  Let's hope the band will be back in the not too distant future because they sure made a great impression on a lot of folk here tonight, me included. 

Next up were York band Glamour Of The Kill, a band that Wednesday himself has taken under his wing for this tour, unlike The Chelsea Smiles the band don’t have a label but believe me they soon will have.

The band's sound isn’t new but it's definitely what the younger crowd wanted.  They remind me very much of Trivium with their intense metal style and mixing melodic and snarling vocals, which again isn’t anything new, but it's great to see such a young band get the crowd going from the off.

They hit the ground running with ‘A Hope In Hell’, this was a band the crowd definitely got because they screamed and yelled from the off.  The band  

continued their onslaught with ‘The Voices’, again a huge metal sound from the boys from York on this fast and furious track which sent waves of heads bobbing around to the guitar duo who shred the riffs like pro’s.  

The bands full force set hit highs with the likes of ‘Worlds End’ and the set closer ‘Rise From The Grave’, two massive tour de force tracks that will soon see the band finalising any record deal, even thought they aren’t new or ground breaking the band have what the business is looking for in attracting the younger crowd, so keep an eye out for them on the likes of Kerrang and Scuzz TV as they are about to become household names. 

Now for the king of Goth himself, never mind your Mansons or your Cradle of Filths, Wednesday 13 blows all those away.  Taking songs from his Frankenstein Drag Queen days and the Murderdolls to his solo material Wednesday 13, his songs have that fun tongue and cheek vibe that really gets the crowd going and tonight he did just that.

Opening up the set with ‘Not Another Teenage Anthem’ the crowd simply burst in to a frenzy of activity as the horned minions raised their fists in acknowledgement of the Rock N' Roll Horror they were about to witness, even a moss pit developed in the centre of the floor and the set had only just started!

It was straight into ‘Till Death Do Us Party’ and the no hold barred mentalism of the crowd just swelled ten fold.  It was time to really turn up the heat with ‘197666’ and Wednesday and fellow guitarist spewed out the monstrous riffs of this one.  By this time the mosh pit was in full flow as ‘My Home Sweet Homicide’ echoed out from the PA with guitarist J-Sin Trioxin's gruesome guitar playing.

With gut wrenching horror vibes like ‘From Here To The Hearse’ and 'Look What The Bats Dragged In’, it was clear that Wednesday was really going for the jugular with this setlist and even delved into those Drag Queen days for some wondrous tunes.  

As the band delved further into the set the crowds excitement increased with ‘Faith In The Devil' and 'House By The Cemetery' really acting like a fuel injected sugar buzz to the crowd and when the roadie donned a zombie mask and guitar and paraded around the stage for 'I Fought A Zombie', I thought they were gonna explode!

With the set and the night almost at a close the band really pulled out the big guns for the finale with the likes of ‘R.A.M.B.O.’ and ‘Bad Things’ to close with before taking a short break and then returning to the stage once more for the encore with the hell raising anthem ‘I Love To Say Fuck’, which saw a united band and crowd raise the finger and yell along to the chorus.  You’ll never hear such profanities screamed in unison again in this City, that is unless Newcastle are relegated out of the Premiership.

As gigs go this was one hell of a rock show and I will most definitely be checking the bands out next time round and so should you.

 

 

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.