the skinny puppy show

last night my brother and I went to the Skinny Puppy show at the 9:30 Club...we got there about an hour and a half before doors open, right around 6pm...after we parked and got situated with that we walked around looking for a place to get some food...we found this total dive called "Joe's Restaurant" that promised steaks, eggs, and open 24 hours...we walked in, instantly felt like dumb white suburban kids, like we are, as a big black lady turned around and shouted "do ya'll want steaks" which was met by much laughter, maybe at our expense...I'm not sure if it was a bust on us or not, but they were nice folks regardless...and the food was good, until I found a big ole hair in my hamburger...ah well, it was pretty cheap like $5 bucks for a double cheeseburger with bacon AND fries...whoo!...then we got in line and I forgot how much I despise a.) teenagers at concerts 2.) goth kids iii.) people in general...yeah well I'm sure I was just that obnoxious when I was going to concerts...then we finally got in, and waited for the merch guy to put all the prices on all the stuff...I mean seriously, a Skinny Puppy thong!? weird! but maybe would look nice on the wife...haha, and I would have gotten a tour shirt--it went for a cool $25 bucks but sadly I have no money until we get paid this week as evidenced by the $400 I spent on new tires and better rear brakes earlier yesterday...ARGH!...fucking virginia vehicle inspections...sooo annoying, but that tangent aside...the first act was this crazy glitch-core dude Otto Van Schirach who also I believe contributed a bit to the new Skinny Puppy album...he was pretty cool, I really like that style of music but it's hard to really get into a dude with a laptop and a mike...and he said a few really stupid things that probably went over well for the teens but I guess I'm too old to think it's rad when someone says something about their mom being dead...his stage presence was quite Patton-like, very quirky...then the next band was Chris Vrenna's Tweaker, and they reminded me of Stabbing Westward + Gravity Kills with vocals done by Bono and Perry Farrell not exactly exciting but pretty groovy electronic rock-based music...there just was no stage presence...

then finally Skinny Puppy came out...now you have to understand I've been a big fan of their's for forever...I even have a tattoo of their "SP" symbol on my arm...anyways, the band came out and performed a little opening piece while Ogre was offstage...then he came onstage wearing a weird almost scarecrow looking outfit...very interesting...their setlist was something like:

Downsizer, I'mmortal, Pro-Test, Empte, Curcible, God's Gift, Glass Houses, VX Gas Attack, Worlock, Neuworld, Inquisition, Tin Omen, Hardset Head, Harsh Stone White, Human Disease SKUMM, Reclamation, Brap

with an Encore of: Convulsion, The Choke, Testure, Smothered Hope

of course all the kids went nuts when they finished with "Smothered Hope" because of course Ministry covered that and I think a lot of kids were more Ministry freaks--at least the ones around us were--because they went nuts during that song...but the stage was really neat...they had a bunch of tv sets up on stage as well as a big backdrop where they showed their typical (well I've never seen them live but have plenty of bootlegs damn it!) video background footage...this time around there was plenty of cspan footage of bush and they merged it with hitler and america's idiotic patriotism with nationalism and nazism and whatnot...it was pretty awesome..there was also some footage of some weird video game thing where ogre shot these people...plus of course they also put footage from the crowd up there and ogre up on the screen as well...very awesome...looks like there's a thread started on how to get the footage already...all in all, it was exactly what the doctor ordered and was worth the wait...whooo!

by the way, here's the blog for the guy who redesigned the purevolume.com site