Take Control: Lords of Acid, Angelspit, Radical G, Chant @ Backstage Live, 3/20/11

“The magick is in the feeling I can make you do what I want you to”

I am the queen of overcommitting myself.

It would be my 20th show in the last 7 days, but somehow I found the energy. So back to Backstage Live I went, parking in the lot they overcharge for and pack you into so you can’t leave early if you wanted to.

Want: it hangs above the ladies’ room

Only a small crowd had gathered when we walked in. Turns out there were several local openers we didn’t know about. An extensive drum set was arranged on stage, and one man band Chant, from Austin, worked his way up and down it. He sounded good, but to watch it was slightly awkward as it just looked like a bit too much for one person to handle.

Radical G freaked me out. One super skinny guy with pointy ears and facepaint and weird dance moves….it just creeped me out. Come to find out later, he plays in Lords of Acid, but without the strange ensemble, which was much better.

I had seen Angelspit once before, and like last time I just couldn’t get into it. They are fun to watch, like video game characters moving in place even when stopped. For some reason the lights were on them very brightly, and the guy had to ask to have them turned down. The crowd, which had filled in by now, went bananas for them. There was this one guy that kept shouting at the girl, “SHOW US YOUR PUSSY!!!!” And granted, she was kinda nekkid….but really, man, come on!

I spent approximately one year in the ’90s as a club kid. I can remember someone popping Voodoo-U in my car’s CD player and thinking it was the craziest thing ever. Fast, dirty….I kept that CD in there hoping whoever it came from was too fucked up to remember where they had left it. I think months later they recovered it much to my dismay. Ah, life before mp3s.

I never saw them live, and even though I’ve moved way beyond that kind of music, there’s a certain nostalgia in it for me. I was expecting to not even recognize a lot of the songs….but to my surprise I recognized most of them! I guess that one album was their best one.

Lords of Acid are really fun live: over the top and as dirty as the music. But no matter how dirty they were, the crowd was 10x dirtier.

For one, whenever the beautiful female vocalist in her skintight catsuit would crouch down at the front of the stage, people would get way too hand-sy with her in my opinion. There were two women in particular that just stuck their hands right up there in her crotch. And they did the same to the guitarist. Then there was the guy behind me….no, he wasn’t sporting an erection like I’ve dealt with a couple times in pits….oh no…he was an arms on top of my head and in my face kind of offender. After trying to ignore it for a while, he hit me in the face so I pushed his arm up. So he proceeds to stick his hands right in my face on purpose this time. I start to fume and decide how I want to proceed. I try the ‘kill ’em with kindness’ approach and turn around and smile. Then he smushes up against me and I elbow him in the stomach. At this point, a woman comes over, whispers in my ear, “he’s making you really uncomfortable, isn’t he sweetheart” and I nod and she proceeds to try to regulate him. I’m stubborn and won’t move. The guy stands next to me and then hits me in the face again. This time I clutch my face because he hit my nose…and he has the nerve to go, “OH, THE BLOOD!!!!” making fun of me. Now I’m really fucking pissed. So I give him ‘the look’.

You don’t want to receive that look.

Then he snaps out of his drunkenness and apologizes. “You can hit me!” I almost take him up on it but decide he’s probably the kind of guy that would get off on that so I refrain.

ANYWAY.

Back to the band. They look like they have a lot of fun onstage, even when the crowd is misbehaving and there are wardrobe malfunctions. They sounded good- the new vocalist is very engaging in an unnatural beauty kind of way.

And that’s about it….when I’m tired or mad I don’t remember things like I should.

My next show will be on the other side of the world!