Wednesday 13, Falter @ Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide 6/2/2024
Even if the witches in Macbeth concocted a magical potion of all the elements of American shock rock horror and created their own front man they still wouldn’t get close to Wednesday 13’s hold over the crowd inside Lion Arts Factory tonight.
Middle fingers? Double that dose and raise both. Wanna say fuck? There’s a whole song devoted to your right to say it. Superstition? Irrelevant as umbrellas are being opened indoor as part of a ghoulish circus performance.
With a band that looks like they have been raised from the dead, given instruments and told to play only seconds before hitting the stage, Wednesday 13 doesn’t let the tight confines of the stage inhibit his ringmaster from hell performance.
He though is the main act, before that Adelaide band Falter grace the stage to a pretty decent sized crowd and bring with them a smorgasbord of hardcore with nu metal bounce and fury.
Mixing electronic elements with heavy grooves, dirty vocals and subtly certainly works the crowd up before the more cerebral quieter moments enhance the bands penchant for dynamics, finishing with Suffocating, a perfect example of what had gone before.
Wednesday 13 leads his circus of ghouls, goblins and freaks to the pulpit and immediately his followers are eating out of his hand.
Opening with Chapel With Blood, 13 gets everyone to raise their horns, clap and sing back in what becomes the theme for the evening for the pale faced zombies from hell.
Death Valley Superstars has the first middle fingers of the evening to the chant of ‘when you don’t give a fuck’.
This isn’t a circle pit swings arms and legs and hit people show, the music has too many fun elements for that, it’s a uniformed for the un-uninformed gathering of the masses where dancing to disco rhythms, searing solos and punching beach balls during 197666 is considered the norm for a metal band.
For Wednesday 13, his chats between songs are just as beguiling, like a heavy metal evangelist he has the crowd eager to be regaled more with stories of Joey Jordison, twenty one years of Murderdolls and when you actually had to buy a CD to listen to music.
The American horror story themes continues through with tracks such as Slit Your Wrist, Love At First Fright and She Was A Teenage Zombie.
The Americans do Halloween and horror better than most, and they do it in an entertaining way. Wednesday 13 is no different, it’s insanely catchy music to entertaining and movie imagined lyrics.
Think Cooper, Manson, Zombie, Misfits, et al when at their fiendishly exuberant and you’re right where Wednesday 13 is.
People Hate Me, Dawn Of The Dead and an exhilarating Nowhere are performed as much by the crowd as the band as the packed Lion Arts punches the air in unison.
It’s quite an impressive sight that no one is leaving early, no one is outside smoking, no one is at the bar. Everyone is fixated , mesmerised and focussed on the Frankenstein monster that is lurks on stage as a cover of Billy Idol’s White Wedding is given a murderous upgrade.
The aforementioned umbrella appears for I Love To Say Fuck, with 13 demanding we all sing it back before – having been confined to the narrow stage all evening bursting with repressed rage – 13 breaks loose mid way through Dead In Hollywood and heads down to the barrier to be with his own ‘family’, completing the song in hedonistic fashion.
And with that last act that would make the Westboro Baptist church coil, the night is done in rapturous and imperious form. Ninety minutes of your favourite comic book horror villains dancing on graves, partying like everyday is Halloween.
Live Review By Iain McCallum