Sorry for the overexcited ramblings, but I finally got to see Skinny Puppy live in concert last night in Chicago. I’ve been a fan since I had just turned 15, when I first bought “Too Dark Park” in September of 1992. Three years later, Dwayne Goettel died and soon after they released “The Process”, saying that it was over. Everybody knew that Ogre and Key didn’t like each other and they said they were done. At that point, I figured I was officially out of luck.
BUT, they’ve reunited and made a new album this year - then they decided to tour! Last night’s show was as good as I had hoped it would be. They played quite a few new songs, some great old tracks (The Choke, Smothered Hope, Glass Houses) and even did a good part of their “VIVISECT VI” album (VX Gas Attack, Human Disease, and Harsh Stone White). Most importantly, though, they did my favorite Skinny Puppy track, Worlock!! Ogre came out onstage with a weird straightjacket-like costume with a mask that looked like it had a long beak on it. He slowly stripped it off and brought out the blood packets that soon covered him and the stage. The videos that backed the band showed everything from tribal images to politically minded footage. I was a little disappointed that Ogre couldn’t get his final costume to work (something called Vein Man?), but their encores of The Choke and Smothered Hope more than made up for that.
The crowd was absolutely wild for the band and the band gave that energy back perfectly. My only complaint was that this show was particularly LOUD and my ears are still ringing! I could feel the bass vibrating my clothes, for god’s sake! An easy price to pay for finally experiencing a show that I’ve been wanting to see for almost twelve years.
If you are a Puppy fan and have the opportunity, I highly recommend catching this tour! Hopefully, they’ll tour again and I’ll get to see them at least once more.
For this tour, they just have hired hands. They have a drummer (can’t remember his name) and a guitarist/bassist (on a double guitar lookin’ thing) named William Morrison helping them out. The drums sounded great on the material, the bass was great, and the guitar sounded a bit muddy.
You go to the Tuesday show, or were you lucky enough to get the Wed. tickets?
I was there on Tues. Pretty cool, but Tweaker blew ass and I got the feeling that SP wanted an extra day off before their Wed. show (the Tues. show being added because the Wed. show sold out in like 9 minutes or something).
Fuck, you must have gone on Wed. because they played Smothered Hope. They did bust out Worlock which was my other gotta-hear song, but Ogre almost fell asleep on Tin Omen.
Just missed em the other night in Seattle; bummed. If you like SP, check out Ruby. They were half Skinny Puppy and half Silverfish; their “Saltpeter” album was in my top ten of the nineties.
They played a show locally that I am disappointed that I missed. It was a hallowe’en show with Severed Heads back in '87(?).
I finally saw them on the VIVIsect VI tour. It was the most painful concert I had been to. The music was overpowering and I attribute that concert with my tinitus. I had to stand off to the side out of the direct path of the speakers. My friend had to hide out at the back of the theater because of the volume. Unfortunately, I had a view of the video screen (which was on the other side of the stage) behind Nivek. The animal testing videos were…unpleasant…
I’ll have to look up the listings and try to make it to see them…hmm…it’ll be our first concert since Bauhaus…having kids’ll do that to you…
I saw Skinny Puppy in '87. God, I’m so old. God, Skinny Puppy is so old .
Shall I tell you the story about how I got the DJ to play Dig It at my senior prom and cleared the dance floor? Well, actually, that is the story, but it was a good moment.
cantara, I’m so jealous. I just missed Bauhuas’ last tour (ie, I was old enough to want to go and not old enough to get in. I also missed the last tour Iggy Pop took all his clothes off :()
Glad there’s a Skinny Puppy thread, I’m driving down to Boston later today to see the Avalon Ballroom show and will probably see them again when they hit Montréal. First time I saw them was in '86 with Severed Heads at Foufounes Electriques. They don’t disappoint live, and judging by the setlists I’ve seen this will most assuredly kick ass.
Well, I wasn’t trying to clear the dance floor. I was just trying to get something played that wasn’t utter crap. And I was rather amused by the reaction.
And I suppose if it amounted to some small revenge on the more horrible people I had to go to high school with, and therefore allowed me to leave the prom without killing anyone, then it was a good thing for everyone, really .
Awesome. Glad to hear positive reviews; I’ll be going to one of the three SoCal dates (haven’t decided which yet - should probably get my tickets soon, aye?)
The sound was loud, but in a good way, not confusingly garbled like the last Motörhead and Ministry tours. Whereas all three bands are still recording strong new material, SP is still serious about bringing it live. The ~2000 capacity Avalon Ballroom in Boston is larger than the average venue size for this tour so far, and the sound front and center was about as good as it gets. The after-party acidheads were raving about the drummer, and with excellent reason. There’s not much visual emphasis on the non-Ogre Puppies, but they really don’t need it when they have musical instruments to play.
I can’t talk too much about many of the visual aspects of the show without getting into politics, but if you go to a SP show, you’re always going to see something. Mud, blood, dust, police tape, costumes and extremely dense video presentations will overwhelm the second most important of the senses. The powerful backlighting is annoying though: Ministry did it in the 80’s on the Twitch tour, Terrorfakt does it, I still hate it, even now that I go to shows with pupils dilating normally.
The crowd was great. Mixed feelings about mosh pits because although they add to the energy, they tend to be idiot magnets. (Naturally, it started all around me. :D) I took accidental elbows and later a heel (!) to the same spot on the bridge of my nose, but stayed standing throughout, and fallen comrades were always quickly yanked to their feet by thoughtful strangers. Later into the show, the crush right in front of the stage was still quite bearable.
Sure I’m biased, but I still think they put a lot more thinking into their recordings, shows and setlists than most, and the effort is greatly appreciated.
Hey, eunoia (and anyone else who is interested), if you want Skinny Puppy visuals, this is your lucky day! Somebody shot some serious pics at the Boston show and has them all posted here. Some really good stuff there!
This is only tangentially related to this thread, but I figured I’d post it here rather than starting a new thread:
Before the Tues. show in Chicago, the sound guy played a particular song I’d like to ID: it had a “western” sound to it and after the guy would sing a verse, this vocoded voice would pop in to sing a quick chorus. The style itself reminded me of VNV Nation, but I really had no idea of who the band might be. I didn’t ask the sound guy because the place was filling up and I didn’t want to lose my spot.
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