Pigface
Sunday 12/2/01, The Metro Austin, TXThank God I got to The Metro when I did because the door guy could only let 16 more people in before it was at capacity. It was $20. I missed Godhead, thankfully, and caught about 2 songs worth of Gravity Kills, thankfully. I haven't seen a generic industrial rock band pose out that much since Sister Machine Gun and Chemlab. Yikes. The keyboard 'player' is really something, slamming his Oberheim all over the place and jumping around like a dork. There's energy but musically it's glossy fluff. The last song repeated the line "it's not enough" and all I could think was "yes, it is" ...
The Pigface roadies set up the big white screens stage front, obscuring everything behind. I could see Chris Connelly's shadow cast upon it, acoustic guitar in hand. Then he disappeared and The Beatles "Rubber Soul" album came on over the PA. They played 3 or 4 songs and much of the crowd lifted their lighters in the air. It sounded damn good over the big PA and I'm glad they did it. Mad props Pigface. Chris came out in front of the screens and launched into "July" segueing into "The Peepshow Ghosts", two of his more rockin' solo tunes. The rest of the band were behind the screens making circles with various colored flashlights. I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd's positive reaction to the intro. I had been sort of been dreading a negative one, for Chris' sake. The band began revving up, a roadie took Chris' guitar and the screens came down ...
On stage were Martin Atkins on drums and Dickless on drums in the back, Curse Mackey on keys stage left with Chris Haskett on guitar to his left, Krztoff on guitar and Charles Levi on bass stage right and Seibold wandering around. Meg Lee Chin came out later while Chris would take breathers backstage. Bob Dog joined in about mid-set on guitar. They played from about 11:40 to 1:15 and I think this is everything they did, not really in order:
Broadcasting (The Damage Manual)
Think
Sunset Gun (The Damage Manual)
Stateless (The Damage Manual)
Damage Addict (The Damage Manual)
Divebomber
Murder Inc. (Murder Inc.)
Heavy Scene (Meg Lee Chin)
Autohag
Nutopia
Weightless
Hips, Tits, Lips, Power!
Suck
Supernaut (Black Sabbath)
Pigface in Your Area
Fuck It UpOh yes, a nice set list indeed. Atkins put it best numerous times during the show, yelling out "and the hits ... keep ... on ... coming!" I had complained about my previous show, in '98, being like a Pigface cover band going through the motions and lacking an experimental edge, just playing the 'hits'. Well, this was technically the same thing but much more enjoyable. And besides, this *is* the 10th anniversary party/tour in support of the best of set "Preaching to the Perverted". This unit was heavy, tight and *loud*. And my God it's great to have Chris back on board, delivering the Damage Manual set (making up for last year's canceled tour), "Murder Inc", "Weightless" (fucking awesome) and "Supernaut" (Chris on vocals ... yes!). Meg Lee did a great job on "Divebomber" (she inadvertently flashed us, nice tits Meg), "Heavy Scene", "Nutopia" and "Hips, Tits.." and ditto for Curse Mackey on "Autohag" (really fucking awesome) and "Suck" (ultra heavy chorus, eat your heart out Reznor). Curse was sporting cute black pigtails. Charles Levi is the coolest motherfucker on the planet and he knows it. His bass groove is the backbone to everything. Bob Dog in the house! He played San Antonio (his home) and Austin. Really cool to have him in there again. Along with Chris Haskett and the Bile guy, they presented one hell of a massive guitar presence. Haskett/Bob Dog goofed on the "Ice Ice Baby" riff in-between songs and the Bile guy sang "Ice Ice Dickhead". I believe Vanilla was scheduled to be in the house the following night. Atkins and the very cute Dickless were solid, of course, and both a lot of fun to watch. The Hate Dept. guy Siebold doesn't do much other than occasional backup vocals and some guitar on one of The Damage Manual songs. He spent most of the night trying to look cool, flipping off the crowd and taking pictures. For the encore they brought out a young guy covered in face/chest paint and hung him up to the ceiling by his back on meat hooks and he proceeded to swing back and forth for the rest of the show. The crowd was sweaty and aggro and shot a lot of silly string and confetti about. Apparently, Paul Barker was in there somewhere. During the final jam, a roadie disassembled the drum sets as they played, which was amusing to me, and, as usual, audience members clamored up on stage. Everyone up there was really having a great time. I walked away very happy and maybe with some permanent hearing damage ...
Remaining tour dates:
Thu 12/06 - Chico, CA - Brick Works
Fri 12/07 - San Jose, CA - Cactus Club
Sat 12/08 - San Francisco, CA - DNA Lounge
Sun 12/09 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
Mon 12/10 - Seattle, WA - Experience Music Project
Tue 12/11 - Boise, ID - Big Easy
Wed 12/12 - Salt Lake City, UT - Zephyr Club
Thu 12/13 - Grand Junction, CO - Mesa Theatre & Club
Fri 12/14 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
Sat 12/15 - Omaha, NE - Ranch Bowl
Sun 12/16 - Lacrosse, WI - The Warehouse
Sun 12/16 - Minneapolis, MN - Quest Club
Mon 12/17 - Columbia, MO - Blue Note
Tue 12/18 - St. Louis, MO - The Pageant
Wed 12/19 - Cleveland, OH - Peabody's Down Under
Fri 12/21 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave
Sat 12/22 - Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre