Crispy late-winter sunshine is dragged to its death as a horde of goths rush the streets of Reading. It's a few hours until the second of Wednesday 13's UK shows with material from his ridiculously titled 'Monsters Of The Universe: Come Out & Plague' record and the leather-clad masses are eager to get their ears strapped around it in a live setting.
Unfortunately, Snow White's Poison Bite fail to sate the crowd's appetite. Smatterings of post-hardcore and horror-punk are meshed together with little regard for the listeners' sanity, resulting in a bit of a mess. Half-arsed make-up and a stodgy stage presence don't help, either. At least frontman Jeremy Thirteenth's Michale Graves/Cookie Monster hybrid of a voice keeps things interesting, mind.
Refuelled with overpriced booze and the promise of songs about necrophilia, the Reading faithful swarm the dancefloor. As Wednesday 13 takes to the stage, the swathe of sticky leather soldiers surge forward and proceed to flail their limbs around in worship of their master.
Keep Watching The Skies gives this particular Friday a tremendous kick up the arse and Wednesday continues to do keepy-uppies with it for the next 90 minutes. Face painted, sleeves bare and wind-machine blowing his luscious locks all over the shop, he roars his way through a salvo of groove metal-tinged numbers, his snarl every bit as sadistic as it is on record.
Once the mix is sorted out – Wednesday's voice is drowned out for the first few songs – this gig just gets all kinds of silly. Airing over half of the songs from the 'Monsters...' album, it's obvious that he's immensely proud of it. With good reason: when the double bass on Planet Eater Interstellar 187 kicks in, bowels are ruptured and Wednesday's evolution becomes yet more apparent.
He's morphed into a heavier beast, and the setlist reflects it; no tracks from 'Calling All Corpses' or 'Fang Bang' get seen to tonight, and the only Frankenstein Drag Queens cut we're treated to is Scary Song. It's a bold move, but that's just Wednesday 13. He's left out I Love To Say Fuck and Rambo because he wants to play new stuff, so all the power to him.
This is Wednesday 13 at his absolute peak. He's seen the obscene highs and the dismal lows of the music industry and he's been shat out somewhere in the middle, remaining unknown to the population at large but still plastering shit-eating grins upon the faces of his devotees.
And that's just how we like him – Bad Things, I Walked With A Zombie and Look What The Bats Dragged In are all delivered with the utmost passion and tongue-in-cheek bravado. There's a few minimal costume changes and a laser gun and even though he's gravitated towards the heavier sphere of music, Wednesday 13 is still a snotty, immature punk kid at heart.
Wednesday 13 Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri March 13 2015 - GLASGOW Cathouse
Sat March 14 2015 - NOTTINGHAM Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Sun March 15 2015 - BRISTOL Marble Factory
Tue March 17 2015 - NORWICH Waterfront
Wed March 18 2015 - CARDIFF Globe, Cardiff
Click here to compare & buy Wednesday 13 Tickets at Stereoboard.com.
We don't run any advertising! Our editorial content is solely funded by lovely people like yourself using Stereoboard's listings when buying tickets for live events. To keep supporting us, next time you're looking for concert, festival, sport or theatre tickets, please search for "Stereoboard". It costs you nothing, you may find a better price than the usual outlets, and save yourself from waiting in an endless queue on Friday mornings as we list ALL available sellers!
