PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
The Treatment is support on the current WASP tour, and this was my first time of catching them live since Mitchel Emms and Tao Grey joined. They are as energetic as ever and have a great good time feel about them, however not one track stood out for me, they all sounded the same. However I’m sure the new album, with the new members will help to raise their status.
W.A.S.P have hit the UK for a tour to promote their latest album, “Golgotha”, which will get its UK release in October. Blackie Lawless is a shrewd operator though and it is five songs in before we hear the first new one, ‘Last Runaway’.
Opening up with ‘On Your Knees’, ‘Inside the Electric Circus’ and their superb cover of The Who’s ‘Real Me’ certainly got the Ritz going. L.O.V.E Machine took it to another level, even the Showsec guy near me was nodding along.
The new song is well received and fits in with the chosen set list well, the stage is a simple one, fitted with three video screens, long gone are the shock horror shows, exploding cod pieces and raw meat being thrown into the crowd.
‘Crazy’ from the 2009 album Babylon is up next, which runs cleanly into The Crimson Idol’s ‘The Titanic Overture’ and ‘Arena of Pleasure’.
Back to the new album for the next song, ‘Miss you’, which is very powerful live, having only briefly heard the new album, this is one track I will be revisiting first.
‘Thunderhead’ gets a cheering reception from the The Headless Children album, as does “Hellion” taken from the 1984 debut album.
The biggest cheer of the night so far answers Blackie’s question, Who Needs a Doctor?
A rip roaring version, complete with crowd surfers really turn this gig into an event, proving that even without the pyrotechnics and strippers of old, Blackie can still put on a show.
The set is brought to a close by the title track of the new album “Golgotha”, impressive in its slow burn build-up complete with newsworthy imagery spread across the three video screens which really made this song stand out.
The first encore of the night was ‘Chainsaw Charlie’ (Murders in the New Morgue) again taken from the Crimson Idol record, while the crowd lapped it up, they knew there must be more, and there was, in the form of the sing-a-long ‘Wild Child’ and the anthemic closer of ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’.
A near perfect night, only let down (for me) by the missing ‘Blind in Texas’, that would have made an epic three song encore instead of ‘Chainsaw Charlie’. Still a rousing night from the veteran rockers though and well worth catching on this tour.
Setlist
On Your Knees
Inside the Electric Circus
The Real Me
L.O.V.E. Machine
Last Runaway
Crazy
The Titanic Overture
Arena of Pleasure
Miss You
Thunderhead
Hellion
I Don’t Need No Doctor
Golgotha
Encore:
Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)
Encore 2:
Wild Child
I Wanna Be Somebody
