Schwein

By anders pearson 20 Apr 2003

i’m posting this about a month late because things got really busy with lani moving in and all. but, better late than never, right?

i guess the stars lined up just right last month because i managed to be in the right places at the right time to see the United Tour in two different cities. i had already planned on going down to DC to help lani pack up her stuff when i realized that if i left just a little earlier than i'd planned, i could catch the show in nyc before i left and then again in DC.

so now, you, the lucky reader get two concert reviews for the price of one.

the bill for the tour included pigface, my life with the thrill kill kult, zeromancer, and bile. the DC show also included a local hardcore band whose name excapes me.

in NYC, the venue was (again) BB King’s lounge. first napalm, now pigface, and they have some upcoming shows with the likes of covenant and meshuggah. it looks like it’s becoming the place to go for heavy music in new york. weird.

in DC, they played at Nation, which looks like a pretty cool club from what i saw.

the local hardcore band who opened in DC weren’t too bad. they sounded pretty good but the singer seemed to be trying too hard to look cool and scary and ended up looking kind of dorky.

bile, if you’re into their style was excellent. they push the limits of how much static and distortion you can mix into a song and still have any parts of it distinguishable. nevertheless, they were tasty live. their sound, their look, and their stage show all complement each other nicely.

zeromancer is a new band from norway. they tend more to the pop end of the industrial spectrum. they weren’t bad, but they seemed to be more glitz than substance over all.

the only real disappointment of the lineup for me was Thrill Kill. i've been listening to them forever and never had the chance to see them live. other friends of mine who had seen them had said that they were fantastic. christ, the club scene where they played in The Crow has been my mental image of the perfect industrial concert. unfortunately, they seem to have lost a few members and Groovie Mann (the vocalist) seemed really tired and run down. there was no guitar and no bass (even though their old bassist, Charles Levi, was playing with pigface on the tour), just vocals, drums, and keyboards. that severely limited what songs they could play.

pigface, though. damn. pigface puts on a good show. this tour’s incarnation was: Martin Atkins, Curse Mackey (Grim Faeries, Evil Mothers), Charles Levi (Thrill Kill Kult), Seibold (Hate Dept), Krztoff (Bile), Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks, Ministry), Michelle Walters (VooDou), Lacey Conner (Nocturne), Kami (Apocalypse Theatre), and Blake (Grim Faeries).

their set in new york was easily the better of the two. the sound there was perfect. in DC, for some reason, the sound was turned up so loud for pigface that everything was distorted and you couldn’t really make out any of the vocals.

for the new york show, En Esch from KMFDM showed up and did Du Liebst Mich nicht, Ich Lieb' Dich Nicht. in DC, there were no special guests, but they did play a cover of RevCo's Stainless Steel Providers to make up for it. otherwise, pigface's set consisted pretty much entirely of tracks from the new album with the obligatory Suck as the encore.

one of my favorite previous members of pigface is Meg Lee Chin. i was disappointed to find out that she wasn't on this tour. i was even more disappointed to find out that the reason why involves Martin being an asshole to her.

Tags: music pigface review bile zeromancer my life with the thrill kill kult meg lee chin