31-10-2008 Wednesday13

Supports: Hanoi Rocks; Venue: Astoria, London (United Kingdom)
By: Nina Mende

Spending the weekend in merry old London town we decided to spend Halloween at Astoria. The Astoria was built on the site of a former pickle factory and opened in 1927 as a cinema. It was later converted for theatrical use in 1976 and is now exclusively a music venue with a capacity of 2 000. As I went into this building and took a look around I fell in love with it. And later on the sound was so amazing that I loved it even more.

On this Halloween evening there were three bands playing. Since there was a curfew of 10:20 pm all bands played very early. We missed out on the first though because we came a little late. But we saw the other two which were Hanoi Rocks and Wednesday 13, an odd combination but worth seeing. Since Hanoi Rocks will split up soon it was great seeing them again as well, but more about the splitting up in the interview.
Wednesday 13, an American horror punk band, was more likely a typical Halloween band.

There was an extremely long queue outside of the club already way before doors opened, many of the waiting people were dressed up in Halloween masks and costumes, or simply wore the fitting make-up.

All bands began in time and the deadline was kept to the second. First band of the night for us, but actually second, were Hanoi Rocks. The huge audience was cheering in their horror masks and sang along to the songs. The big stage gave Michael enough room to move around. He even went into the pit and leaned into the crowd of fans several times. The band as the guests seemed to have a great time seeing one of the band’s last shows, tonight on Halloween here in Astoria. The sound and the light were amazing and the theatre atmosphere of the venue added a final touch to everything. I think this was one of my favourite Hanoi Rocks shows out of all I’ve seen. They performed songs off all albums, Michael played saxophone again during some songs and talked a bit with the audience. A really great show lasting for about 30 minutes before Wednesday 13 entered the stage.

Now it was time for one of the best Halloween shows I’ve ever seen so far: Wednesday 13 entered the stage and began after some circus like intro and a zombie clown ran all over the stage with a flash light. Then the band came on. Since Acey was not along anymore, Wednesday now also had to play guitar while singing. They performed many Murderdolls songs which I personally loved and made it a gorgeous Halloween for me. But they also played songs they haven’t played for a very long time. During some songs a Zombie or serial killer-like man was running across the stage. For one songs Wednesday (singer) was the only one on stage and performed a song with his acoustic guitar only. It was their first Halloween show abroad and we all loved it big time, including the band. They played for more than an hour having the audience go wild. Everybody enjoyed it big time.Wednesday13 came back for an encore as well, later on joined by some “dead” cheerleaders. A really amazing Halloween, one of my best so far and I was glad to have been there.