03-04-2009 Wednesday13

Supports: The Chelsey Smiles, Glamour of The Kill; Venue: Electric Ballroom, London (United Kingdom)
By: Nina Mende

Back in London for the same band as last time, only at a different venue: Wednesday 13, this time at Electric Ballroom.
From the outside the venue was very unimpressive, it looked more like a shutdown store, but from the inside it was much better. There were two floors, it seemed like you could sit on the upper one, I didn’t go and check though. The main hall was quite big and so was the stage. The light and sound in this venue was quite great as well. There was a long queue in front of the venue as we arrived. As all the people were inside it was quite crowded but it could have been worse I guess.

There were three bands about to play tonight, beginning with The Chelsea Smiles from California. The band was formed by guitarist Todd Youth in the aftermath of his Danzig exit, just before forming the Chelsea Smiles, Youth had played some shows with Motörhead filling in on guitar for Phil Campbell.Youth was joined in the formation of the Chelsea Smiles by drummer, Karl Rosqvist (formerly of Steel Prophet), bassist Johnny Martin and a vocalist named Christian Martucci who previously played with Dee Dee Ramone’s band.
Together they released a four EP named “Nowhere Ride” in 2005 on Capitol Records, the following year, vocalist Martucci left the band to form Black President. He was replaced by Skye Vaughan Jayne, who had played in Bullets And Octane. So now here they were on stage with Skye on the vocals ready to rock London tonight. Skye seemed to always have a drink in his hand and played with the audience quite a lot while performing. The Chelsea Smiles pulled off an extremely energetic performance, the songs were great and the guys are also very great musicians. They played very passionate and got everybody in the Electric Ballroom to dance, shout and jump along. For the last song, which was a cover, the singer went down to the pit and sang it from there. All guys were very active during their performance, moving around a lot and the drummer gave more than just everything as well. The Chelsea Smiles is an amazing band and one of my new preferred ones for sure.

The second band looked like emo or punk but played metal. Glamour of The Kill are a post-hardcore band from York, United Kingdom. Formerly known as The Red Room Theory from 28th December 2003 through 2006, after a small line up change their name “Glamour of the Kill” was chosen by a friend of the band. Glamour of the Kill is made up of Davey Death (bass and vocals), Chris Carnage (guitar & vocals), Mikey Massacre (guitar and vocals) and Ben Brutal (drums). The band’s mainstream popularity was greatly revived by Metal Hammer for rating their debut album Through the Darkness They March 10/10, this led to tours with Bullet for My Valentine, Darkest Hour and Avenged Sevenfold. 2008 saw their long awaited signing to Siege of Amida Records and their hotly anticipated appearance on on the main stage at 2008’s Download Festival. They sounded a bit like Avenged Sevenfold with many hard and fast riffs. Glamour of The Kill got the audience to mosh big time and even had a circle pit going. Several people were going along and cheered a lot.

More cheering got the last band though: Wednesday 13 from the US. Wednesday 13 is a horror punk band, fronted by the artist of the same name. The group was formed in 2004. The audience went wild as Wednesday13 entered the stage and began playing. As usual half of their set was originally by the Murderdolls, but this time they also played a Frankenstein Drag Queens song which was just as great. With these guys on stage there it is guaranteed that you won’t stand still for a second. Wednesday kept on animating everybody to put the horns, fists or middle finger up in the air and to keep it up if not to clap along to the beat. Everybody shouted and danced along, did everything the band wanted them to do and even more. One girl even flashed towards the stage. During “I Walk With a Zombie” a zombie ran up and down the stage, during “R-A-M-B-O” Wednesday had a toy gun with a light and pointed at several people in the audience. Further songs they performed were “Bad Things”, “Love to Say Fuck”, “Happily Ever Cadaver”, “My Home Sweet Homicide”, “Till Death Do Us Party” and many more. Everybody had fun and enjoyed the hour performance that much, that everybody shouted for an encore, which we got. It’s always a pleasure to see Wednesday13 live and I can’t wait till they come back. I hope it won’t take too long.