Hanzel und Gretyl vs. the Mathematical Constant Of Doom
So, it was International Pie Day, this past Saturday: 3/14. Perhaps, more precisely, it could be called Pi Day…in case that helps out the maybe five of you who didn’t already get that joke. So, in anticipation of Hindy Pez being an opening act for the show tonight (and in celebration of 3.141596: world’s most well-rounded constant), we descended upon Brandon’s house to take our sweet damned time getting ready to leave.
This does mean, rather unfortunately, that we’re going to have to miss the other opening act, Project Wiretapper…who may actually be running their vocals through a serviceable PA this time. But, on the other hand, the fact that we’re able to very intentionally miss Hindu Pez while enough of a half-dozen pies to puke all over Synthetic Nightmare (who, we’re told, will not only be anticipating this, but looking forward to it) makes this noble sacrifice all worthwhile. Hope you understand, Nikolai.
Now, after a substantial bit of getting-ready time and an irrational number of episodes of Look Around You, we make our collective way to Fallout, tonight’s venue…just in time for America’s alcohol-addled sweethearts, Synthetic Nightmare to start their theatrical and extensive sound test. This, sadly, sounds so much like the beginning of their set (which will take another 10 minutes to actually happen) that there’s a little murmur of disappointment in the crowd…or, at least, what I can see of them…which is my next subject of note.
Now…I’m not going to say that Fallout is totally unfit for the hosting of live shows-in point of fact, I’ve seen a number of quite successful shows here. But those have generally been for lesser-known bands and with smaller crowds (say…30ish people) than we have here tonight. This is more on the level of like 300 people, crammed in a space into which 300 people are not meant to fit. And they are all taller than me. Where-how-WHAT fucking carbonite freezer have they been using to store these pituitary mutants all this time?! HUH?! Heather points out it must be the shoes, to which I can only tip my hat at her keen powers of short-person observation. Yeah…real fucking nice, fellas. You’re coming to a FLAT venue to see bands full of short people…Ooh! I know! Why not wear those huge gothed-out platform boots with the fucking LADDERS IN THEM that turn you into a megalithic meat skyscraper? And, for an asshole encore, why not show up early, stand in the FRONT, camp out there and fuck things up for the rest of us? Hey…that’d be peachy.
So I’m staring at a wall of gyrating Neolithic buttholes in place of where the band is ostensibly playing, but I get a special kind of Old Electric Bastard thrill when the girls on the angle grinders start shooting a wall of metallic sparks laterally over the crowds, and I see some of these barbarians have to duck, rather than catch slivers of burning metal in their grills. SUCK IT, BITCHES!
While I’m laughing about all of this, the Synthetic boys are ripping the roof off with Azhi Dahaka-a crowd favorite, and one of my personal faves, too. I’d write more about the band and their performance-the dancing awesomeness of Becca, Holly and Ainsley…Rat Bastard’s gwarmor shoulder pads…Will Macabre playing bass, standing on the bar…something, but see the aforementioned wall of gyrating, Neolithic buttholes at eye-level. Around this time, I’m going to put down my pen for about 5 minutes, stand on a table and see if I can actually see the show.
Yep…not so much.
Meanwhile, quick Safety Tip for all you wacky kids out there who live under the hideous misappropriated idea that I have the faintest clue what I’m doing at any point during these proceedings. Two Dollar Cigarettes are fucking terrible-just in case you smokers out there needed to be told this-and two dollar menthols are even worse. Generally, they just crust up some abrasively strong breath mints and hide them in the filter or dip the filters in pure, mentholated sewer water. So…I have a long-standing tradition of using cigarette butts as ear-plugs when I go to the really loud shows, like this one. Oh, hush. They’re always my own, so at least I know where they’ve been. Some of you can already see where I’m going with this…I applaud your foresight. Anyway-jamming a cigarette butt into your soft, thin, nerve-covered ear holes when they’re dripping with liquid menthol feels a smidge like flushing earwax out with undiluted Aqua Regia. Or, in a word, DON’T! In a different word, OW!
Nightmare bursts into a cover of Sharp Dressed Man, and Neil wishes me to inform you, my reading public, that his abject lack of taste and comedy has him living under the gross misapprehension that this is despicable. Even moreso when Fabian changes the lyrics to, “every girl is crazy for a Big Black Man.” Thank you, Fabian. The look on Neil’s face when you did that was fucking priceless.
Hanzel und Gretyl begins with blue lights and a great deal of Heiling. Notably, I’ve repositioned myself to the pool tables behind the stage, so I can actually see the show I just didn’t actually pay ten dollars for. When the stage lights come up on Kaiser von Loopy’s absurdly ostentatious eagle helmet and Vas Kallas with her voluminous thrashings of fire-engine-red hair, the blue lights are replaced by stark white blinder spots…just to fuck with those absurdly tall camper motherfuckers in the front row, who are now squinting and shielding their eyes. After the first song, Vas declares, “You guys are really tall!” I feel vindicated.
The music is a hammering crush of drums, screaming and grinding deconstructivist electro-thrash that widens, without warning, intro drum-fueled metallic crescendos. Loops and whorls of light, sound, tactile bass and palpable energy are splashed over everybody in attendance, and leave us the better for it. Because it’s just not enough to say that Hanzel und Gretyl are good…that much is a foregone conclusion. It’s that they’re powerful. All the stage presence and manic energy of early punk and the fine-tune, programmed control of hard industrial and EBM, with the kind of comical visual cues one generally looks for in costumed comedy metal.
And, sure, maybe it’s a bad PA, maybe it’s this place’s nonexistent acoustics, and maybe it’s just my positioning behind the band, but I can’t hear so much as a bit of the vocals, beyond a low, punctuated growl. But they’re just so much damned fun that these are the things about which I refuse to care. All I want to hear is what I do hear-the constant staccato of drums, the fiery peal of guitars, the odd scream and the unbroken roar of the crowd…enthralled, captivated, mesmerized and uncharacteristically motive. Fist-pumping anthems slide effortlessly into sinuous, sexy, noisy songs about filthy decay and charge headlong into what German Jason informs me are traditional German beer-hall drinking songs.
Drums gallop, fists rise to the ceiling and every face in the visible crowd is smiling (when they’re not making Serious Goth-Industrial Dance Face, of course). When they get to Third Reich From The Sun (a regular staple here on DJ nights), the crowd reaches a hithertofore unknown fever pitch. They own this crowd-control them-bought and sold with the universally accepted twin currencies of destruction: Unstoppable Energy and Raw Talent.
Epiphany strikes me like a stone to the head-bone while the drums are careening uphill and the crowd is screaming along with SS Deathstar Supergalactik and their hold over this captive audience reaches a new peak-Fallout is not actually a bad show venue. Now…”what the fuck?” some of you may be asking me. What the fuck, indeed. Let’s look at it objectively. The lighting is mediocre at best, being more suited to dancing than shows, the PA is questionable, the acoustics are fucked and the “stage” is set at floor level, giving a good view to only about two dozen people (of which I am fortunately one). How in the chicken-fried Hell does that translate into a good venue? It isn’t just half-naked Brittany grudge-fucking the cage walls during the Fukken Uber encore. It isn’t just the unconscionably beautiful Jaye, sitting on the pool table with me and gyrating. It certainly isn’t the impenetrable wall of humanity on the far side of the dance floor, fighting not to be pushed over the imaginary line into the band’s performance space. It’s all of it. Every part…even the bad ones…no…fuck that, especially the bad ones. It’s the fact that the floor-level venue is floor level. It’s the fact that the PA is dubious. It’s the fact that Vas keeps reminding everybody in the front that they are fucking giants. It’s the people standing on bar, stools and tables to get a glimpse of the action. It’s the tightness of the standing-room only crowd condensing itself like a Tokyo subway. It’s the conversations desperately shouted over the din of the room. It’s the friends, wordlessly charging at one another to convey, “I LOVE THIS! What are your thoughts on the matter?” It’s the fact that this reminds me so damned much of my earliest show-going experiences. Of the late nineties and attic-space punk venues where we felt blessed to have a stage raised six inches above floor level. Of the church basement Battles of the Bands where you could just rove from one side of the room to the other, trying like hell not to trip over wires or get swept up into the BCS mosh pit. It’s the looks on the faces I can see from my disconnected, objectivist pool table perch…and I don’t just mean the ones in the front row, I mean the ones that go all the way back…the faces filled with juvenile glee and that look that you just don’t see enough of anymore. That look of the kids who realize, comprehend and know that no, this isn’t the perfect venue…this isn’t the perfect set up. We’re watching our friends bands at eye-level and if you’re one row behind that imaginary line, you can’t see a good God damned thing. That look of the kids who say, “This isn’t perfect…but it’s ours.” It’s the fucking Goonies of show venues. This is Our place. This is Our time. This is OURS. We’re making due, because the fact that we have something at all is worth not having the National Stage or the Twisters/Nanci surroundings or the Alley Katz acoustics.
Because making due is the first step towards DIY, and there is a zen joy to be found in DIY. Because when it’s all handed to you, neat and pretty and perfect and prepared and pre-planned and pre-packaged, the thing they can’t simulate or synthesize or artificially generate is Respect. But when you can make due and tough it out, you can look yourself in the mirror the next day and find that missing element…that self-respect. That wild blue yonder that hides behind the eyes and doesn’t take shit from anybody.
And maybe it’s common practice for Vas to stick around and give hugs to everybody in attendance after it’s over…maybe that’s one of her things. But some part of me wants to believe that it’s because she knows she was part of something…closer, somehow, to this crowd, by being on eye level with us. And left us all the better for it.