Combichrist in Toledo
Yesterday I went and saw Combichrist perform in Toledo, OH.
The concert was at this place called Headliners, which was a nice venue, but because of Toledo's screwy roads was somewhat hard for me to locate. Luckily, I was able to stop by a nearby porno shop and ask for directions, which took me right to the place.
I got to the venue a little bit late and missed the first band, Dismantled, but I didn't really care. The second band, Aesthetic Perfection was pretty good, some nice harsh aggrotech to really set the mood. The third band was this group called Julien-K, which was an electronic act with a little bit more of a rock and roll edge to it. They used a wider variety of instrumentation than the other acts and had a much more mature sound. I feel like kinda of a dumbass now because I just found out that Julien-K is actually a side project with two of the dudes from the band Orgy (who I've been listening to for a freakin' decade). I thought they looked familiar...
Combichrist was really good. They started out the set with a sense of humor, as they had stuffed unicorns as setpieces and took the stage to the candy mountain song from Charlie the Unicorn. They were very percussive live, as not only did they have a keyboard player/computer dude playing recorded beats, but they also had two guys on full sized live drum kits. The set was a good mix from their albums, about what one would expect. Andy was pretty wild on stage stomping around and throwing drums and equipment everywhere. For an encore they did "What the Fuck is Wrong With You People" and "This Shit Will Fuck You Up". After the set, I bought the two disk edition of their new album 'Today We Are All Demons'.
On the way out, the DJs went from laying down harsh industrial beats, to a medley of Michael Jackson songs in light of his passing just hours earlier. It was an odd, yet fitting way to end the night.
