Post by Dr Demented on Apr 28, 2006 16:13:47 GMT -5
KING DIAMOND HALLOWEEN NIGHT MILWAUKEE
For photos, see the original review at
www.michaelgriffey.com/kinghalloween.html[/center]
Halloween Night. King Diamond. Those two words together equal a KD fans' dream come true. When I found out that King was playing in my area on Halloween Night, there wasn't anything that could have stopped me from being there. A wonderful night, and only a few things put a slight damper on it. The first thing was The Rave's strict security. As you can see from the sign above, you could stand there like a fucking stick figure, or get the boot, as several young ladies from the audience quickly found out. These guys (The Rave Security guys) were assholes. Being a promoter, I can understand the need to have a good, strong security force to keep things in line...but these guys seemed to take a special pleasure in being pricks.
I got there early, and met Renzo from Covenworldwide.org almost immediately. If you got to meet this guy on the few shows he covered, then you know that he's a really cool person to hang out with. I then talked with Ole for a few minutes, and got to see the band warming up during their soundcheck. When they finished, I was fortunate enough to meet all of them and get pictures taken with them.
We hung out with everyone until the show started. SINGLE BULLET THEORY took the stage, and sounded pretty good, except for the lead singer's attempts at the falsetto...NOCTURNE followed, and they were the one band that was really out of place at this show. Imagine early Nine Inch Nails with a female lead vocalist. Good light show, and I liked them, but they definitely didn't fit in with the other bands. ENTOMBED was next, and these guys seemed to play FOREVER! Of course, nobody could mosh due to the security guys kicking people out left and right. Near the end of their set, the lead singer kept saying, "This is our last song..." or "One more song...", which ended up stretching into FIVE more songs...they were good, but we wanted KING!!! By the time he took the stage, the crowd was nearly in a frenzy of expectation, and King did not disappoint!
King's voice was in excellent shape that night and the only problems I heard was that Livia's microphone needed to be a little louder in the mix...we couldn't hear her parts very well.
King wowed the audience with 4 encores...and ended the show with his trademark, "No Presents for Christmas". A wonderful, excellent night with King.
We would have had more pictures, but this one asshole (Rob from The Rave) took Missy's camera and emptied her second roll of film...that's okay because we had the first roll stashed, and ended up with a partial third roll of ones after the show...hehehe...
I want to thank Ole, Mike Wead, Matt Thompson, Andy LaRocque and Hal Patino for being some of the coolest people I've met in a long time. Thanks also to King for writing excellent music and giving one of the best performances I've ever seen.
See you on the next tour!
Michael G.