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With a lengthy overnight bus journey down to Wales to headline Saturday night at Steelhouse Festival, Blackie Lawless and W.A.S.P. are not hanging around.
Although no support acts are advertised, the 8 pm start catches some punters off guard, and several are still arriving 20 minutes or so after W.A.S.P. began their set, meaning the latecomers have already missed Mr. Lawless and company steam through a quarter of the 80-minute set.
Dubbed the ‘Album ONE Alive World Tour’, this run sees W.A.S.P. continuing the 40th anniversary celebrations of their self-titled debut album, which was released to the world back in August 1984. In honor of the album, W.A.S.P. are performing the album in its entirety, in the same order that it appears on the album.
Once the intro ends and the smoke wears off, it becomes apparent almost immediately that the recent back problems, which saw Blackie Lawless having risky and painful back surgery, have dissipated, and the frontman is moving a lot quicker and easier.
His famous endo-skeleton mic stand (Elvis) is back, and Blackie is riding high up on it, giving it a fair old workout as he leads the band into a song that (as he explains later on in the set) was never performed as a set opener before this tour: ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’. Lawless is also sounding great. Perhaps the best he has in some time.
Flanked by long-term cohorts, bassist Mike Duda (1995) and guitarist Doug Blair (2006), there is a continuity about W.A.S.P. that other acts from the same era do not have, and with powerhouse drummer Aquiles Priester joining in 2017, there is a genuine band feel about W.A.S.P. rather than just Blackie Lawless and nameless, faceless session guys.
Lawless is in commanding form from the off and wastes zero time dashing from side to side, getting the crowd involved by cajoling some audience participation out of them. It’s hardly needed, though, as the rabid crowd (a mixture of loyal fans from the early days, and a healthy number of younger fans) are with him from the moment the lights dimmed. And they are in fine voice as ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’ leads into another classic, this time – as the album dictates – it is ‘L.O.V.E. Machine’ that has the W.A.S.P. Nation howling the lyrics back at the band.
It’s great to hear the deeper cuts as well, in full, and the trio of ‘The Flame’, followed by ‘B.A.D.’ (Priester plays out of his skin on this one), and ‘School Daze’ are top-notch. ‘School Daze’ highlights that ever-so-slight touch of glam rock that W.A.S.P. has always had – especially during the gang vocals from Duda and Blair. It’s the latter tracks of the album that stand out, however. With ‘Sleeping (In the Fire)’, a heavy-as-fuck ‘Tormentor’, and a guitar-fuelled ‘The Torture Never Stops’ all impressing, Doug Blair’s work throughout the latter is all-killer (as it is all night).
Once ‘The Torture Never Stops’ fades out, and the debut album has been performed, the band leaves the stage for a brief moment before the Big Top music starts up and the screens flicker to life with black and white images for the first of two medleys. ‘Inside The Electric Circus’/’I Don’t Need No Doctor’/’Scream Until You Like It’ are all performed at a fast pace, followed by ‘The Real Me’/’Forever Free’/’The Headless Children’. ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’ is still a peach of a track, Aquiles Priester channels his inner Moony on ‘The Real Me’, and the turn of pace mid-song during ‘The Headless Children’ is still a buzz when it hits.
No time to catch a breath as the home straight includes full versions of ‘Wild Child’ (“Gonna need your help…” asks Blackie on the chorus) and ‘Blind In Texas’. And it’s perhaps not until you catch this show that you appreciate that underneath all the controversy over the image, and THAT song, that you realise that Blackie Lawless and W.A.S.P. have a ton of bangers in their arsenal and deserve more credit than they currently enjoy.
After a run of shows in Europe that include an appearance at Wacken Open Air Festival, W.A.S.P. return for more UK shows in September. All dates can be found HERE.
All images – Dave Jamieson
