Sep
Posted on 6th September 2006
Last night I went to see the fucking sweet satanic metal band Venom at Irving Plaza here in New York City. It was pretty incredible.
For the uninitiated, Venom is from Newcastle, England (the same town the popular beer of the same name is from) and is pretty much the first black metal band ever. In fact, they even named one of their albums “Black Metal,” so you know they’re not messing around. Their new album is called “Metal Black.” It just doesn’t stop with these guys.
Anyway, Venom pretty much ruled the fuck out of the place last night. I missed the first opening band, Early Man, but they are signed to Matador so you know they’re not really serious about metal anyway. Plus, they don’t have a bass player. Seriously, guys- stop fucking around.
The second opening band, Goatwhore, has an awesome name and had really sweet T-shirts with goats and pentagrams on them and stuff. The only problem was that the T-shirts said Goatwhore on them instead of Venom so I didn’t buy one. Musically they were pretty good and they even had big upside down crosses on their amps, so they scored extra points in the satanic department. Still, their guitarist and bass player both looked like they worked in the audio visual department at Best Buy or something so I say it’s back to the drawing board for those guys. Nice try though. Maybe you could become roadies for Venom or something. That would be pretty fucking sweet. And then I wouldn’t have to kick your ass.
At around ten o’clock, everyone at Irving Plaza started to get really excited because they knew Venom was going to come onstage and rock the fuck out of the place any second. Weirdly, the crowd was pretty much the biggest sausage-fest I had witnessed since I saw Guided By Voices at Irving a couple years ago. Chicks just aren’t down with Bob Pollard or Satan I guess. Go figure.
Anyway, a little after ten o’clock the big video screen in front of the stage came up and then you could see the big satanic goat-in-a-pentagram logo that Venom is famous for and everyone started to get even more excited. One guy would start screaming “Venom!” really loud and then a bunch of other dudes around him would start screaming “Venom!” right along with him. And can you blame them? Venom is fucking sweet and you can’t help but scream their name out loud after you get to thinking about them for a few minutes. There- I just did it.
After a couple minutes of having everyone look at the stage while some low rumbling, creepy music played, Venom singer/bass player Cronos and the other sweet dudes in the band came onstage and just stood there for a second while everyone kept screaming “Venom!” at them. Everyone in the band had a look on their faces that seemed to suggest “Yeah, we know we’re fucking sweet- we’re Venom. Suck it. Now prepare to get kicked in the nuts by our fucking sweet satanic metal music.” It was pretty incredible. When they got done standing there staring at everyone for a few seconds, Cronos and the other dudes in the band started to rock the fuck out of the place and everyone started going even more nuts. They played all the hits-“Warhead,” “Countess Bathory,” and “Bloodlust” and a bunch of other ones too. I don’t know how they do it but I’m glad they do.
After the show, I wandered over to the bar next to Irving Plaza and totally had a beer. The bartender asked how the show was and I was all like “It was fucking sweet, dude.” Of course it was. After all, it was Venom. I’m not even sure why he asked. What the fuck? He’s lucky he was standing behind the bar. Otherwise I would have had to kick him right in the nuts.
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