Danzig - Always A good Decision

Last Wednesday, October 24, by around 4 o’clock PM I wasn’t even sure if I was going to the Danzig show that night. There were plenty of reasons to let myself miss the performance; at 30 dollars the tickets weren’t exactly cheap, and it was pouring rain out. Leaving work at six I still hadn’t made the decision; I was leaning towards it, but also wondering how I would pay for gas the rest of the week if I went. On my way home things took a turn for the worse as a lady, apparently in a rush to get to an emergency at the hospital, backed up into me and smashed the quarter panel of my car, wedging the body against the wheel so that at first I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get home much less to the Electric Factory that night. It seemed like the show was out of the question and I had just about written it off, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would really regret not going to this one.
By around 8 o’clock I said “fuck it,” this show is the best thing for me right now, and as the events would unfold around that night I fortunately turned out to be right. What follows is a recap of the night’s events, but I don’t want this to be mistaken for a review – by no beans am I objective enough spectator at this point to claim to be presenting an unbiased opinion.
Opening for Danzig was a new band called Gorgeous Frankenstein, which features ex-Misfits guitarist, Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein. I had no real expectations for this band, so I wasn’t overly let down when they hit the stage and the singer was wearing a head set microphone a ala ‘Nsync, and Doyle’s wife, pro wrestler Gorgeous George was somewhat pointlessly, (not to mention foolishly) dancing around the stage dressed like a stripper. The only redeeming quality of this performance was the fact that Doyle could still own the stage like the pummeling rock n roll monster that he was during his early career with the Misfits.
Danzig hit the stage shortly after Doyle’s set and reminded the audience why they were there. Despite sporting a brace on his left arm after an accident he had incurred the previous night, Danzig brought all of the fire that his fans come to expect. The majority of his set was made up of tunes from the mediocre Lost Tracks album, however he kept the crowd with him by reminding them how excited he was to be there, even though the doctors told him he wasn’t supposed to jumping around on stage, and by introducing the new songs with exceedingly badass descriptions – my favorite being “this ones called Lady Lucifera, I put a bunch of chicks together to make on dark bitch.” At the end of Danzig’s set he made sure as hell that his fans were properly thanked for sitting through the new (or lost) material, by cranking up the heat and aggression with an energetic performance of Twist of Cain, followed immediately by his undisputed classic Mother. The energy level, however, that these two songs sparked was almost insignificant compared to how the crowd would react to what came next. I know I was expecting it a little bit, and I’m sure that others felt the same way, but I think all of the other “too young to have seen the Misfits” fan like myself shared the same rush of excitement when they saw Doyle and Danzig standing on stage together for the first time. They ripped through four songs Vampira, Demonomania, We Bite, and Skulls Of course this short set only lasted mere minutes, but they were some of the most memorable minutes in my life – I can still here Danzig wailing Vampira’s name, and I doubt it will leave me for a long time.