By Andrew Bansal
September 19th 2014, The Wiltern, Los Angeles CA: Horror punk/heavy metal group Samhain have reunited once again and are celebrating their 30th anniversary with a handful of US headline shows wherein they’re playing a large portion of the debut album ‘Initium’ along with other selections from the band’s catalog. They took the stage at the Wiltern in downtown Los Angeles last night with a stellar support cast comprising Goatwhore, Kyng and Night Demon. For many Samhain/Danzig fanatics who never got a chance to see Samhain in their initial 1983-87 phase and the short-lived reunions thereafter, this was an eagerly anticipated event and there was a feeling of genuine excitement amongst attendees upon the realization that the moment had finally arrived.
Ticket holders started lining up outside the Wiltern as early as 5 PM, the doors opened at 7 and an hour later, Ventura CA NWOBHM trio Night Demon began proceedings with a 25-minute set in front of a sizable turnout. They played their self-titled debut EP along with two songs ‘Satan’ and ‘Curse Of The Damned’ off of the upcoming full-length, and while some in the crowd were already familiar with Night Demon, the band succeeded in getting a positive response from first-timers. This is easily the biggest stage they’ve ever performed on in their fledgling career, but their simple 3-piece setup enabled them to dial in their sound quite well, and the drums in particular came through with great pop. Their renditions of these songs sounded in perfect synchronicity with the respective studio versions which are now ingrained in my head through repeated listening over the past year or so. This band goes on a full North American tour in two weeks, and the level of performance they delivered here strongly suggests that they’re already in the groove and ready to kill. This is NWOBHM done right.
Night Demon links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram | bandcamp
Next up were Los Angeles’ own stoner/sludge metal trio Kyng, changing things up from the breakneck NWOBHM of Night Demon to an avalanche of slow monstrous riffs. Aside from playing their instruments with conviction, guitarist Eddie Veliz and bassist Tony Castaneda combined for some great vocal harmonies and that’s perhaps what distinguishes them from the multitude of bands pursuing this style nowadays. With the drumkit placed in the center and near the edge of the stage, Pepe Clarke was more visible as a drummer as well. They got a 35-minute set and played a few from their impressive latest album ‘Burn The Serum’ which came out earlier this year via Razor & Tie. Consciously or not, in recent times Kyng have mostly tended to open for bands that aren’t exactly a fit with their style (Lacuna Coil last April, for example), and even though a majority of this Samhain audience was somewhat indifferent towards Kyng and frontman Veliz’ interactions with the crowd were awkward as a result, but the band powered through and played a solid headbang-worthy set nonetheless, and fans of bands such as Clutch, The Sword and Down would be well-served to give Kyng a try.
Kyng links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram
New Orleans extreme metal tyrants Goatwhore got to demolish this stage next, making their third appearance in Los Angeles this year after two righteous performances at the House Of Blues on the Metal Alliance and Summer Slaughter tours, easily turning out to be the best band in both those shows. I’ve never been a huge fan of the Wiltern’s sound system for metal shows, specially for extreme metal acts, as it simply doesn’t retain the intensity any particular band would carry in a smaller room. This Goatwhore set would probably fall into this category as the band’s overall sonic persona was undoubtedly affected by the overly echoey nature of the Wiltern’s sound. So, for the Goatwhore fans it took a couple of songs to get used to this sound, and even the first-timers seemed to get more into the band during the latter half of the set as mosh pits broke out in the frontmost general admission pit and the GA section just behind/above it. As I was told by one of Goatwhore’s members after their set, they couldn’t hear anything up there and considering that, they did a fine job performing these songs, the endless amounts of touring of the recent months definitely enabling them to play off mere muscle memory. The 35-minute set was once again dominated by tunes off of their latest juggernaut-like studio effort ‘Constricting Rage Of The Merciless’, including thoroughly enjoyable compositions ‘Baring Teeth For Revolt’, ‘Schadenfreude’, and ‘FBS’. They ended with two songs off of the ‘Carving Out The Eyes Of God’ album, namely ‘The All-Destroying’ and ‘Apocalyptic Havoc’, and while many of the Samhain die-hards still stood with arms folded, quite a few in this crowd raged hard as they dug into this Goatwhore set, and would most certainly be feeling the aftereffects this morning. Los Angeles has witnessed Goatwhore as a support act in plenty for the time being, and a headline show is now eagerly awaited.
[Interview with Zack Simmons coming soon]
Goatwhore links: facebook | twitter | instagram
The show ran on schedule so far with all three openers efficiently playing their respective sets and exiting the stage on time, except for the headline act which took 15 additional minutes to get going. During this extended intermission I ventured to observe the atmosphere. Sound issues aside, this is quite a lovely theatre and it’s always interesting to attend shows here as the surroundings never fail to amuse. The city’s self-proclaimed rockstars were out in full force, the $12 domestic beers were flowing, but finally at 10:40, Samhain appeared and played a stop-start 65-minute set.
In all honesty, while I respect his musical legacy I’ve never been able to enjoy a Danzig show mainly due to his shortcomings as a present-day live vocalist, but having never seen Samhain and not being familiar with their music, I was keeping an open mind and gave it a full chance. Glenn Danzig actually delivered the vocals better than expected, although his delivery began to deteriorate towards the latter half as he increasingly ran out of breath. The music came across as a strange hybrid of Misfits and Danzig’s solo material and didn’t grab me whatsoever. Danzig’s band mates did a fine job on their instruments, although with such a simple and stripped-down musical style it’s harder to mess it up than it is to play it right. Right after they played ‘Archangel’ which featured the rare sight of Danzig on guitar, Samhain disappeared from the stage for several minutes and this is where I felt the show took a turn for the worse with too many stoppages and there was just no flow to the set. Following ‘Mother Of Mercy’, they took 10 minutes to come out for the one-song ‘encore’ of ‘Halloween II’, described by one longtime concert goer as the longest encore break he’s ever seen in the thousands of shows he has attended.
This fans were certainly loving every moment of it though, and their unwavering loyalty is proven by the fact that Glenn Danzig doesn’t need to write any new material to pull crowds to venues like this and can feed off of the legacy/reunion/anniversary shows for the rest of his life. In conclusion, I wouldn’t be running to a Samhain show again anytime soon but to his credit, this wasn’t the worst Glenn Danzig-related show I’ve seen.
Set List:
01. Initium / Samhain
02. Black Dream
03. All Murder, All Guts, All Fun
04. Macabre
05. He-Who-Can-Not-Be-Named
06. The Shift
07. The Howl
08. Horror Biz
09. Archangel
10. Misery Tomb
11. I Am Misery
12. Unholy Passion
13. All Hell
14. To Walk the Night
15. November’s Fire
16. Kiss of Steel
17. Mother of Mercy
Encore:
18. Halloween II