Review Tuesday: Once in a blue moon

Once in a blue moon I get to go to THREE concerts within one week! So I will start with the first show, which happened to be on the night of the most recent blue moon. [NOTE: A blue moon is when there are two full moons within a single month. It has nothing to do with the color.]

MARILYN MANSON

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

THE END TIMES TOUR

07/31/2015

This show took place at Nikon @ Jones Beach Theater. Gates opened at 6PM and the opening act went on at 7PM. As far as we know, they never announced who they were, but it was one guy rapping and another guy on guitars performing to a heavy track that completely muddied their performance. Their 20 minute set was full of heavy music and beat, while having angry yet whiny lyrics about girls. We joked they were EMO EMINEM. They were not well received this show.

Marilyn Manson

Manson took stage sooner than  expected. In fact, we weren't sure WHO would come out first amongst these big named headliners. Manson hit the stage by 8 PM. If you are wondering who is remaining in the band, it's just Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez on bass. Everyone else has only been along since 2014 or '15. 

Their mix was great, the music was clear, the vocals were fine (although when Manson first hit the stage he sounded a bit hoarse, and smoothed out as the show went along), and the rhythm section cut through it all. Essentially they performed their biggest hits, the stuff that the bulk of the audience would know, and nothing too obscure. I would consider myself a casual fan at best and found myself thoroughly enjoying their set. I think my personal fav was their performance of mOBSCENE which sounded better than the original recording. Naturally, the show was chocked with the bands signature showmanship, theatrics and sacrilege, as you would expect over the span of 1.25 - 1.5 hours. 

Fav performance: Coma White which was the encore.

The Smashing Pumpkins

I had always known that Billy Corgan HATES playing his HITS. He feels that he has evolved with time and what's done has been done and move along with time. However, earlier in the tour, Smashing Pumpkins seemed to be playing mostly greatest hits with only a couple new songs peppered in there. Well, that's not the show we got. Smashing Pumpkins (which now has TWO original members, Billy and, drummer, Jimmy Chamberlain) put on nearly two hours of brilliant performance. The levels were absolutely perfect for everything. They didn't have much of a stage show, but since when do rock acts need anything like that anyway? 

I would say less than half of the performance were hits. There were many new and obscure songs in the set that you could tell the crowd wasn't sure about.  

Possibly the biggest surprise of the night was that Billy Corgan actually seemed to have a sense of humor. He usually comes off as a really miserable guy, but he joked around here and there during the show and even mocked some of the hecklers in the front, making hilariously obscene gestures with his guitar at them. 

My personal favorite song in their set was an acoustic version of DISARM.  All in all, a great show.

KMFDM

SALVATION TOUR

08/04/2015

Decades ago a friend introduced me to this band. "They are called KILL MOTHER FUCKING DEPECHE MODE! KMFDM for short!" he said. Actually it stands for Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, loosely translated as "no pity for the majority."

For years I've been dying to see this band, but they never seemed to visit NYC at a time that fit into my schedule...

UNTIL THIS YEAR!!!

KMFDM is in on their SALVATION TOUR to support their recent release, SALVATION EP, remixes from OUR TIME WILL COME.  

But first things first. The show was at Irving Plaza in new York City. A fairly small venue. At 8 PM the opening act CHANT took stage. They are a three man industrial act from Texas that is very obviously and heavily influenced by Nine Inch Nails. Their music was heavy and very percussive and I found their set to be quite good. Having known nothing about them before, I feel compelled to listen to more of their music. Good job.

KMFDM took stage after 9 PM. On tour the band consists of two guitarists, a drummer, and Sascha and Lucia on vox and sequences. Sascha "Kaptain K" Konietzko is the only remaining original member. Next up would be his wife, the lovely and talented Lucia Cifarelli. She's a Long Island, New York native joined up during that MDFMK in 2000. Guitarist Steve White first crossed paths with the band in 2002 and has since had dealings with PIG and KMFDM, same goes for both the drummer Andy Selway and guitarist Jules Hodgson. Pig and KMFDM seem to have a very incestuous relationship that borders on parasitic. 

But I digress. 

They hit the stage and blew the doors off the joint with the ultra-heavy beat. They must've performed around twenty songs, and all were great. If I were to split hairs, the vocals seemed rather low. When Kapt K was pontificating through his megaphone, you couldn't even hear a single word. Those mics and levels need to be checked! But the bands onstage performance was fun. Sascha seemed more pleasant and less angry than expected. He can belt out the tunes perfectly and sound like the vocals on the records without a problem. The guitarists worked the crowd while expertly playing their riffs. Finally, the goddess Lucia. She is SMOKING HOT. I mean like model hot. And she's smaller than I expected. Her cat moves on stage and sexy vocals were unexpected but much appreciated! 

I have been having a very hard time trying to decide which song(s) I was happiest to see performed that night. I'd have to go with these:

1. Terror
2. Ultra
3. WWIII
4. A Drug Against War
5. Adios
6. Son of a Gun

The entire setlist was amazing. I really could say the entire show was thrilling and be telling the truth. AMAZING show!

 

INCUBUS & DEFTONES

08/05/2015

When a friend asks if you'd like to see a legendary band like DEFTONES touring with Incubus, and cheap seats for it, you can't say no! The show was, again, at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater. She had gotten many email reminders to be sure to arrive at the show by 6:45. What's the rush? Certainly there will be some opening act with bad levels that you wouldn't be able to enjoy under the Junes Beach sun. Then Incubus would be up first, because there is no way they would be the closing act, right?

Wrong.

Sometime around 7:45 PM Deftones took the stage, Chino said, "Hi" then went into Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away). The theater wasn't even halfway full at that point. I bet there were a lot of angry Deftones fans who came running in from their tailgate parties at that point. 

Deftones went on to perform for nearly 1.5 hours, playing most of their most popular songs. Of course the big crowd pleaser, mine as well, was Change (In The House Of Flies) which got everyone onto their feet. 

Their trademark sound was faithfully rendered on stage. The guitars were as fat as ever, the bass was thick, the drums cut, and the vocals were the icing on this heavy cake. 

And then they were done. 

Incubus was going to close out the show. My friend and I agreed that this was quite enough and left Jones Beach around 9:30 to grab some beers and avoid the after-show rush to get onto the Meadowbrook Parkway. We didn't regret it.

All live photos were taken by your humble narrator with a Nokia Lumia 635 5.0 MP cell phone cam.