W.A.S.P.

When W.A.S.P. announced that they were going to embark on a fall tour of North America, I was beyond excited. It had been over a dozen years since I saw them in concert and for a while I had given up hope of ever seeing them again. Once the dates were announced, I prayed that they would come to my newly adopted town of Houston and my prayers were answered. Not only were they performing near me, they were doing 5 dates in Texas so I made sure to drive the 3 hours to San Antonio to catch this line-up again a couple of days later. That is just an indication of how psyched I was to see W.A.S.P. again.

The opening acts for this tour were ARMORED SAINT and for the Texas date, MICHAEL SCHENKER was added as well. ARMORED SAINT is another one of my favorites and the addition of MICHAEL SCHENKER certainly sweetened the pot. Both bands performed the same set both nights and quite honestly, it has been a while since I have seen both of them as opening acts. They both have so much material that they could fill a 3 hour time-slot and still not get to all their great songs.

ARMORED SAINT is one of the best live acts out there. They started off their set with “Reign of Fire” off of their classic “Symbol of Salvation” record and it was magic from the start. John Bush sounds just as good as he did back in 1991 when that album was released. In fact, the whole band tore through that song like they had something to prove even though they had the crowd from the opening riff. Although the pandemic hit the music industry hard, SAINT still put out a great disk called “Punching the Sky”. They played “End of the Attention Span” and “Standing on the Shoulder of Giants” and both track seemed to have even more energy in the live setting. They have so much material in their catalogue that it must be difficult to choose what to play but they managed to touch on a number of releases. “Long Before I Die” from “Delirious Nomad” and “Chemical Euphoria” from “Raising Fear” went down especially well with this old-school crowd. “Symbol of Salvation” had the most tracks in their set list with “Last Train Home”, the title track, and the previously mentioned show opener. Before launching into their first record, they squeezed in “Win Hands Down” from the latter day catalogue.

As mentioned previously, it has to be hard to pick songs from so many records but they did a great job of making sure we got a taste from many eras of their 40 year history. To close off their set, they went all the way back to 1984 for “Can U Deliver” and the title track from “March of the Saint”. Before I go into my review of the next band, I have to mention that ARMORED SAINT were full-on energy throughout their short set. Gonzo Sandoval played like someone half his age, and Joey Vera spent the whole show throwing shapes and making use of every inch of that stage. Add to that the guitar interplay between Phil Sandoval and Jeff Duncan who trade riffs and solos with ease and you have a phenomenal live act. The icing on the cake is John Bush who is one of the most underrated metal vocalist out there. I can’t say enough good things about ARMORED SAINT and I wholeheartedly recommend you get to the show early to see their set.

In Texas, MICHAEL SCHENKER was added to this bill and he made the most of his time slot. Again, he has out there for over 50 years so it would be impossible to present every part of his career so he went ahead and gave the crowd a condensed set of what they wanted to hear. He came out on stage and after the briefest of hellos, he and the band launched into the instrumental “Into the Arena”. His playing was flawless as ever and judging by the smile on his face, he was having a great time. After that quick track, he introduced his latest singer Ronnie Romero and they dove into a quick version of “Doctor Doctor” (minus the keyboard intro). That is the first time I have ever heard that song played that way but I guess he wanted to get in as much material as he could in that time slot. “Looking for Love” was next up and I have seen MSG well over a dozen times and never got to see them perform this track. In fact, that song and “Red Sky” from “Built to Destroy” were 2 huge surprises for me. Both songs are what I would call “deep cuts” and to have they played during one show was a real treat for an old fan like myself. I must not have been the only one in the crowd who was a Schenker freak as both songs were extremely well received in Houston and San Antonio.

And now for the main attraction, W.A.S.P. You could feel the excitement in the air just by the fact that when they brought out Blackie’s skull mike stand, the crowd erupted. The stage set resembled an old carnival type setting with banners for all different sideshow attractions. Later in the show, some of these banner would come down and reveal video screens that would play video footage to accompany the songs. THE DOORS’ “The End” started the intro that had a number of W.A.S.P. songs strung together along with sound effects. It didn’t last long as the band emerged and fired off a great medley of material from their first record and tacking the title track of “Inside the Electric Circus” to very end. “On Your knees”, The Flame” and “The Torture Never Stops” made up the bulk of the medley and it was a great way to showcase as much material in short amount of time.

Like the previous bands, W.A.S.P. has a huge catalogue and it would be impossible to touch upon all the track that the fans want to hear. "L.O.V.E. Machine" and show closer “I Wanna Be Somebody” were performed on both dates that I attended with “Hellion” making an appearance in Houston. Additional songs played in Houston included latter day classics “Crazy” from 2009’s “Babylon” and "Heaven's Hung in Black" from the previous album “Dominator”. San Antonio got "The Great Misconceptions of Me" instead of those tunes and for someone like myself who was seeing multiple nights, it was great to see different songs. Speaking of “Crimson Idol” material, both town got "The Idol" and "Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)" with the latter utilizing the lyrical changes form the Reidolized edition. No W.A.S.P show would be complete without “Wild Child” and “Blind in Texas” which naturally went down a storm in both cities.

For the encore, they performed their most notorious song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” that hasn’t been played in quite a while. The songs was ushered in with an intro tape of the PMRC hearings along with the video screens spelling out the government’s attempt at censor. The rest of the encore consisted of “The Real Me” and the previously mentioned “I Wanna Be Somebody”. Joining Blackie on this tour are longstanding members Doug Blair (guitars) and Mike Duda (bass) along with relative newcomer Aquiles Priester on drums. Although many people always clamor for the original line-up, I have to say that in my opinion, Blackie has gathered a great band and I especially liked Doug Blair’s guitar work throughout the show. He stayed faithful to the material but still managed to interject some of his own style into the tunes. As I look back at these 2 shows, I have to ask myself “was it worth the wait?” and the drive to another city. My answer to both without even giving it a second thought it a resounding “YES”. If this W.A.S.P. tour is coming anywhere near you, I would highly recommend you check it out. I just hope I don’t have to wait another 12 years for them to tour again.