It takes a brave man to take his band out on tour promoting a new album that hasn’t yet hit the shelves but Blacky Lawless is a shrewd operator and knows just how to play it!
“On Your Knees” and “L.O.V.E. Machine”, with its gloriously huge chorus from 1984’s suitably sleazy debut album come early in the set along with their riotous cover of The Who’s “Real Me” before the first new song in the shape of “Last Runaway” makes an appearance. Any fans concerned that W.A.S.P. may have softened with age had no need to worry with its driving riff and trademark gravel hewn vocals from Lawless showing that he hasn’t lost his edge.
The outrageous, shock horror shows of old may be long gone so there’s no boxes of raw meat, exploding codpieces or medieval torture racks and certainly no rendition of Animal, a song Lawless has vowed never to perform again but it’s the songs that count and these came thick and fast. From “Hellion” to the rarely played “Inside The Electric Circus” and “I Don’t Need No Doctor” the crowd lapped it up.
The title track of their forthcoming album Golgotha impressed with its slow burning build up complete with striking imagery spread across three huge video screens while “Miss You”, another new one showed a growing maturity to the song writing of Lawless while giving guitarist Doug Blair the sort of solo that shouts of for a video shoot on top of the Grand Canyon.
The only thing missing from a triumphant final stretch of “Wild Child” and the rip roaring anthemic holler of “I Wanna Be Somebody” was “Blind in Texas” and that would have made a perfect trio of songs to end a suitably rabble rousing night from LA’s veteran shock Rockers.
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