Anyone going to the WASP / WARMACHINE shows?

Oh snap!!! For real???
Yeah, I am gonna be there for business, and want to be out of town as least time as possible.
Oh well, thanks for the info.

I am still 50 / 50 about tonight.
I got an email from Cubby Bear, and the first band does not start until 10.
Not sure I want to be out late again on a work night, esp since I only have a casual interest in the show.

Please report back with a review!!! have a good time.
 
When is the ORlando date?

I am going to be in Orlando March 16th through March 18th.
anything going on those dates?

SOL, Jason! ;)
Looks like you may have to stay for another day.

Mar 19 9:00 pm Orlando

http://www.waspnation.com/tourdates.html

haha ya march 19 @ 7 PM

this is exactly why its going to be a disaster, we and 3 other bands are opening the show, which starts at 7, and firestone has epically failed to promote anything but wasp.
 
St Pete & Orlando.. check again my friend

Florida is hardly the south, because of its isolated nature so FAR south. People in Mississippi cannot feasably be expected to just motor down to Orlando for a show. It has to be a plane ticket/hotel/expensive venture. And there is a date for Murrells Inlet, SC, of all places.

Sorry, probably wouldn't be able to make that one from MS either. But I stand corrected on this tour completely missing the south.
 
Florida is hardly the south, because of its isolated nature so FAR south. People in Mississippi cannot feasably be expected to just motor down to Orlando for a show. It has to be a plane ticket/hotel/expensive venture. And there is a date for Murrells Inlet, SC, of all places.

Sorry, probably wouldn't be able to make that one from MS either. But I stand corrected on this tour completely missing the south.

Palabra, doesn't any decent metal tours ever go through Memphis? Of course, you'd probably get mugged and shot down there!

~Brian~
 
The show in Chicago ROCKED!
It was cool to see so many fans...way more than I expected.
The place was packed and Cubby Bear North wasn't as bad of a venue as I remembered. Warmachine were awesome but I believe their set got cut short due to the first band (Hessler) going over. At least that is what I was told. It did seem like Hessler played for a very long time. And they get a thumbs down from me for attempting to cover WASP's "Mean Man". I don't like when an opener does a cover of the headling band. To me, it's just disrespectful....especially when you butcher it. But I guess that was their way of giving props to Chris Holmes.

Anyway, on to WASP....
My only complaint was the sound was WAY to loud during the second have of the set, which pissed me off because it made the guitars and vocals sound muddy, especially during the guitar solo to "Heaven's Hung in Black" which is just an amazing solo. I even gave up my spot close up by the stage to move around to see if it sounded better elsewhere. The new...or 'not so new anymore' guitarist, Doug Blair, who is recorded on the last two albums is absolutely awesome. To me, he really captures the tone of Chris Holmes, giving the music that old WASP sound that I love. Unfortunately, this was not presented to it's full potential due to the sound being mediocre at best.
But other than that, the setlist was solid, all members had a ton of energy and Blackie actually looked like he was enjoying himself. Which leads me to sight I'd never think I'd see....
Blackie has found God!
Let me just put it out there that I have no disrespect whatsoever and actually kind of admire the guy for such a life changing decision...just didn't expect to ever see it. I've been a WASP fan since I was in Junior High.
This is coming from a dude who used to torture a woman on stage, throw raw meat at the audience, shoot fire from his crotch and wrote a song called "F&%k Like a Beast". Throughout the set, he kept pointing up at the ceiling, as if he was pointing to God and at the end of "Heaven's Hung in Black", he mouthed a prayer on stage and did the Catholic "touching the forehead and crossing the chest" thing. (No disrespect to Catholics, I honestly don't know what that is called.) I can't say I expected it, but the majority of his songs are extrememly political and maybe he is looking for another outlet for all the corruption and bad things going on in the world. I don't know.

So yeah, needless to say it kind of changed the vibe of the live show a bit, but definitely did not take away from the music. I love the new songs they played off the past two albums. "Take Me Up", "Heaven's Hung in Black" and "Babylon's Burning" are just incredible tunes. I did notice that the crowd toned down the enthusiasm during these songs, which makes me think (1) they either have not heard the new albums and were only there to hear Wild Child and Love Machine, or thinking they were going to hear "F*ck Like a Beast" even though Blackie hasn't played that song live in years, or (2) they don't like the new tunes, which if that is the case, I'm amazed.
Bt that's a whole other topic. (ex: Maiden playing "A Matter of Life and Death" in it's entirety and the crowd walking out of the show saying how disappointed they were in the band). Whatever. Go home and listen to 'The Last Command' and make more room for me up front next time. Ha!




Setlist:

On Your Knees
The Real Me
L.O.V.E. Machine
Crazy
Babylon's Burning
Wild Child
Hellion / I Don't Need No Doctor / Scream Until You Like It
Arena Of Pleasure
Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)
The Idol
Take Me Up
I Wanna Be Somebody

Encore:
Heaven's Hung In Black
Blind In Texas
 
Sounds like a pretty well-rounded setlist to me...can't imagine that old or new fans would have anything to bitch about...
 
I was pleasantly surprised at Warmachine. I guess I was expecting more aggro, angry thrash a'la The Haunted, which I don't care for. I liked their melodicism and the vocal harmonies. They definitely have it together. If they have an album I'll keep an eye out for it.
 
I saw the Madison show. Warmachine was excellent. Picked up the CD after the show for $10 and talked to the guys, all super cool, very down to earth and true metal fans.

Never was huge into WASP but they were great, makes me think I missed out on a lot back in the day. They sounded too good, I tried to listen for excessive backing tracks and watch for synching but I couldn't tell if there was any.

Interestingly enough Bullet Boys opened the show. Never cared for them much but they were decent. THe singer said "I'd like to thank Blackie Lawless (crowd cheers)...for just telling us we only have 10 minutes left to play (crowd sort of boos)." Not sure if that was staged or not but I don't think so as they cut out at least one of their "bigger" songs. Just makes you realize why these 80 bands rarely tour together, they can't even get along for one gig.
 
Well, it's happened again:

Tonight's (Thursday, March 11) W.A.S.P. concert at the Blender Theater at Gramercy in New York City has been cancelled, according to Live Nation. One person who had a ticket to the show has submitted the following report to BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

"My sons and I were waiting for the doors of the theater to open when [W.A.S.P. mainman] Blackie [Lawless] walked by in what seemed to be a foul mood. Shortly after, I was told by a person waiting on the line that the show has been cancelled. Then we found out that Blackie was at the tour bus and would sign autographs for everyone. And to his credit, he did. He signed many autographs and allowed pictures to be taken.

"Blackie was very nice to everyone but upset that the band would not be performing.

"I do not know the details but from what I overheard, the [band] was [not] at fault."

Ok, nice about the autographs and all, but wtf could have happened that they couldn't have given the fans more notice than that? Sure glad I hadn't made the hour-long trek up from Jersey, paid tolls, parking etc. Not so sure I'm going to bother with the Starland show now either.
 
Well, it's happened again:

Tonight's (Thursday, March 11) W.A.S.P. concert at the Blender Theater at Gramercy in New York City has been cancelled, according to Live Nation. One person who had a ticket to the show has submitted the following report to BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

"My sons and I were waiting for the doors of the theater to open when [W.A.S.P. mainman] Blackie [Lawless] walked by in what seemed to be a foul mood. Shortly after, I was told by a person waiting on the line that the show has been cancelled. Then we found out that Blackie was at the tour bus and would sign autographs for everyone. And to his credit, he did. He signed many autographs and allowed pictures to be taken.

"Blackie was very nice to everyone but upset that the band would not be performing.

"I do not know the details but from what I overheard, the [band] was [not] at fault."

Ok, nice about the autographs and all, but wtf could have happened that they couldn't have given the fans more notice than that? Sure glad I hadn't made the hour-long trek up from Jersey, paid tolls, parking etc. Not so sure I'm going to bother with the Starland show now either.

he was probably being a complete dick because something wasnt right at the venue. I cant wait to see what happens at the orlando show... more than half of me thinks that there are going to be several hundred pissed off floridians.....
 
Dude on Blabbermouth posted that the venue sold VIP tickets for a meet & greet before the show without Blackie's knowledge. He said it was standard for that venue, but evidently Blackie was not having any of it.

thats completely retarded, i guess blackie has a point to be upset with VIP stuff without his knowledge but to cancel the show? thats messed up. I feel bad for that promoter...
 
Dude on Blabbermouth posted that the venue sold VIP tickets for a meet & greet before the show without Blackie's knowledge. He said it was standard for that venue, but evidently Blackie was not having any of it.
Not gonna comment on whether that's a legitimate reason to cancel a show, who knows if that's even why? I will say, this is not the first time, more like the 21st time, I've heard of venues selling those VIP tix w/o the bands' knowledge. Unfair to everyone involved but the greedy bastards who do it.
 
Damn. Sorry to hear this. And sucks for all the fans....and the promoters and the opening bands. Basically it's not good for anyone, but who knows what the real story is. If the VIP thing is true and that is the reason behind cancelling the show, then yeah, it was a little harsh to completely cancel but at the same time, I admire Blackie for standing up to bullshit like that.
It sucks for all the fans who were there to see the show....I know I would be upset. But if a venue doesn't have their shit together and thinks they can do whatever they want without letting the band know about it, then they deserve the consequences.
Blackie doesn't take anyone's shit and I respect him for it. If he has to cancel the show to prove a point, then so be it.
He stuck around for the fans to sign autographs and take pictures, which says a lot. I've seen WASP like 9 times and never once did he come out to even say Hello to his fans.
 
Ok, here's the reason:


Explanation on the home page:

An unfortunate incident arose this evening at The Gramercy Theater in NYC that we need to let you know about. It prevented W.A.S.P. from performing this show, and caused us to disappoint many of our NY fans and friends. About 50 VIP tickets were sold to about 50 different fans for $50.00 apiece, twice the normal ticket price for this show. It turned out that part of that VIP ticket price included a meet and greet with W.A.S.P. These tickets were sold to these 50 or so fans without W.A.S.P. having any knowledge of this, let alone agreeing to this. Upon learning of this late in the afternoon of the show day , W.A.S.P. insisted that the promoter of this venue, who sold these VIP tickets to these fans, return the V.I.P. portion of those tickets back to the fans. This meant that the promoter would have had to give each of those VIP ticket holders a refund of $25.00 of each ticket. W.A.S.P. demanded that this $25.00 be returned to each of these ticket holders in cash prior to the meet and greet , which W.A.S.P was still going to do. The promoter refused. W.A.S.P. then informed the promoter unless these monies were refunded to these fans, in cash, that the band would not perform the show. Again, the promoter refused and W.A.S.P. canceled the show.

We are saddened that it had to result in the cancellation of our performance for this evening, but we believe this unfortunate situation amounts to nothing more than our fans being ripped off. We have never changed a fan for an autograph and WILL NEVER charge any fans for an autograph.

To all the fans that came to the show and were turned away, please accept our sincerest apologies. W.A.S.P. CANNOT and WILL NOT ever stand by and watch or be involved in their fans being ripped off... EVER.
Thank you .

Blackie Lawless

Since the Starland doesn't do the V.I.P. thing, the show should be fine tonight.