illusionofjoy | ThouShaltNot to Voltaire at The Rex

At the last minute, missjoi and I decided to go to The Rex Theater to catch "A Cadaverous Cabaret." An insightful and thorough review follows:

ThouShaltNot:
...were the opening act. In my opinion, they should have been on later in the night in relation to the other groups, however they put on a great show nonetheless. The songs they performed weren't morphed much from their recorded versions, however the stage presence of the group - in particular, Alexx Reed, the lead vocalist - is riveting. ThouShaltNot provided a balanced sampling of the tunes from their new platter, The White Beyond, along with entries from previous entries in their discography. Overall, they made for an energetic start to the night, when unfortunately dissipated when...

Phat Man Dee:
...took the stage. I believe that the continuity of the night would have been better preserved if the order that ThouShaltNot and Phat Man Dee performed in had been reversed. There is no doubting the talent of this unconventional blues/jazz singer, who was accompanied only by a single guitarist for most of the night. The downtempo nature of her material, however, seemed anticlimactic after the pure energy of ThouShaltNot. Still, her cover of "Crazy" (written by Willie Nelson and made famous by Patsy Cline) was pure aural honey and her rendition of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was not to soon be forgotten. The highlight of Phat Man Dee's set was easily the moment that her husband, Tommy Amoeba, joined her onstage for a couple of hilarious numbers and an impromptu strip tease.

Ego Likeness:
This band quite frankly bored the hell out of me. They got the chops to belt out their fair share of tunes and they sound good as a unit, but the songwriting was abysmally dull. Up until the last tune it all sounded alike, reminding me of the Evanescence album I had the misfortune of listening to many moons ago.

The Property Project:
It was like watching European television. And yes, I have watched European television...and Canadian television too, as a matter of fact...

Voltaire:
The last time I had seen a performance by the "court jester of the Goth scene," was at The Batcave in Manhattan. He had his entire backing band along for the ride and was dressed as The Cat in the Hat (before Mike Myers co-opted the character). It was also Halloween of 2002 and I was attending what would be my last CMJ Music Marathon. In any case, for this Pittsburgh performance, Voltaire brought along only his guitar to accompany him. This was all he needed, seeing as his sense of humour and storytelling prowess are constants. His performance was just the pick-me-up that my enervated brain needed at that point.

As I said earlier, Joi and I decided at the last minute to go to this event. She told me that she was glad she went and I am too, for the most part. It was a low-energy night for both of us though as we didn't leave our seats for the whole night. This would have been perfect for her to nurse her headache and for me to play insomniac, save the obnoxious kids seated directly behind us. I do so hate the kids.

They were all talking about how excited they were to be going to Ceremony tomorrow. I'm glad I won't be there.