DANZIG @ OGDEN THEATER | 4/19/12 Before Danzig came on stage, a voice that sounded like Glenn Danzig got the crowd going by informing us that Snoop Dogg was playing down the street and so was Tesla, you know, just in case seeing Danzig wasn't the most alluring option of the evening. A few minutes later, the lights dimmed, menacing synth music came over the speakers and the band took stage one by one and went right into "Pain Is Like An Animal."
See also: - Review: Danzig at the Boulder Theater, 5/3/11 - Review: Danzig at the Ogden Theatre, 11/12/10 - Danny Marianino's fifteen minutes are definitely up
For the first two songs, the mix sounded severely off with Danzig's vocals either too loud, too dry or with poor equalization. As the set continued, though, the mix got a lot better even though the vocals sounded somewhat disembodied through most of the set.
After the appropriately thunderous "Hammer of the Gods," Danzig told us that this was the 25th anniversary of the release of the first Danzig album and that the rest of the set would be made up of old songs, some of which included even older Misfits material.The older set got started with "Twist of Cain" from that first, self-titled Danzig album, which had the crowd singing along, which seemed to make Danzig happy. Later on, he said he loved when the crowd sang along.
Danzig and his mates then treated us to some favorites from Danzig II: Lucifuge and "Under Her Black Wings," "Devil's Plaything" and the "slow" song that Danzig said he needed after exerting so much energy in the first quarter of the set, "Blood and Tears." From there, the band went into the next couple of albums with "Dirty Black Summer" and "How the Gods Kill."
After an impassioned rendition of "It's Coming Down," Danzig said we seemed tired. He told us he was thinking about bringing Doyle out, but noted that we seemed tired. When Doyle did came out, he looked like he walked in from 1983, as the band played Misfits songs and reminded everyone of what a great band that was.
Beginning with "Death Comes Ripping," the act brought the momentum and melodic urgency of the music that influenced countless pop punk bands that came in the wake of the Misfits. The outfit followed that up with Walk Among Us, "Vampira" and "I Turned Into a Martian."
After "Night of the Living Dead," Danzig told a story about how when the band came through in its earlier incarnation and played this "hippy place called The Mercury Café," as he put it, and noted that about a hundred people were there and that the woman who ran the place tried to chase away spirits or cleanse the band with oils and incense. He then said that woman probably OD'd on granola and is dead someplace.
Danzig will be happy to know that Marilyn Megenity is not only alive and well, but she's still running the Mercury Café. Just the same, it's safe to say she's still a hippy. After that joke about the Merc, the band played "Astro Zombies" and finished off the Misfits set with, what else, "Last Caress," which got everyone excited, including Danzig who said, "Fuck yeah!"
With that, Danzig returned to material from his namesake band, beginning with "Soul On Fire" and closing with the song a lot of people had been waiting for to sing along, "Mother." There was so much enthusiasm and excitement in the room, Doyle came back up for a furious version of "Skulls." Before the show finished, Danzig ended with a song he said he wrote while in a jail in Britain, "London Dungeon."
Earlier in the evening, Corrosion of Conformity played a set of its sludgy, heavy blues rock with a touch of hardcore in the sound. It was like hearing what a band would do if it had its roots in swampy blues rock and then shed those sounds in favor of Black Sabbath's sonic palette and then sped up the pace. In fact, before going into "Mad World," the band teased bit of "Hand of Doom" fairly convincingly. The band brought a surprising amount of energy in contrast to its shredding, sludgy sound.
Personal Bias: I got into Danzig and Glenn's soulful wail around the time of that first album and Corrosion of Conformity around the time Blind was released.
Random Detail: It looked like there were at least three generations of fans at this show.
By the Way: You had to guess that if there was going to be an encore there would be more Misfits songs.
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