Rob Zombie & Lacuna Coil
4/9/06 The Murat , Indianapolis, IN
by John Haseltine
Well everything leading up to the night in question seemed almost too good to be true. I was going down to see Rob Zombie, Lacuna Coil and Bullet For My Valentine. The tickets were in place. All the contact numbers are in hand. Last minute e-mail states NO FLASH for the photo pass. “That’s okay”, I thought at the time. Being an amateur concert photographer, I still use film. This makes it tricky when shooting with no flash. And tricky it was this time. Mostly all the pics sucked. Sometimes they work and other times they don’t. Gotta move into to the 21st Century and get a digital. Maybe around refund time. Oh yeah, and the ride down was provided by a friend in a limo. And five others. What better way to go? None.
So we arrive in Indy in about two hours. We’re all set up to do a meet and greet with Zombie and my friend and I had the numbers for interviews. Well it seem Lacuna Coil has had some tour bus problems and were traveling by way of a conversion van. With all their gear jammed into a trailer. So we were both told no interviews today. Okay. That’s cool. Well I try to call my Zombie contact and he said no way to an interview as well. So glad I have so much extra time to prepare for not doing interviews. Same went for my friend. Well he is with a radio station and got a very well timed five minute interview with Rob right after we went in and met him for a brief moment. The whole thing lasted for about ten minutes and we were all made to feel like we were a Volkswagen Bus parked up his ass and that he wanted nothing more than to shoot us right back out. I shook his hand and he autographed a photo I took at Ozzfest last year. Cool. You’re a rockstar, I guess I can dig that.
If you hadn’t heard, Bullet For My Valentine had been kicked off the tour. It was to be their first U.S. tour. Apparently the singer made some foul comments directed towards Rob Zombie that were not very nice. Something about him being a “money grubbing fuck” selling shirts for $40. Well guys, that’s how it works here in America. So when/if you’re ever the headliner here in the States, you’ll have the say so and you can sell your shit for how ever much you want.
So just the two bands tonight. Great! I was very impressed with Lacuna Coil’s set. I have not heard the new album ‘Karmacode’ yet, but was delighted that they played five songs from it. And if memory serves me correctly, the other four songs were taken from their very successful ‘Comalies’ album. The new material sounds to be a bit heavier overall yet still possessing that superlative Lacuna Coil style. Amazing set. They played almost flawlessly. Not much movement from any of the band, but with the day they had, it’s understood. Can’t wait to catch them out on Ozzfest again this year. They have a spot up on the main stage this time. Anyways , the songs they played with perfection were, ‘ Tight Rope, Fragile, To The Edge, Humane, Swamped, Fragments Of Faith, Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode cover), Our Truth and Heaven’s A Lie’.
And on to the Zombie. Most of us who got a chance to catch him out with Ozzfest saw a stripped down stage show from the band. Just a backdrop was what they were on the road with last year. This time there was a huge video screen that played all sorts of horrific images and naked dancing girls. Gotta love that. There were also some props here and there, but it was a pretty basic stage set. A cool one, but relatively simple. Rob sort of seemed to roll with the motions through he show. A very energetic performance by Zombie is always expected and is what he delivered. He’s right up there with Bruce Dickinson when it comes to his stage persona. Long time bassist Blasko, drummer Tommy Clufetos and ex-Manson guitarist John 5 seemed to be tearing things up as well.
Other than a bit of screwing around with ‘Thunder Kiss ‘65’ trying to get to crowd riled up about a home video they were shooting, they just rolled on through each song. I did notice that they have up the new material a notch live. The few tracks off ‘Educated Horses’ were definitely a bit heavier than on the disk. Some other songs of the evening included ‘House Of A 1000 Corpses, American Witch, The Lords Of Salem, Let It All Bleed Out, Foxy Foxy, More Human Than Human, Dragula, Never Gonna Stop’.
Not sure who was playing off who. The rather melancholy crowd of the evening or the band. Either way, Rob Zombie & Co. are always a sure fire bet when wondering what to expect in a live performance. They were right on sonically. A very good time was had by all. Even myself. I didn’t have to sit downstairs at the bar and get drunk like at the last show I was bumped off of. That’s not really my thing anyways. So there’s plenty of time to catch this tour as it’s only in the second week. But don’t wait, this one sold out weeks ago and I hear that’s how the rest of the shows are going. Check out one of the bands websites for more tour information.