The Sting (Live at the Key Club, L.A.)
Hoo boy, watching W.A.S.P. hit the stage at the Key Club makes me wonder why I can't get a gig playing my tunes. Sure I don't play an instrument. Sure, I can't sing worth a shit. I DO look awful, I AM burned out, and my gut DOES hang out over my chaps. If W.A.S.P.'s any example of how to get on stage and rock out after 20 years, then I should have no problem getting my stinky ass up there and making a few grand a night, right?
Right?
Oh fuck you too, man.
OK, the first thing you realize after watching the first few seconds of
The Sting is that Chris Holmes is legally dead. They must have some elaborate contraption of wires, pulleys, and marionette strings keeping him bouncing around on stage. His eyes are more sunken in than my Grammy's and she's been dead for God knows how long? I have to believe that his extensive collection of tattoos up and down his arms only serve to cover up the needle tracks on his arms (not that I have ANY proof, but that's why I'm so inked up, so I'm guessing that's why he is too).
I had no idea Mike Duda was working so hard singing his ass off while he was playing bass. That fugger is up there singing his ass off...IN KEY... and he's holding down the fort with Stet Howland.
Speaking of Howland, check out the fire Blackie Lawless lights off on the drum kit in front of him when the show starts. Obviously, this took place prior to February 2003 and before GREAT WHITE's pryo sparked a fire that killed a hundred people in Rhode Island.
And Blackie...well Blackie is living proof that you can be old, crusty, and still go out on a stage wearing high-heeled boots, latex pants, and ghost-white makeup and still make a living... I'm guessing he can, that is. All the while, he's hopping up on this weird motorcylce-handlebar contraption, and you're waiting for him to do a face-plant into the stage.
The one thing that throws you a little is that W.A.S.P. music doesn't sound like it's appropriate for a nightclub. Obviously, that's where all of us start out, but sheeeesh, just take a look at the stage set-up, and listen to the music, and you'll see what I mean... it looks out of place.
Thankfully, there was some hot-lookin' trim in the audience that still likes to go see W.A.S.P. live... I'll betcha she's good and stupid too. I likes 'em stupid.
