Review by Jo Lloyd and photos by Mark Lloyd
With a huge queue of animal print, mullets and slashed up t-shirts that stretched almost as far as I could see, the atmosphere building outside Wolverhamptons Civic Hall was already palpable.
Now, the scene that greeted me as I entered the hall was a little odd as 3 girls dressed as brightly as their hair colours had taken to the stage. The Lounge Kittens have performed at several festivals and were an incredibly obscure opening act. That being said, the girls amazed the building rock crowd with their lounge covers of rock songs including Slipknot’s ‘Duality’, Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, and the clear crowd favourites of Skindred’s ‘Kill The Power’ and Steel Panther’s ‘Glory Hole’. They are an incredibly different act that actually had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hands and singing along. With genuinely beautiful voices, these girls are also hilarious and bounce off each other well with their mutual bitchy abuse.
Next up were a band that never fail to put on an incredible show and as the lights went down and the ‘Imperial March’ kicked in it was clear to see that many of the amassed fans were here to witness the mighty Skindred. Kicking straight in with last year’s single ‘Kill The Power’, the crowd went wild. Never before have I seen a frontman have such a rapport with a room full of people. If Benji wanted them to do something, they bloody well did it and if Benji wasn’t 100% happy with the effort put it, he made everyone do it again.
With a set list filled to the brim of favourites old and new, Benji’s little quirks shone brightly with him waving like the Queen throughout ‘Ninja’ and making everyone get as low as they could before kicking in with ‘Warning’ and everyone jumped in unison. The latter also saw the return of the Newport helicopter where the majority of the crowd whipped off their tops to wave them maniacally around their heads. Skindred are such a fun band to see live and I can’t wait until the next show!!
By the time Steel Panther took to the stage behind the huge black curtain, the majority of the crowd were fuelled by more than just excitement! The music began, the curtain fell and the crowd all joined in with ‘Pussywhipped’. Satchel then took the opportunity to make a quick apology in case he had to leave the stage at any point due to being sick earlier in the day. This of course led into the usual joking between the band members for the real reason he’d puked his guts up of drugs and alcohol! The banter continued between songs with talk of boobs, sex, dicks and sexually transmitted diseases (mostly due to drummer Stix having unprotected sex with a dolphin!)
‘17 Girls in a Row’ saw Starr do his usual selecting girls from the audience to join them on stage resulting in continuous selfie poses with which the boys were more than happy to oblige. We were then treated to an acoustic section including ‘Kanye’, ‘Weenie Ride’, ‘Stripper Girl’, ‘Why Can’t You Trust Me’ and ‘Girl From Oklahoma’ that saw Stix leave his drum kit and play a stunning grand piano complete with candles atop. The rest of the set saw Satchel have to take a seat but this didn’t detract anything from the show. Closing with ‘Death To All But Metal’ saw the sweaty crowd go absolutely bat shit before coming back onto the stage with ‘Community Property’ and ‘Party All Night’ complete with glitter canon that unfortunately signalled the end of a hilarious night of entertainment.
I’m neber sure whether ST are “authentically” joking or sexist.
It’s funny but I lean to the latter more because their lyrics and performance is still as offensive as the 80s was.
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