Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Twisted Sister? Oh Brother!


Last night Mark and I went to see Twisted Sister's "Twisted Christmas" show, at the Danforth Music Hall. I have a lot to say, so I'll just jump in and get started.

First of all, we left early so that we could have a nice Greek dinner on the Danforth before the show. Busted...took us over 2 hours just to get into the city. Effing traffic!!! So, we got there just in time for the show to start, and we were freaking starving!!!

I've never been to the Music Hall before, and at the risk of offending fans of this venue, the place is a hole. I froze my ass off all night! Think of 1973 movie theatre seating and you'll know what I mean. No leg room either; poor Mark had his knees practically to his chin when we were sitting down.

When the show started (1/2 hour late, another thing that frosts my flakes), Dee Snider comes out dressed as Santa and jumps right in with a heavy metal version of a Christmas song. It was really good, I have to say. Actually, all of the holiday songs they did were great, especially O Come All Ye Faithful which had us all fooled because the beginning sounds like "We're Not Gonna Take It". That being said...

Let me state plainly that as a rule, I am not a fan of heavy metal (aside from the cheesy 80's ballads that every band put out in that decade). I won't listen to that kind of music if given a choice. I only know two Twisted Sister songs, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock", so whenever they played any of their other tunes, I took to people watching instead.

I have to say, it was quite a bizarre variety of fans. You had the younger punk set, with the half-shaved heads and Kool-Aid hair. Then there were the "hair-band fans" with hair down to their asses and head banging to every song (sadly, my husband creeped into this category). Then there was a startlingly large crowd of guys that I would bet my life are in their 60's, pushing 70, and they knew every song, lyric and gesture. Next was the covertly drug-smoking, alcohol fumed slobs with beer guts hanging over their skull belt buckles (like the creep that was next to me who yelled out every two minutes "Stop the Christmas crap, play the old shit!"). I seriously wanted to whack this guy over the head with a Yule log. Umm, hello, it's a Christmas show? Effing jerk! And the occasional woman like me: one who was there with their boyfriend/husband in an attempt at making an effort to solidify the relationship bond, or was dragged there against their own will or good judgement.

Reading this back, it sounds like I was miserable. I wasn't. Well, maybe I was cranky with claustrophobia, wheezy with polluted atmosphere, a little stoned by association, foot and back sore from standing, and annoyed as hell with the losers in the crowd who wouldn't shut the hell up, but other than that, it was great.

After the show, Mark asked me what I thought. Honestly, I said that I like the seasonal songs and the 2 songs I knew, but all in all, I thought the whole thing rather sad. It almost always is, when you see these great hair-bands of the 80's, and here they are 20-odd years later, still going at it, but with badly shagged wigs, paunches over spandex, and a singer that has to duck behind the Marshall stacks for oxygen 3 times in every song...

The Twisted Christmas CD? A must buy for any metal fan, or even a fan of holiday music, I think it's great. A Twisted Sister concert...I think it would be kinder to pull out your VHS tapes of the weekly Video Hits and remember them as they were: young, hot, toned, and ready to rock!

1 comment:

Susan Dore said...

Shannon, you constantly amaze me with your incredible writing skills. I feel like I was there (but of course, I'm glad I wasn't!)