 King Diamond @ House of Blues, Chicago, USA Concertgoing compatriots La Fée and Dr. Martin Absinthe have a conversation about King Diamond's show at the House of Blues.
La Fée: Absinthe and I heard that King Diamond was coming to town, and wanted to
revisit our metal roots … well, your metal roots anyway, I was always
just "along for the ride" with you longhairs. I always did like King
Diamond, though – the guy is plain bizarre.
Absinthe: Well, I'm sure you're baiting me, eh? Well, I'll bite. King
Diamond is not that bizarre. I mean, let's look at Kiss. They wear
considerably more elaborate make-up and look far more bizarre and scary
on stage than King
Diamond. While King Diamond's songs are kitschy horror stories, Kiss's
songs are misogynist, teen sex anthems. Scary makeup-kitschy horror songs
makes sense. Scary makeup-teen sex anthems does not. So if anything, King
Diamond is just an average ordinary guy who writes scary heavy metal
songs. Not that bizarre … I mean, look at what's on Broadway: A musical
adaptation of the Titanic disaster. Now THAT is bizarre.
La Fée: OK. Either way, I do enjoy King Diamond's brand of shlocky
horror thrash metal – it's full of integrity, quite fascinating,
surprisingly tuneful, and not always utterly stupid. I was glad to have
seen the show.
When was the last time we saw the King, about 10 years ago?
Absinthe: Yep. I think that it was the spring of 1988, almost exactly ten years
ago! Ah, I remember a youthful Flotsam and Jetsam opening and sounding
like crap. If I recall, you dubbed them "Fry Guys on Acid" in reference
to the McDonalds mascots. That King Diamond show was plagued by the
hideous sound of the Aragon. You could not hear a damn thing. Quite a
different story at the House of Blues, eh?
La Fée: Indeed, we were able to hear the King with almost crystal clarity, as
far as that can apply to loud German horror metal. And this time around
we didn't have to suffer through the misery of bad metal opening
bands … although I'm not sure waiting in line for over an hour was the
best possible trade-off. Once we were in, though, it was smooth sailing.
Who'd have thought there'd be so many King Diamond freaks out on a Sunday
night? There must have been more than a thousand … it was a friggin' army
(though not quite a Kiss Army®).
Absinthe: Actually KD is from Denmark, not Germany … The line, however, was
straight from hell. I blame this completely on the ineptitude of the
House of Blues. They were practically doing a damn strip search on every
single person in line. Security is fine, but they only had two people
frisking 1,000 fans!!!!! Were they insane? We barely made it into the
show before KD went on. Actually we wouldn't have if they would have kept
the frisking crap up. They started just taking tickets without a search
just before KD went on. This little incident soured me on the House of
Blues. Guess they weren't expecting so many rabid KD fans.
La Fée: I guess that you can never be too careful when you're dealing with
the many (mostly suburban) incarnations of Satan. The many forms here being mainly old and
bloated metalheads clinging to their freedom to rock. Well, all crowd
frustration aside, what was your favorite part of the show?
Absinthe: Well, my favorite part. Hmmm … The whole show was pretty darn good.
I was never bored, or annoyed, or nauseous, or anything. I really enjoyed
the whole thing. I actually admire King Diamond's (occasionally
misguided) integrity. His lyrics, though scary or Satanic or whatever,
frequently (with the notable exclusion of the pre-Melissa Mercyful Fate
songs) have an intelligent, humanistic message. I find this refreshing in
a genre that is praised for its mindlessness. So even though I really
just went because I thought it would be kinda neat to see the silly old
Satanist after all of these years, I have to say that it was the most
enjoyable show I've attended in quite some time. Who would have thunk
it? I guess if I have to pick a few parts that strike me as memorable:
The two songs they played from The Eye were enjoyable. I never really
"got into" this album, but was suitably impressed by the songs they
played from it. The little "burning of the witches" scene that they acted
out with a real-live woman, an inquisitor, a stake, orange lights, and
lots of dry ice was entertaining, amusing, and muAbsintheally pretty good. I'm
always very surprised at how adventurous the forms of these songs can
get. Arnold Schoenberg eat your heart out!
The stuff from Abigail was the most anticipated part of the show for
me, and these songs brought back so many sweet memories. Ahhhhh …
The new songs from Voodoo fit in with the older songs quite well. Nice
to see King stick a crucifix in his crotch. I guess that it's somewhat
strange to wax nostalgic about Satanic Heavy Metal, but when he ended the
show with the seminal line, "Oh my sweet Satan, You are the one!" I
almost shed a tear of joy. Ahhh, how beautiful.
La Fée: Even I was moved, though I can't claim to have ever been a huge
Mercyful Fate fan. I've La Féeinitely been converted to Satanism now,
though. For me, the show began with a lot of excitement and some
trepidation: He opened with my two favorite KD songs (really, the only
ones I know well), from Them. So I was worried the rest of the show
would not retain my attention. But I left damn satisfied. As I said to
you after the show, King Diamond is something of a new
Vaudevillian … the dancing voodoo woman, the
burning-the-witch-at-the-stake routine, the gruesomely comical childbirth
scene … well, I La Féey Matchbox 20 to put on a show like this. Ten
years from now, he'll be doing Vegas (the new Vegas, in Dimension Eight,
which we all relocate to after the Great War). You forgot to mention,
the crucifix he stuck into his crotch was made out of bones, and also
held his mic. That's showbiz!
Absinthe: Actually, the crucifix he stuck in his crotch was a "special"
crucifix he brought out for the Voodoo songs, not the traditional
"femur" one. Fancy …
You know, if King Diamond did become a regular in Vegas it would make Sin
City all the more enjoyable. Mmmm, I would even say that King could open
up his own casino. "The House of Amon" they could call it. The characters
from all of the albums could be guards, bartenders, dealers, and
prostitutes. For the right price you could sleep with "Grandma" or buy a
drink from "Missy." Mm! I guess we're on to something …
La Fée: Well, I won't be bringing that proposal to the Loud Bassoon Board of
Directors anytime soon … although with our technicians working
round-the-clock to build the first alternate universe theme park, perhaps
there is hope. The plan is for people to pay $100 for a day pass, but
the problem we're running into is that the alternate universe we booked
has days that are equivalent to 78 days in our universe, so we're not
sure whether we should jack the price up to $7800 (admittedly a lot when
you're bringing the whole family). Also, there are these terrifying
silent-screaming babies with lizard heads that have caused the deaths of
four crew workers so far. But, as I said, once we iron all this out I'd say
it's a go for "The House of Amon." In fact, I envision a sort of heavy
metal Branson, with King Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne, and Alice Cooper having
large arenas, and bands like the Scorpions, Twisted Sister, and Warrant
occupying the smaller theaters.
Absinthe: If possible, I'd like to head up this operation. I will have to
insist, however, that only the "scary" heavy metal bands get casinos. As
you well know, using the "hair" metal bands would conflict with my
ongoing project. If you recall, my current Loud Bassoon post as Vice
President in charge of Hair Styling and Casinos has been growing stale
recently. The implementation of the "Loud Bassoon Warrant Salon", and the
"Loud Bassoon Vixen Salon" are going very well, and I must say that I'm
beginning to feel a bit under challenged. Well, I'll bring this up at the
board of directors meeting next Thursday.
Review by La Fée & Dr. Martin Absinthe |