With those words of wisdom, Type O Negative took the stage after about five fake starts. The band proceeded to screw around with their instruments for another couple minutes until hulking frontman Peter Steele announced that the suspense was killing him, and then they finally launched into their classic “Christian Woman.”
Yeah, it was that sort of show.
Following a lengthy hiatus, the New York quartet decided to announce its return to the living with a three-night stand at the Anaheim House of Blues during the NAMM music convention. Goths, tough guys, metalheads and white trash showed up to this sold-out show, filling the HOB with as much human waste as a Brooklyn sewage treatment plant. Actually, the setting was more like a demolition zone, with collapsed barricades and black-and-green traffic cones littering the stage, the band's giant Day-Glo green logo illuminated behind them.
After introducing the band as Tony Iommi (guitarist Kenny Hickey), John Bonham (drummer Johnny Kelley), T-bone Manischewitz (keyboardist Josh Silver) and himself as Johnny Cash, vocalist/bassist Steele led his cohorts through a set consisting of the longest, slowest dirges the group had in its repertoire. From the misanthropic buzz-sawing of “Gravity,” to the sexual longing of “Wolf Moon” and the sheer wrist-slitting depression of “World Coming Down,” they pretty much hit all the downbeat bases.
Just when the crowd was getting used to the slow stuff, they threw in the punky “Kill All the White People,” just for the hell of it. The onstage shenanigans were what really made the evening fun.
Steele and Hickey ragged on each other in between songs and when a zealous female fan threw her thong panties at Steele, he reacted by telling her, “Sorry, I don't think these will fit me.”
Forty minutes into the set, he announced, “Thank you, goodnight,” and most of the band left the stage for a good five minutes while Silver sat in front of his keyboard, looking bored. They eventually returned, giving the excuse that Steele was throwing up on Hickey's neck.
It was at that point that a man, his wife and their two little girls that were standing in front of me left the show.
After another half hour of despair, Type O Negative did the only predictable thing of the evening and wrapped up with a feisty version of their biggest hit, “Black No. 1.” Before they left, though, they took responsibility for their mess, and launched rolls of toilet paper all over the crowd and venue – an appropriate end to a truly bizarre show .
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