This concert was a chance for me to kill two birds with one stone (I am absolutely NOT a fan of this idiom, what the heck). I’ve been a massive Wednesday 13 fan since my teenage days and when they announced that they would finally (been waiting for this long enough) return to Germany AND bring along their Wednesday 13 playing Murderdolls set, I was more than excited. And I was even more pleased to find out that they were touring with Hardcore Superstar, which is another band I’ve been listening to a lot as a teenager (not as much as Wednesday 13 though).
South of Salem
Unfortunately we arrived a bit late to the show due to work and traffic, so when we arrived, South of Salem had already hit the stage. Extra time went into getting settled, so I roughly missed about half of their set before I could finally focus on what happened on stage.
They weren’t bad, but they didn’t have much of a chance to leave an impression on me. Stylistically they kinda fit the line up (more so in combination with Wednesday 13 than with Hardcore Superstar I’d say), but I couldn’t even say what kind of music they made exactly.
I’d give them another chance, I wasn’t bored to death. But they weren’t super catchy either. (To be fair, the sound at the Essigfabrik was once again not really the best, even though I wasn’t even that close to the stage during South of Salem, which might’ve added to my poor impression of them.)
Wednesday 13
Here’s the thing: based on the audience you could say that Wednesday 13 were the secret headliner that night. The room was fullest during their performance and I feel like a lot of people left after their show. Which was reflected in the atmosphere, as the overall mood was great during their set and people really vibed with them (I didn’t see moshpits though).
Their set was, as mentioned in the intro, a full Murderdolls set with a good mix of songs from all Murderdolls albums. They hit the stage at 8:40 pm with Chapel of Blood, which was the opener to an hour long set that included Murderdolls classics like Slit My Wrists, Love At First Fright or Summertime Suicide. Part of their set was also the Billy Idol Cover White Wedding. Very iconic was also their performance of I love to say fuck, where Wednesday danced with a black umbrella with middle finger print.
Chapel of Blood
Death Valley Superstar
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Slit My Wrists
Love At First Fright
Mother-Fucker I don’t Care
People Hate Me
Grave Robbing USA
Die My Bride
Summertime Suicide
Rock n Roll is All I’ve Got
Nowhere
White Wedding
I Love To Say Fuck
Dead In Hollywood
Unfortunately, the sound once again wasn’t the best and especially the vocals were barely audible (it got better throughout the set, but in the beginning I had trouble hearing Wednesday at all). Nevertheless, Wednesday 13 delivered a great performance that caused my Murderdolls nostalgia to kick in at full force. I’ve seen Wednesday 13 before, performing their own songs, and getting to hear the Murderdolls stuff was very special in a way.
Hardcore Superstar
The actual headliners of the evening were the Swedish sleaze rockers of Hardcore Superstar, who, interestingly, were the odd one out in their own line up. Together with a horror punk band and a hard rock band that includes horror themes in their lyrics as well, Hardcore Superstar fit musically, but not necessarily thematically.
Maybe that is one of the reasons why the room emptied after Wednesday 13’s performance. There were still a lot of die hard Hardcore Superstar supporters, especially in the front rows, but towards the back, the audience was sparse and not super active while the Swedes performed their set of about 1h15 (roughly). (I personally noticed that mostly because it got really frickin cold during their set).
They opened their set with Beg For It, which activated the shrinking crowd. And they powered through despite the smaller audience, and I as a past Hardcore Superstar fan felt well entertained by their set that was a mix from their entire discography. It was nice to dance and jump along to bangers like Kick On The Upper Class or Last Call For Alcohol. Yet, there were hardly people left when they started the encores in their set.
Beg For It
Into Debauchery
Someone Special
Guestlist
Kick On The Upperclass
We Don’t Need A Cure
Bag On Your Head
Run To Your Mama / Standin‘ on the Verge (Acoustic)
Medicate Me
Moonshine
Last Call For Alcohol
No Resistance
Above The Law
We Don’t Celebrate Sundays
Electric Rider
You Can’t Kill My Rock n Roll
The remaining people partied on nevertheless and the mood generally went up again when they played their classic We don’t celebrate Sundays and the final You can’t kill my rock n roll, although people still kept leaving. It was super unfortunate for them and I personally felt terribly bad.
As a fan of both bands, I had a good time. I would’ve had a better time though with better sound and in a warmer venue.