Skinny Puppy Sucks Now.
This past Saturday my friend Mike and I did a whirlwind attack on New York City: We drove down at 3pm Saturday, saw Skinny Puppy, went to the after party at Club Pyramid, and then drove home, arriving back in Albany around 7:30am. It was a grueling trip. But the trip isn’t the part that annoyed me (it was actually fun). No, what annoyed me is the fact that Skinny Puppy needs to break up and move on in life. ARGH!
Here’s the deal: the lead singer is what pulls peoples’ attention to the stage. Failing that, the guitar players. The drummer and keyboard could have all the presence in the WORLD, but it won’t matter: the stage will seem empty if the guitar players and lead singer can’t pull it together. Skinny Puppy, being Skinny Puppy, didn’t have any guitars on stage, so the whole thing fell to Nivek Ogre. Many people consider him a titan of industrial or something, so he should have been able to pull it off, right?
*sigh*
Wrong. Want to see what I had to deal with?
That’s right: Ogre was behind a fucking sheet the whole time. The stage seemed really empty and devoid of energy. Sure it was nice and artsy at first - “Ooooh, look at the cool shadow play when he sings.” But the keyboardist looked bored and the drummer looked like he’d rather be somewhere else, so it really was up to Ogre to pull this shit together. Of course he didn’t. My friend Mike thinks he was on some serious drugs and too wasted to sound like Skinny Puppy (seriously, he sounded like shit). I think he just needs to call it quits for a while. His voice sucked and his presence wasn’t there. BORING. The whole damned band wasn’t there, mentally or emotionally. I felt like I was watching some crap high school band or a geriatric ward slowly die of old age, not Skinny Motherfucking Puppy! The thing is, once in a while Ogre would come dancing out from behind the sheets and start singing to the crowd. Then there was a noticeable surge in crowd energy; they went from zombies standing there looking confused by the bright lights to something resembling insomniacs trying to dance. The latter was an improvement, trust me. But I don’t blame the crowd at all. You can’t get into a show that isn’t there. Even when Nivek came frolicking out from behind the curtains to scream in the crowds’ faces it still wasn’t anything to get excited over. Sure he *looked* cool, but image only goes so far.
This is boredom:
To make a long story short, Skinny Puppy was a waste of money. Mike and I left before the set was even over. We just couldn’t take it any more. The after party was fun though, but I admit that we mostly hung out outside with my other homies that we met there. Gnargh! Friggin’ Skinny Puppy. What a let down. But like I said, what we did before and after was cool, but that’s all for another blog.
-=Grim=-
June 15th, 2007 at 11:46 am
wow.
simply, wow.
i woke up that morning and was pissed because i had to work - i told myself i would see them live when they came to NYC.
after reading this, i am kinda glad i didn’t.
i have always known ohgr’s voice isn’t nearly as good as it is on cd, and i expect that with every band i see, but to see him behind a sheet most of the show? that would piss me off. maybe it was a bad night… maybe they should stick to just being a studio band? doesn’t matter to me eitherway, i won’t say i don’t like a band because thier live music sucks. damn shame though… hey douche. next time you’re in town for a show, let a motha brotha know. word?
June 16th, 2007 at 5:13 am
It’s still bizarre that they sucked. Here I thought they were the gods of Industrial or some shit like that. Seems to me that all the bands need to break up and go get addicted to drugs. Then come back with better music.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Some bands just plain SUCK live. I really prefer my Illusions of adequacy listening to Cd’s and such. I don’t like to be disappointed.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:41 pm
[…] LA show at the Henry Fonda Theater was outright phenomenal. I was worried because I read a negative review of their New York show. Was Nivek Ogre (lead singer) going to perform behind a curtain the whole […]
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 am
Article Should Read: Skinny Puppy has ALWAYS sucked.
Wow, who’d a thought that a butt-rock band like skinny puppy would suck. I mean i gotta hand it to em - i wish i could fart on a snair drum, record it, loop it, add some cheesey "holloween-style" horror movie synth and alot of inaudible howling, slap it on a tape and turn in it to money. thats awesome…fuck melodies, fuck harmonies, fuck talking about anything other than shooting heroin, and disembowling animals and still make money off of it…genius. where do i sign up. you goth/industrial pussies need to get off the smack, get a job, loosen up with some real pussy music like james taylor or some shit and come back to reality. Your life may suck, but thats no reason to assume that the rest of us wanna hear about it. The real reason homo boy was behind the sheet…found it impossible to remove the oversized butt-plug from his rectum and was too embarressed to show his face…its not art, its swill.
Carry oin pussies, carry on….