Musicland in Fawkner Victoria is the perfect venue for live music, with its large stage and floor area, upstairs balcony viewing level and a great sound system.
Tonight’s gig was a sell out, so the venue was full of a crowd ready to rock.
Warbirds are opening tonight’s show as special guests of Killer Klowns. Warbirds are a rock power trio fronted by lead guitarist and vocalist Anth Nekich, Danny Slaviero on bass and vocals and “The smiling assassin” Luciano Alvaro on drums. Warbirds burst on stage at 8.45pm and played a 9-song set, full of hard rock tunes. They are a guitar lovers’ band who play clean clear hooks with chuggy bass riffs.
They have a fantastic stage energy and you can see how much they love to play. Warbirds have a hard rock sound with melodic and grungy undertones. Their sound reminds me of the classic rock bands of the 80’s and 90’s with a touch of the 70’s. They play mainly original music with a couple of covers thrown in like “We all die young” from the movie Rockstar. “Bring back your love” from their album Order from chaos was dedicated to Rebecca. I hope you were in the crowd to hear your song.
Their original songs are guitar-driven and full of bad ass overtones and distortion, this is all tied together by Luciano’s killer drumming. Warbirds have recently joined forces with Raging Bear Artist Management, so this band is on the move up the ladder of success.
Warbirds Gallery
Warning if you are a Prude, politically correct of have Coulrophobia please scroll passed, this article is not for you.
Now I have your attention: Deviates, Crazies and Sticky beaks. Imagine you are at the circus watching clowns, but you have fallen asleep in the back row and have woken up in the middle of a mind-altering substance nightmare.
Anticipation of this gig was giving me anxiety. I have heard stories of the performance; they can’t possibly be true? Or can they?
I can already see a creepy black figure stalking the stage with a very large rubber appendage. The dark stage is full of smoke and creepy music can be heard. The stage comes to life with 14 TV screens flashing images from horror, blood, religion, cartoons, porn and just the downright horrific. This is all set off by pieces of manikins and baby dolls. The stage looks like the back alley of somewhere you shouldn’t be. Then they appear Killer Klowns.
Killer Klowns is fronted by Pagan Klown on vocals, Aenima Klown on lead guitar, Fisto “The magnificent” on bass, Koma Klown on keys and Smak Klown on drums. Who is behind those masks is a band secret and the rumour is the ones who have been game enough to find out their identity have mysteriously disappeared.
A theatrical heavy rock band who satirically give the finger to everything that is politically correct. They play a mixture of covers with their own heavy, horror musical interpretation. Musically this is a very talent bunch and vocally a blast to listen too. Their performance and stage are a sensory overload. There is so much going on at the sold-out event that Musicland punters got a lot of Bang for their bucks. Visually this band is not for the faint of heart, but their eclectic covers had the crowd singing along with heads banging and devil horn fingers held high in the air. Their 21-song set including a 2-song encore had everything from “Dragula” by Rob Zombie, “Chop Suey” by System of the Down to “Let it go” from Frozen and ABBA’s “Gimme Gimme.” “Beautiful People” by Marilyn Mason was a huge crowd favourite and Killer Klowns closed with “Du Hast” by Rammstein.
Killer Klowns played 2 sets and started the 2nd set with Pagan reading us a bedtime story with Koma playing nighttime music in the background. The story “Who’s a little C#@t” also written by Pagan. Is definitely not recommended for children. After story time it was back to this Psycho Circus, taking us on a journey of heavy rock, pyro technic, groin grinding mania. Killer Klowns played “Blue Monday” and this morning it is stuck in my head “How does it feel” these lyrics sum up last night’s performance. I had so many feelings rushing through my head, curiosity, skin crawling horror, grossed out and at the same time enjoying the visual and audio feast.
One lucky audience member, Heather won Fisto’s bass guitar in an early bird prize raffle and she was only one of the many punters who walked away with a smile on their face.
Whoever these masked crazy musicians are whether they are lawyers, gynaecologists, politicians, or your local council worker they sure know how to put on a show.
And finally, I did sleep well after the gig because I was exhausted, but I hope tonight those clown faced psychos don’t appear in my dreams.
Photos by Oz Greeny’s Photography
Killer Klowns Gallery
