“The Riviera Nightclub Received A Shower of Dark Light by The Finnish Invasion none other known as HIM”

Setting: October 22, 2005, Riviera Nightclub, 5:45 pm. When we arrived at the venue, we laid witness to probably one of the longest lines in the history of the Riviera; it was sheer lunacy. The crazier part was that we could not find one frown in the crowd. Definitely, a dark light shined upon the Uptown venue as the sky opened up and poured on the still happy crowd. Happy that they could once again feed their hungry souls with the musical offerings of one of Finland’s finest export HIM.

Pandemonium ran amuck throughout the day, in between a crazed fan boarding the bus during the interview with Migé to fans rushing the doors into the venue as soon as the doors opened… it was an all out madhouse throughout the night. Security felt they had to strong-arm a couple of people to assert themselves, probably a good idea. It was like a mini scene out of the history books during the British Invasion with the Beatles back in the 60’s…you know the black and white days (no, this was even before our time).

Speaking of strangeness, etc, the burning question is who put this bill together in the first place? You have HIM being a gothic metal band to Finch (emo) to Skindred playing reggae metal. What did we miss? If you sit back and think about it, 2005 was the year of the mismatched tour! Overall, HIM was majestic and Skindred was fabulous, as ever!

Lineup: Benji Webbe – Vocals; Mikey Dee – Guitar; Dan Pughsley – Bass; Dirty Arya – Drums

As soon as the Welsh quartet took the stage, a female fan screamed to the top of her lungs, “BENJI”! A smile ensued across the vocalist’s face and he immediately threw his hands up in the air as a sign of triumph. The crowd went nuts. The entire front section on the floor started clapping wildly it was a welcomed sight. In true fashion, the high-spirited frontman egged the crowd on; mind you, Mr. Webbe had not begun singing yet! Webbe got the crowd’s volume to raise way past the original fevered pitch…the band’s set officially got underway.

During the intro to the band’s second song, Webbe stopped the song abruptly by declaring, “Stop this shit! So this is Chicago, Illinois, huh?” The crowd went nuts again. Benji continued his tirade, “Two things: we can ether have fun or it can be shit! Do we want to rock?” The crowd wildly clapped and screamed in response. “Well then, we better start bouncing then! Let me see you, mate! Chicago, make some noise!” Boisterous yells ensued from the obedient audience. The fans also put their hands in the air when the commanding MC instructed them to do so.

Further taunting and inciting the excited crowd, Benji stopped the music again by shouting, “White Sox”, he explained he said it because he didn’t want the audience to “go to sleep”. Not seeing how there could have been one sleeping soul with this kind of performance. The band immediately went into “Set It Off”.

After the conclusion of the aforementioned song, Webbe asked the crowd, “Is this the party place? Is this where people come to rock out?” Well obviously, the band’s fearless leader was not convinced by the crowd’s response considering he introed “Pressure” three times before he felt crowd participation was satisfactory enough for the band to continue. He said the assembly’s response was “Shit” as he made the hordes of folks bounce madly. At the conclusion of the song, Webbe spotted a kid in the front row that wasn’t pumping his fist, guess there’s always a defiant one. Webbe lashed out at the kid and said, “What’s wrong with you? You know, you have the face of an ass!” Lesson? Yes, never fuck with General Webbe; you at least better fake the funk!! At the conclusion of their fourth and final song, “Nobody” Webbe thanked the crowd for putting up with their “bullshit”! It was a highly entertaining and lively performance from Skindred once again. You can always count on Benji to make you laugh.

Setlist: Babylon, Set It Off, Pressure, Brain Killer, Nobody.

Click here for interview with Benji Webbe

Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo

Lineup: Nate Barcalow – Vocals; Randy Strohmeyer – Guitars; Alex Linares – Guitars; Derek Doherty – Bass; Alex Pappas – Drums

Finch, a band where their reputation for being bad asses precedes or supersedes their music. About a year + ago this California quintet got into a brawl with Disturbed. It turned out to be quite the ridiculous ordeal... Getting the juicy backlog out of the way, this would be the band on the bill that you would have a hard time comprehending how they got the gig to begin with. Come on they're emo for Christ’s sake! First time we heard the tour announcement we were completely perplexed, amongst a plethora of others.

As far as their sound goes, they are Fear Before The March of Flames vs. Thursday meets Hoobastank without the good hooks or riffs of the later aforementioned band. It was racket. Sorry to say the next two comments but here it goes: #1. “vocalist” Nate Barcalow has no appeal or charisma; #2. who in the hell signed this band? Pheww...what a relief that was!

One of the guitarist’s not sure which one, commented on the lack of enthusiasm from the bored crowd, “We play every night and you do what we have to do”. Then Barcalow got into the act later condescendingly thanking the uninspired crowd by saying, “Yeah thanks!” in which you could hear a minimal amount of claps at best. See it wasn't just us being “mean”. He then followed by, “We have a couple of songs left before His Internal Majesty comes on”, and well that didn’t even really work to get the crowd going. It was simply hopeless. The band should have been pleased that they at least got a couple of obligatory claps. However, they will go down in the history books for being ungracious during their misplaced performance before the Riviera Nightclub. Another lesson learned tonight is that earplugs do not block out noise as much as they advertise.

HIM Lineup: Ville Valo – Vocals; Mikko Lindström [Linde] – Guitars; Mikko Paananen [Migé Amour] – Bass; Mika Karppinen [Gas Lipstick] – Drums; Jani Purttinen [Emerson Burton] – Keyboards

Again, pandemonium reinstated itself minutes after Finch’s insipid performance ended. Volume of the impatient onlookers reached an all-time fevered pitch during the changeover. When the band hit the stage, the entire crowd swooned as soon as lead singer and founder of the Finnish cult phenom band H.I.M., Ville Hermanni Valo appeared. Valo immediately addressed the minion of faithfuls, "Brothers and sisters, we're HIM from Finland, and well we'd like to play a couple of songs. The first one is "Vampire Heart"!" All hell broke loose at this point.

As a little background on this band, Valo formed the band in the summer of '95 as he decided to bridge Dimmu Borgir and Depeche Mode with the soundtrack of a David Lynch movie creating his own unique version of "love metal". How clever! Ville, Migé and Linde are all that remains of the original lineup. Love metaler Valo, is the 21^st Century loving version of the 80's classic sneering rocker Billy Idol! Guess this is apt to happen being a tortured brooding sex symbol having the experience of working at a sex shop when he was younger his father's shop no less. Now we can return to the present. During the intro of "Right Here", Mr. Valo declared, "We came all the way from Finland and we're gonna break and let the audience sing for four parts. A little later on he turned to Migé and said that he didn't want Mr. Amour to "fuck up". Ville went a step further and pantomimed the " fucking" action by sticking his finger in his other closed hand.

During the intro of "Join Me In Death", he wished Migé a happy birthday. Awww! "We have time to take a break!" Ville declared while "Sweet 666" was being performed, Ville removed the cup of beer from his back pocket and had a quick swig, promptly placing the half filled cup on the stage. During "Play Dead", Valo bellows, "Now's as good as time as any to sit down and enjoy a PBR", the band's favorite beer of choice (Pabst Blue Ribbon). "This song is dedicated to those that awake in the morning and feel like they do not have a reason to live. That's what this song is about!" The crowd responded with wild clapping and cheers to match. Valo's entertaining interjections of humor between post and pre song start ups continued. At the conclusion of "Wicked Game", he said, "You know, there's a weird thing when clapping stops when the singer starts to do his egocentric bullshit!" of course the clapping was on hold for fear that his words would fall on deaf's ear. He then said, "Keep the clapping going by keeping those mother fucking hands together!" as the ever compliant crowd did as their fearless leader commanded.

 After the conclusion of "Crimson", Valo regaled story of the band, visiting a bar "just up the street from here" called Mickey's. He had gone on to say how much he "hates sports bars to be brutally honest" however he liked this one. He then started talking about baseball and was ever so nice to give the audience the score from the game, since we were so nice to be there as opposed to watching the game. He informed the crowd of the Chicago White Sox game, "So, you're still playing baseball well after the regular season's over huh? The White Sox won 5-3!" The crowd went ballistic! To celebrate this beautiful event, you can drink Evian and we will drink Perrier! But we, the Scandinavian cunts, are gonna play, "Sacraments". Immediately after the conclusion of the song, Valo shouted, "Sacrament is all of us the house!"

Trying to give the audience a choice, the Finns decided to allow the crowd a choice for their last encore song. "You have a choice between "Funeral Heart" and "Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly"! Cruelty to animals!" he then retorted, "by the way, I don't shop at the Body Shop mother fuckers!" "Tell you what, we'll sing as many songs as you know for you sweet people!" The result was "Rip Out Wings of A Butterfly".

In the end we were all depleted and needed to recharge our batteries after this entertaining and draining night with the reigning kings of love metal, H.I.M. However before we sign out, we'd love to thank the band's tour manager, Tim and to the band for being so wonderful to us!! Until next time! Kiittääs!

Setlist (given to us via the band's TM per printout): Vampire Heart, Right Here, Buried Alive By Love, Join Me In Death, Under The Rose, Poison Girl, Sweet 666, Killing Business, Razor Blade Kisses, Soul on Fire, Play Dead, Wicked Game, Behind The Crimson Door, The Sacrament, The Fortress of Tears, Rip Out The Wings of A Butterfly, da bears...da bears...da bears...da bears...da bears...da bears...da bears..., Coach Ditka Riviera / Chicago, IL / 10-22-05

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