LORDI, Brandon AshleyВ & the Silverbugs, Fatal Smile
6.05.2009 Sofia,В "Hristo Botev" hallВ 

words by Stefan Topuzov, photo: Diamond_Adi.

They are probably the only big thing that Europe has come up with in terms of SHOCK ROCK in a while. LORDI look like GWAR, but without the extra profanity volume, and provide a theatrics heavy show comparable to grandpa Alice Cooper's.

So, we're talking about SHOW here!

And that is what everyone is after on Friday night. The big number of small kids who show up at Hristo Botev Hall with their parents is impressive. Thumbs up, youngsters!

Unfortunately for the guardians (cause there's grandparents as well) the show is going to start late and there is rain. Well, at least pharmacies will make a kick of selling cold medicine later...

And so - a hour, hour and a half later the first band takes the stage - Brandon Ashley & the Silverbugs. The play some kind of rock that has also passed somewhere nearby industrial. Marilyn Manson also passed through there. Maybe they met.

An important part of their sow is one single revealingly dressed girl that dances around - in different outfits during different songs. She alone has to meet the expectations the promoters from Art.BG set themselves with the massive EROTIC show at Sodom and Grave Digger last month.

Well, even she can't help the audience remember the band in a way different than "the guys with the frontman whose small ass was showing".

Next are the Swedish hard rock sensation FATAL SMILE.

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Like some kind of cloned Napoleons they manage to do a lot of things simultaneously. That is - being Swedish, hard rock and a sensation at the same time. Awesome!

Under the surface of their music we can sense a lot of cursing the miserable fate of being born in Sweden instead of Los Angeles. Glam. A Swedish Sunset Boulevard in Sofia!

Yaaay! Otherwise they put out a solid show that however is brutally fouled buy the sound and any attempts of the band to reach us any way but visually fail.

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After Fatal Smile leave the stage the hall starts to fill up. Almost all the way!

Around 21:30 the lights go out and theВ  'Scarctic Circle Gathering IV' intro starts. Seconds later LORDI are on the stage and literally explode (literally because some hell of pyrotechnics) intoВ  'Girls Go Chopping'.

And from there on things continue in the same spirit - different costumes, pyrotechnics, and theatrics on the stage. Alice Cooper would shed a proud tear as he sees how well his heritage is being followed.

Bassist Ox tears the hand of some lumpy creature after the second song and later hammers a sound guy with his guitar. Vocalist Mr. Lordi doesn't fall behind and has fun peeling skin off of mummy guitarist Amen's face, and later eats prop insides from a patient lying on the stage. That is only a small part of the events in LORDI's theatre.

The sound quality also has suddenly increased for the headliners.

The above mentioned guitarist, Amen, plays a not so bad solo somewhere midway through the show and he also blends in it the main riff from 'Sweet Child O' Mine'.

We all expect Sonya Vasi to show up and reveal her tits. She however is probably doing the same elsewhere.

The notorious Mr. Lordi manages to say 'thank you' in perfectly fluent Bulgarian as well.

Of course there is time for an encore. It lasts around half an hour and ends with 'Hard Rock Hallelujah' that won them the famous Eurovision 2006 award.

Krasi 'the Human-Ass' Avramov, look at the setlist and learn!

GALLERY