raised-by-music-blog

[raised-by-music-blog]

MISFITS

Ok, it’s time for the first post… So my favorite band of all time will be a good subject! I guess there will be a lot more Misfits posts down the line.

37 years ago on this day, you could catch The Misfits, Beastie Boys and Necros live at the Irving Plaza in New York. Glenn also silkscreen printed these amazing posters you can see in the photo above, to help promote the show.

That’s one of many things i love about the band and find really inspiring, their DIY ethics. Doing it all themselves, everything from silkscreen printing their own posters, t-shirts, envelopes, crafting buttons, building and modifying their own gear to make it fit their image, the list goes on and on.

Their image, that’s the thing i love the most about the band besides the music. It wasn’t their strongest live line-up but Glenn Danzig, Jerry Only, Doyle and Robo looked fucking INTENSE! Glenn ripping it up on vocals while having these two giant monsters playing guitar and bass by his side, pounding their gear to pieces. And having this huge wall of cabinets behind them, most of them painted with the iconic Crimson Ghost logo added so much to the look of the band. Perfect for a horror movie fanatic like myself!

The band broke up in 1983 under bad circumstances, with lawsuits and intrigues between members years later. Most people, including myself thought that chances of a reunion was out of the question. I believed finding a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict would be easier than getting these guys together again.

I was totally BLOWN away when Riot Fest announced that The Misfits with the original members Glenn Danzig, Jerry Only and Doyle along with Dave Lombardo and Acey Slade would play together again in Denver and Chicago, for the first time in 33 years. I booked myself a flight from Sweden to Denver and bought a ticket to the Riot Fest right away.

I had to go to Denver because 1. This is a historic show, first time in 33 years and no one knows what to expect (I knew YouTube and FaceBook would be flooded with videos and photos after the Denver show, so going to the second show in Chicago would have ruined a huge part of the experience for me) 2. I honestly believed chances were good that they would only be able to get through one show before killing each other.

I remember getting up front close to the stage early in the day to get a good spot for the Misfits show, which of course was the last show of the whole festival. It was really really hot and i only had one opened bottle of water for the whole day, no food and nowhere to take a piss. I usually love Me First & The Gimmie Gimmies, Bad Religion and all the other bands that performed before The Misfits, but on this day i couldn’t wait for them all to be DONE… for a good reason!

Finally.. Bad Religion were done, the sun was coming down and even though they had curtains covering the stage, you could see the wall of cabinets painted with the Crimson Ghost logo, just like the old days.. just way bigger this time! And you could see these two huge pumpkins on each side of the stage, modelled after the pumpkin on the cover of their iconic Halloween 7” single from 1981. It felt like an eternity waiting for the band to come out, with so many thoughts spinning around in my head, mostly that it all felt so unreal. Then all of a sudden they started playing these eerie noises from the speakers, you could hear Jerry and Doyle turning their gear on. Then this monster voice comes out of nowhere ”I WILL EAT YOU” and the curtains dropped, the band comes out blasting Death Comes Ripping… I’m not the kind of person that dramatizes or exaggerate these kind of stories so this is the truth, i was standing there at the front staring with my jaw dropped. After awhile i could finally get a grip of the situation and started to jump around, waving my arms in the air and singing along to each and every song in the set, they even played my favorite song of all time, Hybrid Moments!! It was definitely my best live experience to date, i don’t think anything is going to beat that experience.

Being a music history nerd and collector i tried to scavenge a setlist, a guitar pick or whatever after the show… I left empty handed but have managed to get some stuff afterwards, hell even the t-shirts and all the other stuff at the merch table sold out before i could get anything… The only thing left was stickers…

I know Glenn hates it when people take photos with their cellphones and i totally agree. I took four fast photos before putting my phone back, and this one turned out OK… the memories!

Even though i went by myself, it was such a good trip.

I even ran into and got to talk to Milo Aukerman (another hero of mine) from The Descendents in Denver at Wax Trax Records, nice guy!