October 15, 2008: Roseland Ballroom, NYC: The Blackest of the Black Tour: Skeletonwitch, Winds Of Plague, Moonspell, Dimmu Borgir, Danzig

		THE BLACKEST OF THE BLACK TOUR ROSELAND BALLROOM NEW YORK CITY October 15, 2008 review & photos by Christine Natanael
		LINKS: blackestoftheblack.com danzig-verotik.com dimmu-borgir-.com moonspell.com myspace.com/windsofplague skeletonwitch.com
A beautifully balmy night in Manhattan, (at least by October’s standards), and the wonderfully high-ceilinged Roseland Ballroom, a venue originally built, yes, you guess it, for ballroom dancing, were the backdrop for Glenn Danzig’s own rolling carnival of heathens, hellions, sorcerers, Satanists, pagans and poets. This year’s The Blacketst of the Black Tour brought together on one bill bands from two continents and varying ends of the darkest of metal genres.
The difficult duty of opening the “night” at a seriously ridiculously early hour (partially because of union rules and partially because of our nation’s ludicrous trend of drugging everyone into a false daytime sense of “normalcy”) fell to Skeletonwitch. The searing hot quintet from Athens, Ohio came out and immediately let the sparse, early crowd know that they were there to do some serious pummeling. Very tasty, thrashy, NWOBHM-influenced riffs by guitarists Scott Hendrick and Nate Garnett juxtaposed madly, yet oh-so-sweetly next to the guttural growls and high shrieks of vocalist Chance Garnett. The boys spliced it hard on to the rhythmic backbone of Derrick Nau’s drums and Eric Harris’s bass with serious hair slinging and headbanging to bring a bit of their Beyond The Permafrost disc to life in the mere 20 minutes allotted them. They were "bringin’ it". And judging from the pre-show buzz from the fans AND the usually super-jaded industry types, this is a band that’s moving fast.			Skeletonwitch

Winds of Plague	On the heels of Skeletonwitch’s sparse stage presentation came the large Asian-themed banner set up of Upland, California’s Winds of Plague. Everything about this band was different from the one who went before, which sent those with a narrow musical agenda for the evening grumbling in the direction of the nearest bar. Those with a more adventurous ear were treated to a high-energy set of the band's particular brand of deathcore vocals and thick bottom end mixed with some of symphonic metal’s fretwork and keyboard essentials. Johnathan Cooke and crew delivered a good little slice of their newest disc, Decimate The Weak, to the crowd, including the single, “The Impaler”, (the video for which was banned from MTV due to language and content) in their quick set.

Next, the Asian banners came down and the finely wrought childless black metal madonna that is the cover of Night Eternal (executed by artist Seth Siro Anton) went up, heralding to the hundreds of Portuguese in attendance that the “metaleiros” from their homeland had arrived. Moonspell appeared out of the blackness of the stage amidst a thick shroud of fog and their trademark hellstorm of flashing strobes. Pedro Paixao was doing dueling double duty on keys and guitar on one side while Ricardo Amorim and Aires Pereira were weaving in, around, and on top with guitar and bass, respectively, on the opposite side of the stage. Mike Gaspar held down the solid double beat in the back, while vocalist Fernando Ribeiro, well-versed in the theatrics of stage presence, used every word and phrase to great effect during the 25 minute set, which included newer material such as “First Light” and “Moon In Mercury” as well as the classic “Full Moon Madness”. (Quite apropos as it was a full moon that evening.) Delivered with searing fire, brilliance, and distinction, it was evident both band and crowd wanted more from this set. (A return for a headlining tour, perhaps?) Still, there were two more bands, and judging by the way the crowd had swelled during Moonspell’s set, the night was just getting going.			Moonspell (slow-motion strobelight headbanging)

Dimmu Borgir	Dimmu Borgir has always been a huge crowd-pleaser in the New York area, so it was absolutely no surprise to hear the huge roar of the crowd from behind my spot in the photo pit as they opened their set with “The Serpentine Offering”. They continued to put on the pressure and did not take their big Norweigan symphonic black metal boots off the back of anyone’s neck for the duration of their set, which was definitely near an hour, if not more, in length. Joining the corpse-painted Shagrath and Silenoz this time out on the road were Susperia’s Cyrus on guitar, (due to a recent addition to Galder’s family), and Vader’s Daray on drums as temporary members. But the crowd did not mind the replacements as they choked down the bellowing clouds of stage fog and reveled in cuts from Dimmu’s last release, In Sorte Diaboli, as well as favorites from Death Cult Armageddon and earlier discs, all the while singing and shouting along at the top of their lungs.
After the fog cleared, the set changed over to a sight by now familiar to all fans of the band, Danzig ram’s skull logo, backlit red against the mainly dark stage, and hanging high, as if ominously welcoming those present at a religious celebration. And for some, seeing the man and the band did border on some sort of religious experience, as they thronged closer to the barricade, closer to the sound of their idol—he of the legendary horror-punk group The Misfits, he of Samhain—whom they now saw before them celebrating 20 years since the release of his debut album bearing both his own and the band’s name. Joining Glenn onstage for his musical retrospective were long time touring co-hort, guitarist Tommy Victor (of Prong, Ministry, Killing Joke, etc.), as well as drummer Johnny Kelly (of Type O Negative), and the most recent addition to his touring line-up, one-time Samhain member, bassist Steve Zing. And being as this was basically a retrospective tour, yes, there were all the tried and true crowd-pleasing favorites—from the hard-rockin’ “Mother”, “Am I Demon”, and “Twist Of Cain” to the bluesy bump and grind of “She Rides” and “I’m the One” right through gems like “Her Black Wings”, “How the Gods Kill”, and of course, “Dirty Black Summer”. Victor gave just enough distortion, grit and dirt to get the hips grindin’ in the aisles (and elsewhere), and Danzig, with attitude and finesse, worked his crowd, leaving his loving fans spent. And to those in the crowd solely out for the sport of verbal Glenn-bashing like it was some new Olympic event? It's all good. Remember, he’s got your money, too.