Tonight Chester is getting its goth on. It’s only two days to Halloween so it’s quite fitting that the self-described mad Frankenstein drag queens that make up Wednesday 13’s entourage are here. It’s equally fitting that England’s favourite glam-goth wannabees South Of Salem are snapping at their heels. 

It’s a slightly subdued South Of Salem that take to the stage tonight, but only in the sense that as support rather than headliner they have left the pyro and the zombie cheerleaders at home. In everything else they proceed to do what they do best, which is blasting out their own brand of happy horror-themed rock. However, there do seem to be a couple of issues. Not with the band, their good-time uptempo rock still belies the darkness of their lyrics so all is good there. No, the problem is that both lights and sound are not stacked in their favour today. The lights are dim, and the sound is predominantly drums. This mix does improve a little later on but the gloom persists. But they are a goth band I hear you cry, dark is their thing! Well yes, but when you can’t really see them from the back of what is quite a small room then it’s not the best. Despite this, they draw the usual rabid response from the crowd. In fact it soon becomes obvious that at least part of this capacity gathering is here for the support rather than the headliners, which is heartening to see.

For the music they draw from both of their albums, playing with a ferocious energy and verve that is quickly picked up and echoed back to them. Old favourites such as opener ‘Let Us Prey’ rub shoulders with newer songs like album title track ‘Death Of The Party’ and deliver a riot of woah-oh choruses and arm-waving bangers. The set ends with perennial favourite ‘Cold Day In Hell’ and they leave to the same rapturous applause that they arrived with. That half of the crowd followed them to the merch room stands testament to just how much this dark little bundle of a band have entwined themselves into the hearts of the UK rock community. 

So, follow that Wednesday 13! Firstly it’s important to note that despite a career going back 25 years or so and several other projects this current run of shows is a revision of the songs of Murderdolls, Wednesday 13’s band formed with the late Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison back in 2002. This makes it rather special, as without giving away too many spoilers the set is dedicated to the memory of both Joey and previous band member Ben Greaves who is also sadly no longer with us. This means that the music is interspersed with anecdotes about the band – how it started, some of the things that happened over the lifetime of them playing together. These are both poignant and occasionally side-splittingly funny and they add to the already significant charm exuded by Mr 13.

Without giving too much away, did you know that Murderdolls have been on Top Of The Pops? No? Every day is a school day right? Back to the show then, and the band is a blur of white face paint and black leather, the only colour being in Wednesday 13’s ringmaster garb. His vocals are fab, rough but tuneful, and compliment the songs perfectly. Despite being all the goth, the songs are surprisingly hummable and the likes of ‘197666’ has the entire crowd roiling like funeral smoke.

See that’s the other thing with Wednesday 13. Not only are the songs hummable, they are also horror rock but with tongue firmly in cheek. With titles like ‘Love at First Fright’, ‘Die My Bride’ and “People Hate Me” it soon becomes obvious that this is less slash horror and more “Carry On Screaming”. Wednesday 13 is a persona, an act, a theatre, and it (or he if you prefer) knows it and trades on it. The sound is raw and punky but at the same time slick and polished. This band play incredibly well but still find time to ham it up a bit with grimaces and growls to the crowd.

It’s obvious that a certain Mr Alice Cooper has been an influence on the showmanship here but the musical influences seem a little harder to pigeonhole – here they sound like The Ramones, there the New York Dolls, and underpinning it all is an insistent heavy beat that would be worthy of Joey’s alma mater band Slipknot. There’s a lot of motherfucking happening on that stage, in fact it seems to be Wednesday’s favourite word and appears on both a song title and, during the encore, an umbrella! Sadly said brolly wasn’t available on the merch though. In the meantime arms wave from side to side, and the crowd join in with enthusiastic abandon. They sing back the choruses, they clap in all the right places (and some of the wrong ones) and just generally lift the atmos into a happier zone. It seems that from being a niche band Murderdolls now have somethi9ng of a cult following here in the UK, and they couldn’t be happier about it.

In places Wednesday becomes almost like a caricature of himself, a comic book hero brought to life right in front of our eyes but without a big Hollywood movie budget. The encore chucks in a buzzed-up cover of Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’ and they manage to make it both camp and creepy at the same time. It’s loud, it’s proud and it’s great fun. Happy goths eh – who’d have thought it? 

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Wednesday 13 + South Of Salem