Upon arrival at the venue, where there should have been a support band, there was instead an empty stage. For some unknown reason, special guests THE GLITTERATI pulled out of tonight’s show at the last minute. This was a huge shame for them as Dudley JB’s was packed to the rafters and it would have been a great opportunity to showcase their talents.

With no support act, it seemed like an age before W.A.S.P. took to the stage, but the forthcoming show was well worth the wait. Blackie Lawless and his troops were on fine form tonight and of the several W.A.S.P. shows I’ve been lucky enough to see, this was the best. Why? Well first of all, W.A.S.P. played a decent length set spanning 90 minutes in all. Also, the set contained a great mix of songs from W.A.S.P.’s history, with hardly a classic missing (apart from ‘Animal’ of course which is now strangely discarded by Lawless).

The band were in fine shape, and Blackie in particular sounded as good as he has in a long time, as he reveled playing in front of a full house. The backdrop for the evening was projected videos of the original promo videos for the songs, played simultaneously with the live song that was being performed. Opening with the high tempo ‘On Your Knees’, the band were quickly into their stride, and they didn’t look back.

New album ‘Babylon’ is an enjoyable feast of W.A.S.P., and choice cuts ‘Babylon’s Burning’ and ‘Crazy’ sounded as good as any other song in the set. Other modern day W.A.S.P. songs like ‘Heaven’s Hung in Black’ and ‘Take Me Up’ were also lapped up by the Dudley crowd. Predictably though, the old faithfuls like ‘L.O.V.E. Machine’, ‘Wild Child’ and ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’ got the biggest cheers of the night.

Closing the set with the party anthem ‘Blind in Texas’, W.A.S.P. took a bow, and left the stage to a wall of applause. It’s great to see W.A.S.P. back and firing on all cylinders again. You never know, one day, we might even see that exploding cod piece again! We can only hope.

W.A.S.P. Setlist: On Your Knees / The Real Me / L.O.V.E. Machine / Crazy / Babylon’s Burning / Wild Child / Hellion / I Don’t Need No Doctor / Scream Until U Like It / Arena of Pleasure / Chainsaw Charlie / The Idol / Take Me Up / I Wanna Be Somebody / Heaven’s Hung in Black / Blind in Texas

Review by James Allman