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Live Reviews : Wednesday 13 (Undead Unplugged) @ Corner Hotel, Melbourne 25/03/2017

By on March 26, 2017

Images: Sebastian Marino
Words: Matthew Barton

Black shirts? Check. Black lipstick? Check. Black hair? Check. Black everything? Check. Wednesday 13 must be in town!

Having caught his last couple of tours, I knew he puts on a great show. Tonight, however, is a little different—he’s going “undead and unplugged” (that’s acoustic for us mere mortals).

Due to a family matter, we don’t get the “southern fried set” by one of Wednesday 13’s many side-projects, instead, Melbourne rockers Cicadastone open things up. Last year, the four-piece put out their debut album, Chance Collide, and they play through tracks from that, obviously changing them up a bit to suit the acoustic theme of the night. Having never listened to the band I quite enjoy their set and am curious to check them out fully electric.

When Wednesday finally walks out he is joined only by long time guitarist Roman Surman. Between the two of them, the near packed Corner Hotel gets a real treat. Not only do the duo play stripped back versions of hits like Bad Things and I Love To Say Fuck, we get songs that Wednesday doesn’t normally include in his set like Murderdolls’ Welcome To The Strange (from the Freddy vs Jason soundtrack), My Demise and even the joke song, O.J. Did It. To top that off, Wednesday welcomes questions from the crowd (one of which, of course, is about the fate of Murderdolls. He does admit there is a good chance of a new album in a couple of years) as well as tells many a funny story in their almost two hour set (the best of which is definitely how terrifying it was opening for Iron Maiden for six weeks with Murderdolls).

This is an extremely intimate and unique show. Something I’ve never seen the likes of before but it works really well. Wednesday even offers to do it again and I for one would love to see that. He turned forty last year but is still absolutely on top of his game. His new album Condolences will be released on June 2nd (via Nuclear Blast Records) so no doubt he’ll be back in the country soon (he has, after all, toured Australia five times in the past seven years). If you haven’t seen this great man live, do yourself a favour, don’t miss his next tour. Especially if it’s another acoustic show.

About

Matt Barton loves all things rock and metal. Everyone from Slipknot to The Living End. He enjoys going to gigs and discovering new music. Matt also writes for Heavy Mag and is currently attempting to write his debut novel.