Jen Martensen Writing

Preaching To The Perverted
Pigface
Gravity Kills
Godhead
Live at The Vic Theatre, Chicago
December 22, 2001

Dig if you will, a picture: 27 people, 2 buses, 39 shows in 39 days, an average of 7 people on stage at any time, initially 2 - then 6 drum kits being simultaneously pummelled, members of close to 20 bands compiled into one surging, throbbing, screaming, roiling industrial machine. Oh, and we can't forget the two guys in the cow costume led on stage now and then for comic relief, the rubber dinghy brought along for better crowd surfing or the fuck me blow-up doll a couple of crafty concertgoers added to the mix...this is Pigface.
Hell yeah.

In a scene of controlled chaos backed by an enormous curtain covered with multiple images of the Virgin Mary and with the letters "S," "H," "I," and "T" spelled out in heartwarming white Christmas lights, the crew members all in long sleeve black shirts labelled "Pervert," the final show of the Pigface Preaching To The Perverted tour looked like midnight Christmas mass on acid.

First came Godhead, a refreshingly musical new band in the industrial Realm and new BonanzaRadio darlings. The debut signing to Marilyn Manson's new Posthuman Records label. Singer Jason Miller is actually that - a singer - and he delivered great stage presence and solid vocals far above the usual scream-in-your-face style of most hard rock acts. His cohorts were a tight, melodic foundation for his voice. Their hard-driving cover of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" (now in rotation) stayed remarkably harmonic and soulful despite its grinding re-arrangement.

Gravity Kills is back, having just put finishing touches on a new album with Pigface Pooh-bah Martin Atkins in the Producer's chair, due in early 2002 on Sanctuary Records. The crowd got to hear a hefty sampling of that material - literally - in the plentiful backing tracks that supported their live set. The four GK members gave a decidedly animated performance, but the overly dramatic playing around with their keyboard stand/jungle gym became fairly tedious. All the posturing and gesturing seemed to try to distract the audience from how much of the music wasn't actually being generated live. Vocalist Jeff Scheel was a wiry combination of Alice In Chains' Layne Staley and Backstreet Boys' Brian Littrell, whose voice was the one element of the set with a real pulse to it.

At last came Pigface, climactically serenaded onto stage by a solo Chris Connelly and his acoustic guitar. The rest of the crew was behind white fabric screens, backlit by hand-held swirling multi-colored lights and gradually decorated, as if by magic, by spray paint and markers from behind. The screens came down to allow the festering dragon of Pigface to rear it's gloriously ugly head. Pummeling drummer Martin Atkins was the Industrial King on his stool of a throne, in the center of the mayhem. Rotating members coursed through various Damage Manual, Pigface, and Meg Lee Chin songs, summed up at the end with the anthemic "Suck" and "Supernaut," both having added four additional drummers and kits to Martin and Dickless (Leanne) from Beernuts' original two.

The scene below the safety of our balcony perch was that of a swirling, throbbing mass of black leather-clad followers. All of them there to worship at the altar of all that is still good and pure in the world of rock. For there they all were, The Chicago Industrial League at their finest.

If industrial is the deviant form of hard rock, then the inmates are gleefully running the asylum in Pigface. Proud to be perverted, this miasma of glorious noise was a heavy duty reminder of how it's supposed to be done. It was like a class reunion, for people wholly without class.

Pigface is:
Martin Atkins - drums (PiL, Killing Joke, The Damage Manual)
Dickless (Leanne)- drums (Beer Nuts)
Charles Levi - bass (Thrill Kill Kult)
Chris Connelly - vocals (Ministry, The Damage Manual)
Meg Lee Chin - vocals (Pigface)
Curse Mackey - samples (Grim Faeries, Evil Mothers)
Jared Louche - vocals (Chemlab, H3llb3nt)
Chris Haskett - guitar (Rollins Band, David Bowie, Foetus)
Krztoff - guitar (Bile)
Seibold - vocals (Hate Dept.)

http://www.invisiblerecords.com/tourmain.html