Industrial rock pioneers Skinny Puppy packed the house at San Francisco’s Warfield on the tail end of their “Eye vs. Spy Tour.” Chalk it up to Friday traffic nightmares, but the general admission floor didn’t reach critical mass until about the time that direct support Front Line Assembly took the stage, leaving a huge swath of the crowd ignorant of the brief but fearsome performances that they had missed by both Youth Code and Haujobb.
Ultimately all that really didn’t matter because when Skinny Puppy took the stage around 10:15, what came before was a thing of a seemingly distant past. The production and lighting alone were mesmerizing … throw in multiple costumes changes and grim, often grotesque, theatrics involving blood, toxic liquids and mutilation … and you have yourself a show that no one is going to walk away from much less forget. Even those in the back could not disconnect as Nivek Ogre and the crew made sure that the most disturbing moments of the performance were captured on the screens at the back of the stage for all to see and wonder, “what the heck did I just witness?!?”
With cEvin Key holding things down behind his console at the back corner of the stage, Ogre was demanding of attention … snarling and prowling … hands clenched in a claw and a perma-sneer on his face. The crowd remained rapt, bobbing along to the the droning thump of the music, expectant at what would unfold next. Ninety minutes of sensory overload left people looking spent as the walked out the doors of the Warfield. But if you asked anyone, I’m sure they’d do it all over the next day. Unfortunately with one show left on the tour (Fox Theater, Pomona), that would be their last chance for a while.
Setlist:
- Fritter (Stella’s Home)
- Convulsion
- illisiT
- VX Gas Attack
- The Choke
- wornin’
- Deep Down Trauma Hounds
- Testure
- Village
- Hexonxonx
- First Aid
- Pasturn
- Worlock
- paragUn
- Solvent
–Encore–
- God’s Gift (Maggot)
- Smothered Hope
- Glass Houses
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Supporting acts: Youth Code, Haujobb, Front Line Assembly
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