I don’t know if I went to a concert last night or the filming of a B horror movie. Regardless of what it was, I had an absolutely amazing night.

Impaler is legendary. They are a horror rock band from right here in the Twin Cities that have been around since before I was even born. They are known for their extreme live shows that end up with a member of the band being disemboweled on stage. Yes, you heard that right but more on that a little later on.

Impaler’s music is more classic rock feeling than I typically like. The influence of bands such as Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Motorhead come through loud and clear. It’s fast and hard but at the same time very classic feeling. There’s nothing too extreme about it but with the look and the theatrics, it ends up seeming a lot more extreme than the music actually is.

The outfits that the members wear make it look like the guys went to Goodwill and just picked out the craziest things they could find including a red sequin jacket and a studded top hat that ended up blowing smoke out of the top of it. The stage decorations look like they came straight out of the worst (or best, depending how you look at it) B movie you have ever seen. At one point, there was a beer bong that had a severed head attached to the hose so it looked as if the beer was going through this head before ending up in the guitarist’s mouth.

Impaler was working on filming a documentary at the show last night. Like I said, these guys are legends in the scene and have been around for over 30 years so it’s about damn time someone makes a documentary about them. Because of that, the crowd was full of die hard Impaler fans and the average age of the crowd was closer to that of my parents than mine but it made it super fun to watch. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched these older people reliving their youth and having the time of their lives in the small pit that had broken out.

The stage was lined with plastic and chains were hanging from the ceiling. The set was full of bloodied body parts including a head on a stick. The singer and a few other members of the band took this head and bit at it’s neck as “blood” started streaming down the stick. The people standing in the front of the audience got “blood” smeared across their faces as the band members chewed off more of this head’s neck making more blood stream down their bodies.

Like I said earlier, the set ended with the disembowelment of one of their members (it happened to be the second vocalist). The guitarist had made his way through the crowd and found his spot on top of the bar on the other side of the small venue while the other members of the band took the stage over. Everything happened exactly how it happens in B horror movies. It was dramatic, completely fake, completely over the top but completely perfect. Blood gushed out of the second vocalist’s midsection as the lead singer ripped out his intestines. It was then that all the plastic over the speakers and monitors made sense.

The show had two openers one of which was Dumpster Juice. These guys just might have taken the spot of my favorite local band for the week. These guys were almost as amusing to watch as Impaler. Their singer is an older gentleman with a gigantic beer gut. He embraced the crap out of that beer gut and ended up using it as a drum while he held the microphone next to it. It sounds funny and stupid but it actually made a pretty cool sound and worked well with the music.

Plagued Insanity opened up the show. This was by far the youngest band of the night. They played to the people trickling into the venue and, even with the sound issues, they were able to keep it together and play a great, quick set. They were a great start to a night full of great music.

Last night wasn’t the type of show I usually go to but it was nice to be surrounded by a whole new crowd of people and see something I don’t see every night. Make sure you check out the documentary when it comes out! I’ll be the one in the back standing there with a cheesy smile on my face.

You know it was a good night when you don’t get home until 2AM but you get home with a smile on your face that has lasted throughout the whole night.

Line Up:

Plagued Insanity

Dumpster Juice

Impaler

 

Venue: Lee’s Liquor Lounge

Sausage Fest Meter- 84 out of 10

Average Age of the Crowd- 45

Crowd Surfers- None

Stage Divers-None

Moshability- Moderate

Broken Bones- None

Drunkards Taken Out By Security- None Notcied

Celebrity Sightings- DJ & Eric of Buried Above Ground, Drummer of Reaping Asmodeia

Overall Score- 7 out of 10

Show on Deck- Summer Slaughter