Wednesday 13 – F**k It, We’ll Do It Live

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impulse buy

DVE
Produced by Jon Nelson

The culmination of a busy year for the former Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13/Murderdolls front-man, this live CD/DVD package was recorded on the tour for his most recent album, Skeletons, earlier this year in Allentown, PA.

This year also saw the release of the Blood Work EP, which will see a commercial UK release next year when Wednesday tours again, for the last time until 2010, reportedly (to record new material with his country project Bourbon Crow). It might therefore be easy to claim that the quality of his releases has been decreased by the quantity, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.

Despite missing slightly higher-profile players from his touring band, such Acey Slade (who did appear in Europe) and Eric Griffin, Wednesday’s tight band (Nate Hate on bass, J-Sin Trioxin on guitar and drummer Jonny Chops) ably rattle through solo and Frankenstein Drag Queens songs alike here like they’ve been playing them all along.

The crystal clear audio is this package’s defining factor, making the CD version a flawless live document. The DVD suffers from two all-too-common problems, which are the tight confines of a small venue, and inconsistency in the quality of both the camera-work, and the cameras themselves. The cameras close to the stage were of a high quality, although the camera-work directly in front of Wednesday left a little to be desired, but the camera at the back of the venue, and one of the ones nearer the stage were noticeably worse, lacking definition most of the time.

Those issues aside most of the camera-work is handled well and the editing is consistent (not too fast), although some effect employed here and there (black and white shots, occasional intentional blurring) are unnecessary and momentarily irritating. With the perfect sound however, most of this is ignorable and after a few songs becomes largely unnoticeable. The band’s performance is tight and Wednesday himself is on fine form, so as a live release, with a career-spanning setlist weighted rightly in favour of his solo work, this is about as good as it’s going to get.

As mentioned, Wednesday will do a little more touring, then focus on new material with Bourbon Crow, which he hopes to be able to tour with, so things will go a bit quiet on the Wednesday 13 front for a while, but the life in these performances (not a term usually associated to much of his work, ‘life’) shows that his hunger for this side of his music is still very much there.

“ crystal clear audio ”

Tracklist: Intro / Gimmie Gimmie Bloodshed / I Want You… Dead / Home Sweet Homicide / Not Another Teenage Anthem / From Here To The Hearse / Till Death Do Us Party / Skeletons / God Is A Lie / House By The Cemetery / Put Your Death Mask On / Happily Ever Cadaver / Running Down A Dream / Look What The Bats Dragged In / Faith In The Devil / 197666 / Rambo / Bad Things / I Love To Say F**k

Written by Andy Lye
More: Live Albums, Live DVDs, Wednesday 13