Admittedly I was upstairs when Godhead played, and was visiting with friends, so I missed their performance. It sounded as though they put on a kick ass show however... Sorry about that Godhead. Photo’s of Godhead at this venue are in the photos section.

Godhead
Photo © Kim Alexander

Diet of Worms
Divine - drums
Punchy - guitar
Damond - vocals

"Diet of Worms" gave a rather tight set of music at this show. The overall sound was pretty good, as is the usual fare for acoustics at St. Andrews Hall, an old church in downtown Detroit, now used for concerts upstairs and "The Shelter" with music in the basement. "Diet of Worms" played for about 35 minutes as did all four bands this night, with half hour breaks in between each. Their set consisted of various tracks from the new release, "To Thine Unself"; Big Mistake, Deceive, Impossible, Strip Down, Society Prepares The Crime, and Scabs. They also played Nine off Aquarius.

Diet of Worms
Photo © Kim Alexander

Mortiis

One of the main reasons I went to this concert, was to see, hear and meet Mortiis. Never having heard Mortiis on any medium before, and reading all the chatter about him on a few of the mail lists I am subscribed to, I decided to make the 2.5 hr drive one way to this show to get some first hand experience with Mortiis live. Mortiis for this tour consisted of three percussionists, all males, and two females in the crew, one being a singer, the other being a stage performer (victim) of Mortiis’s hand at death.

Mortiis
Photo © Kim Alexander

The set was about half an hour of doom and gloom/neo-classical type of sounds for dark dungeons, which is also what the stage props brought to mind -- a large wooden X that Mortiis tied the pretty victim to by her four stretched limbs, skulls held in place by various objects, and the costumes of the band members. The victim was blood soaked initially, sitting on stage near Mortiis, and wearing a rather skimpy short dress, long dark hair and a face of fear. As the music progressed, Mortiis seemed to be involved with some type of sinister ritual.

Mortiis himself was dressed for the occasion with his usual impish mask, a huge obvious nose and large pointed ears that poked out the side of his long black hair leaving an image of a mutant that might live beneath a bridge somewhere in a forest of Europe. The face of Mortiis was downright evil, complimenting his black outfit of metal rings connected, black vinyl and a skull genital cover [see photos in photos section].

The stage was dimly lit, there were three percussionists and buxom female singer who looked like someone the vikings brought back to their Scandinavian world from their rampages in Europe. She has a wonderful classical-pagan voice. The troupe progressed with their music of ambient doom, long drawn out waves of treated electronic drumming consisting of two electronic triggered drum pad set ups and a kettle drummer accented with a dat of melodic drones.

After about 15 minutes into the music, the sacrifice of the pretty maiden began with Mortiis himself pouring a bucket of blood over himself, then turning his attention to his victim by tying her to the large wooden X in the middle-back of the stage. After another song, he proceeded to gut her out with a pair of large scissors seemingly to disembowel her as blood oozed profusely from her abdomen. A few minutes later, making sure she was dead, he untied her from the X and threw her over his shoulder and walked off stage through the crowd to the front entrance of the church and upstairs out of sight. Upon his return the band played another five or so minutes of music supporting the new release Stargate, then ended their performance.

Christian Death



Band members for this tour:
Divine – Drums
Maitri – Bass
Valor – Vocals
James Beam – Guitar
Yaal – A small boy of seven years old
performing live vocals on "Nine is a Six"

The show started out with members dressed for a wedding, faces unseen, covered with white veils and long spooky gowns. They switched clothes about midway into the rather lengthy show to a more traditional black. Divine was on drums, Valor singing, guitar by James Beam and a female bass player by the name of Maitri. Songs they played stemmed off earlier releases and the new CD, "Pornographic Messiah" which included the tracks: "Die With You", "She Never Woke Up", "The Obscene Kiss", "The Lie Behind the Truth", "Heavenly Spell", "Washing Machine", "Tales of Innocence", "Out of Control", Glass House", and the very young lad Yaal singing onstage in the "Nine is a Six." "Heresy" off Sex, Drugs & Jesus Christ was also performed with two encores of "The Dissention of Faith" and "Sick of Love." The show seemed to last for a long time, I’d say at least an hour of Christian Death melodic mayhem.

Christian Death
Photo © Kim Alexander

See more Photos of this and other tours on Last Sigh.
Read the review of Stargate
Visit Mortiis on the web