By: Paul Krewin

I haven't seen Unshetek's or Sophiecat's reviews, so some of this might be redundant but here goes:

I got lucky, because I got to meet Peter before the show. I was going to the line outside the door, and there he was, hanging with some staff users at the front of the line. He looked in my direction, and I said "holy shit, it's Peter!", and then we shook hands. He said "Hey, what's up man" and then he said something about harrassing the staff. After I got in, a local (I think) band called Manhole opened up. They were a thrash band with a pissed off chick for a singer. It was kind of like Courtney Love mixed with Slayer. They actually were pretty good, but there weren't very many users present yet and no one really got into it. Then Life of Agony came up. After I heard part of one of LOA's cds, I thought they really sucked, but when I heard them live they kicked ass. It seemed like they made their songs a lot heavier, with a lot more energy. By this time the crowd was bigger, and there was a decent pit in front of center stage.

After a long intermission TON came on. They started just like they do on OOTF, and they went into Prelude to Agony. I loved their set, because they played a lot of their older and faster songs. OR is good, but most of the songs don't have enough energy to be very good live. I don't remember the order, but they played Love You to Death, Christian Woman, Summer Breeze, Set Me on Fire, Cinnamon Girl, MGG, Too-late: Frozen, Are You Afraid & Gravity, and of course Black #1. They also did covers of The Doors (Set the Night on Fire) and Aqualung. They really got my hopes up when Peter apologized for what he was going to do next, and then they started Xero Tolerance. They ended up just playing a bunch of riffs from that and from Kill All the White users. Peter did his usual bits about killing someone you hate when you kill yourself, etc... I couldn't hear very much of what he said though. The vocals and keyboards didn't come out too well, but the drums and guitars kept the pit going. One cool thing was when they got to that part in Too-late where he sings about frost giants and black suns, they sprayed snow on the audience, and like half of it just fell on Kenny. Before the show I met Unshetek and Sophiecat, and afterwards I met Rich Koffer but he was pretty busy playing put Type O Negatives' stuff on the truck.

The coolest part was after the show when Sophiecat, Unshetek, and I saw Peter. I asked him what he was saying in Black #1 after the first "Loving you was like loving the dead" chorus, and he said it's "Sacred Heart" in French. I also asked him if he was really Polish, and he said "Yeah, a little bit. You know, I think my feet are Polish." The coolest thing of all was when I asked him if I could use his bathroom and he said sure, so I got to take a piss on the Type O Negative tour bus. I think using the same toilet as Peter should qualify me as an altar boy. Who says you have to be a hot bisexual goth chick to get inside the bus? On my way out I saw Peter eating pizza with a chick presumably picked up after the show, and I thanked him for ragging on the Catholic church, since I also had to take that shit when I was young. I also saw Jonny and I got him to sign my ticket stub. He was a really nice guy. Overall, it was a great show, and it was really cool to get to meet some of the band.

-Paul

Return to the US Tour '96 page or read the previous review