By: Cory Farris

Type O Negative did a headlining show at 328 Performance Hall in between dates opening for Ozzy Osbourne. 328 is a club that holds around 1000 users, but actually around 500 were there. Life of Agony did the honor of opening up the show. They played for nearly an hour, which is long for an opening act. Their set list consisted mostly of songs from "Ugly" with a few from "River Runs Red" thrown in here and there. The mosh pit was pretty wild for them. I wisely stayed out of the line of fire. It was a good performance. After their set, I came back out on the floor after getting some water. I noticed that the guys in LoA, minus Sal, were out on the floor talking to a few users. I eased over there, but I didn't say anything to them.

Before Type O Negative came on, I tried to get as close to the stage as possible, eventually ending up in the middle about 10 feet back. When Type O came out to their usual intro music, I could see this big shadow of Peter Steele standing up there. Surprisingly, they opened with "Prelude to Agony". Of course, the mosh pit got going wildly for that one. I lasted for about 10 seconds before I had to bail out and join my 2 friends on the right side of the stage in front of Kenny Hickey. Meanwhile, as the night went on my sister made it to the front of the stage right in front of Peter.

As for the rest of the songs and Peter's onstage banter, he introduced "Summer Breeze/Summer Girl" as "a song that I liked growing up in the 1920's". "Are You Afraid/Gravity" was next, followed by a new song. I can't remember the name ("Bauchus" sonething? probably "In Praise of Bacchus"), but it had a trippy Bloody Kisses type effect. Peter was drinking some kind of red wine the whole night. My sister hollored out for him to give her a drink, which he remarked, "No, I'm not giving you a drink. I'm a Republican....nothing's free." That wine bottle came in handy for "Kill All The White users", introed by Peter's version of "Smoke on the Water". He used that bottle to hit the strings during the slow middle part of that song.

At this point, I made it to within 5 feet of the stage, right in front of Kenny. He was all over the place on his side of the stage. There was no barrier between the stage and the crowd, and he would walk over right in front of us every once in a while. We tried to get a high-five or something like that. Another new song, "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend", was very impressive. Then Peter started screwing around with some Bachman Turner Overdrive song, "another band from the 1920's" as he put it. This led into "Too Late: Frozen". The set closed out with "Christian Woman", and Cinnamon Girl", and before "Black No. 1", Peter was jabbering and someone hollered something out to him, and he said "Hey, I'm trying to give a speech here. I'm getting payed by the hour, you know. On the union scale." Absolutely hilarious.

The fun part of the show was after "Black No. 1". The band decided to roll 328 Performance Hall with toilet paper. Roadies joined in on the fun, too. I grabbed a roll that I believe was thrown by Kenny. I kept it, but I got nailed in the head with another one. It had to have been from a roadie, because they were just wizzing those rolls at the crowd. I threw that one back. This TP war between the band and the crowd lasted for about 2 minutes. Finally Peter, minus his bass, dodges flying rolls of TP as he went to the mike and said "One of you hit me in the balls with one of those. That was a pretty good shot." After that, the show was over.

This was my second time seeing both bands; I saw LoA with Ozzy earlier this year, and I saw Type O Negative last summer with Queensryche. Both bands were much better this time around. Not that I didn't like them before, but the crowd was pumped up all night, and it was just great performance by both bands, especially Type O Negative. I was impressed with Peter's bass tone, loud and obnoxious. His style is definitely unique, you just have to see him live to understand. I play bass myself, so it was a treat, indeed. Of course, all the between song comments were funny, too. I can't remerber all of them, but it was just classic stuff. I can't wait until "October Rust" comes out August 13. It should be a great one.

Stay Negative!!!

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