KMFDM

at Venus
by Scott Hefflon
photo by Chris Johnson

Like standing in front of a freightrain hellbent on slamming you into tiny shreds, you hear KMFDM coming a mile away. You stand transfixed, like a curious doe, as the sound swells and details of Death’s engine can be distinguished. The warning lights wash the area and the thudding pulse thickens to an industrial/tribal cacophony. Guitars scream like gears grinding, metal scraping metal, piecing through the din like an air raid siren. When the full weight of ANGST smashes into you, it doesn’t blast you to itsy bits after all. It carries you on it’s front grill at dizzying speeds ’til it damn well feels like stopping to let you peel yourself off.

“His facial expressions alone are worth the price!” shouted my friend before leaping head-first into the pit. I would have asked, “The price of what?” but I saw him only once more that night, rigid as a cardboard Jesus cut-out, being passed hand by hand over the heads of the crowd. The singer did, in fact, have some of the most interesting facial contortions I’ve seen on a human. His shiny, bald dome, skirt and fishnets made him an odd character to be spurting such mega-monstrous roars.

Occasionally he wielded a guitar (as if the sound wasn’t massive enough!) and the keyboardist assumed the distorted rampage of KMFDM SUCKS! The guitars ground out the heavy metal with the dexterity and accuracy of cyberslayer war machines. With all the damn lights, there was little to no room left on the stage for movement, but the lights played tricks and strobed anything and everything. From the back of the room, the crowd surfers blocked the view of most of the stage anyway, and from the floor… who had time to look up?