A Haunted Concert at a Haunted Venue by a Haunting Band

Last night my favorite band, Type O Negative rolled on into town. It was one show of a very special 12 city Halloween tour that they occasionally venture on during October of certain years. There's one venue in particular they play every time they tour. It's called The Rave and it's housed in an old building called The Eagles Club.

The big, looming building was constructed in the 1920's as an athletic club that would also have grand functions like ballroom dances and diners. Once the athletic club closed, it became a shelter for men for a short spell. Once the big haired 80's hit the building started to host rock concerts in the ballroom. In fact a few of my first concerts were in this venue including Adam Ant with INXS opening as well as a double headlining show of Metallica & W.A.S.P. with Armored Saint opening the show. It has now opened a few more theaters within the venue. There's a smaller hall called The Rave Hall. This is where Type O always perform. Then there's the big Eagle's Ballroom on the 3rd floor. The lower floor houses a much smaller club hall as well as a vacant and locked up old swimming pool. So a lot can go on in one evening at this one establishment.

But, once the fans have left and the bands have loaded up their gear and there's a small smattering of employees left to do some last minute clean up, that is when very odd and downright spooky things can happen.

Witnesses have reported that there seems to be a group of children who haunt the halls of The Rave. Disembodied voices of children both playing and crying can be heard when the venue is near empty. The entities of the children all playing together have actually been seen by employees. There's also a ghostly little girl who wonders about the basement giving witnesses a cold feeling of dread before she manifests. Creeeeepy. Buahahahahaha!

That's not all! Many other odd occurrences take place when the venue is near empty. Sightings of Shadow People, feelings of cold spots, inexplicable negative feelings and the sounds of foot steps seem to flow through the building.

There's one particular ghost that seems to like to watch bands do their sound checks and rehearse. Band members have spotted a dark figure seem to peer at them from a balcony or side of a stage and then the entity disappears suddenly. There are those that believe that it may be the ghost of the late Buddy Holly who enjoys watching from the shadows. Apparently, Buddy Holly played his last concert at the venue before he died in a plane crash.

When I attended ZombieConX a few weeks back, I went to a panel discussion given by The Wisconsin Paranormal Investigators. One of the subjects that came up was famous Milwaukee haunts. The Rave was one of the first to be mentioned. One of the people in the crowd used to do work there and he said that he'd show up when hardly anybody was there to set up equipment. He then went on to say that there would be a major feeling that he was being watched even though he was the only one in the room.

I've been to this venue for concerts about 12 times in my entire life and sadly the only ghoulish spooks I've ever seen here are Type O Negative.

And that, my friends, just made a great segue to my review of Type O Negative's All Hallows Evil Tour '09 show at The Rave....

Once I entered the spooky old venue I bellied up to the bar where, beerwise, they were sadly only selling $7 domestic swill. It's a Rock Club. What should have I expected? I hopped up on a stool and begrudgingly ordered an MGD. I sat and enjoyed the Goth-Metal band that was playing in the bar lounge area since security weren't opening the Rave hall doors for the main concert yet. I wish I could remember the name of the band that was playing as they weren't too bad and had a pretty mysterious and sultry red head as their singer/keyboardist. Ok, ok. I'll admit it. I'm still a creepy old geeky dude.

Soon after the bar band were done the main doors opened and I got myself a Type O tour shirt (for the remainder of this review Type O Negative will be referred to as either "Type O" or "TON" 'cause I'm a lazy blogger).

Pickings for merchandise were quite slim since this was the second to last show of the tour. With T-shirt in hand I once again got my seat up in the balcony since I'm way too friggin' old to deal with the moshing or body passing that occurs on the floor level of the hall. The balcony area (costing an extra $5) also had it's own bar that in years past had a little more of a variety of beers. But this time around it was the same domestic swill that was at the lower bar. An MGD was once again begrudgingly purchased and sat at my seat awaiting the first act to hit the stage.

After I did some serious Goth kid watching the lights went down and Seventh Void came on. Seventh Void features two of the members of Type O, Kenny Hickey on guitar and lead vocals and Johnny Kelly on drums. This four piece sounds far more energetic live in concert than they do on their CD. Their other guitarist is incredibly lively on stage, bounding and dancing around as he strums away. Seventh Void's real strength is in a live show!

After a very quick set change the second openers for the night came on. Destrophy are a band out of Des Moines, IA that plays a powerful, yet melodic kind of Metal. I liked them a lot and they had one heck of an entertaining drummer who was swinging the sticks all over the place never missing, a beat. I may have to pick up their CD!

Once they finished their set a real cool geeky moment happened to me. I went up to the bar for another beer. I was wearing my old, black leather motorcycle jacket that I've had for over 20 years now. It's pretty worn but, I have a cool patch of the Galactic Empire's symbol form Star Wars on the arm of the jacket. I also have adorned the lapels of the jacket with pins of Boba Fett's Mandalorian symbol and Death's Head (I'm not Wikki-ing all of that. If you don't know Star Wars, you don't know $#!+). The guy who came up next to me as I was ordering the beer looked at the patch and buttons and told the bartender to get me a shot of JD on him. Apparently he was impressed that there was a fellow SW fan there wearing his fandom on his jacket. Way cool!!!

I have to give props to the road crew on this tour. Usually it takes a good 30 to 45 minutes to tear down one band and set up another, but these people were quick! After fifteen minutes the lights went down for the headliners, Type O!

Over the speaker system the into tape was playing the them song to The Munsters as the gruesome foursome took to the stage. The intro stopped, the lights came on and TON slam into one of my faves, "Dead Again"! And then they merged right into another one of my faves, "Hey Bacchus". It was a great start to a show that just kept moving with dark energy. Sometimes when they tour, their set list is heavy with a lot of their older, more plodding songs. But this time around they seemed to focus on their songs that have both a lot of energy and melody. Highlights included, "Halloween in Heaven", "Love you to Death" and of course the concert ending "Black #1". They really seemed to be in the spirit, healthy and pretty energetic on stage this tour. This was one of my top 3 shows of all the times I've seen them live!

Tall and Lurch-like Peter Steele (vocalist/main songwriter/bassist) didn't talk to the crowd too much this time, but when he did he seemed to be in very good spirits.

Kenny Hickey and Johnny Kelly didn't seem slowed down or tired from Seventh Void's earlier set. they were just as up for some headbanging as everybody else.

The stage set was nothing special. Just their banners and flags hanging from speakers and the back drop.

There was a very notable difference in this TON tour than in years past. Keyboardist, Josh Silver, is passing on this tour to continue his EMT schooling. He will return for future albums and tours. In the meantime TON got Scott Warren who's usual gig is with Dio and Heaven and Hell (aka: Ronnie James Dio lead Black Sabbath). Though Josh's flipping off the audience and waving around his big curly locks was missed by all, Warren seemed to more than capable in keeping up with all of the TON songs that evening.

The set list (as best as I can recall... after the shot of JD) was as follows.....

Intro - The Munsters theme.
1. Dead Again
2. Hey Bacchus
3. NIB (Black Sabbath cover)
4. Halloween in Heaven
5. Prophets of Doom
6. Love You to Death
7. Wolf Moon
8. Anesthesia
9. World Coming Down
Encore
10. Black #1.

Ten songs may seem like a short show, but you have to remember Type O songs can last anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes.

Would I have liked to hear a couple more of TON's Halloween themed songs in the show? Heck yeh! After all it was a Halloween tour. It would have been nice to here "Creepy Green Light" or "All Hallows Eve" thrown into the mix. But that's the only minor complaint I have.

This was one of TON's best shows here in Milwaukee yet. It was a tight set that flowed really well and was very energetic. Though I may have to wait another few years for a new CD and tour, it will be worth the wait!


Here's more Halloween happenings!

I did go to another Haunted Attraction last weekend!

Meadowbrook Haunted Cornfield Adventure - I hadn't been to this one in a few years so I was a bit curious on what has changed. I know the price did rise dramatically in the last few years so a lot of my fellow haunt enthusiasts stopped going. Upon traveling through the maze I did notice that a lot of the effects have changed for the better. It used to be mainly actors and paper mache dummies that lined the stalks. But this year they've added some real cool mannequins and some very nice animation effects. There isn't an area of corn maze that isn't themed or adorned with some sort of frightening sight! There are three or for shacks you have to go through in between your venturing through the stalks. One is clown themed that has a goofy maze to traverse. then there's the hillbilly hut where gruesome things lurk. There's also a shack that didn't really work out too well. They herd you into this room and lock you in and keep you there with nothing going on inside it. After about 3 to 4 minutes they open the door to let you out. What's the point of that? The Pirates of the Caribbean finale will have you blown away, sea monster and all! I do have to admit, they've pretty much improved from the last time I've attended. We'll have to see if they keep on improving from year to year. Hopefully they will not keep raising their admission fee and ostracize potential patrons. They've got a great thing going here and it would be a shame for them to out price themselves.


Before I head out, I'd like to post another edition of.....

Zangz's Website of the Moment:
MILWAUKEE AREA PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS

Since we were on the subject of a local haunt earlier in the blog, I thought I'd
post a link that has a few more places in my hometown that are spooked up.
A few of them are a 5 minute walk from my Vault of Geekdom headquarters.
So Take a peek and leave a light on tonight!

Well tomorrow is the big day and the Season of the Dead will sadly come to an end during the witching hour. I've got some errands to run and do today. So I'm calling it here, kido's

Zangz.