I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: August 27, 2019] Mac Sabbath

When I saw that Okilly Dokilly was opening for Mac Sabbath I had to check out who this band was.  They’ve been around for a few years and this was their “American Cheese Tour” (that’s a good one).

And so basically, they are a Black Sabbath cover band, but all of their lyrics are about McDonald’s and the fast food industry in general.  So that’s pretty funny.  But that’s not all.  They have taken this concept to an absurd length.   Each band member is costumed or wears makeup.  And the costumes are phenomenal–not cheap little handmade things, but remarkably detailed and well constructed heads and bodies.  The attention to detail is really impressive.

The band members are also completely anonymous, which is also pretty funny.   And that is why they have such great band names:

The lead singer is Ronald Osbourne.
The guitarist is Slayer MacCheeze
The bassist is Grimalice (the least impressive name, it’s Grimace with an Alice in Wonderland hat on, but his other name is brilliant: “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butler.”)
On drums is Catburglar or Criss Cut Fries (he is dressed like the Hamburglar with Peter Criss Makeup).

I didn’t really think too much about the music before the show, I just wanted to see the stage show.

And it did not disappoint.

The backdrop was a nightmarish version of McDonaldland, with hamburgers as skulls and a bridge with broken arches.  But it was the band members themselves that were so impressive.

I mean, take a look at Slayer MacCheeze.  That costume is insane and incredibly well made.  I can’t even believe the guy can wear it on his head for an hour and play as well as he does.  He also walked all around the stage without crashing into anything–impressive.

The Grimalice costume is also insane.  At first I didn’t see that the bassist’s fingers were coming out through the hands–I couldn’t imagine how he played at first.  He didn’t move much (understandably) so I didn’t really get to see him up close.

The detail on Catburglar’s costume is also pretty incredible.  I mean the Hamburglar get up is pretty spot on and the Peter Criss makeup is great, too (he has some Criss mannerisms down too).  His drumkit (which isn’t really conveyed in the picture) is designed so that every drum looks like a hamburger–with one Filet O’Fish.

Then there was Ronald Osbourne.  He’s got the whole insane Ronald McDonald outfit, but the makeup is absolutely demented.  He came out at first like he was in a straitjacket and looked completely believable as an insane person.

But it’s his mannerisms that shows how long he has studied live videos of Ozzy.  He has Ozzy’s down pat–the hunched clapping, the arms raised with fringe hanging down, the loony laugh and, somewhat regrettably, Ozzy’s speaking style. He doesn’t slur like present day Ozzy, but he uses an outrageous British accent and loves to say “craaaazy” just like Ozzy.  The problem with the accent is that he applies to his singing as well, which makes the already weird words even harder to understand.  Indeed, although Ronald is a fantastic frontman, his singing is definitely the weakest part of the band.

Because as much as I knew this was a goof, the band was tight as anything and Slayer MacCheese does Tony Iommi better than Tony Iommi.  He has all of the sounds perfect from the record and his soloing sounded spot on.  I actually couldn’t hear the bass all that much, so I don’t know if the bass was as impressive.  However, the drums were also really good with little bits of showing off (drum stick twirling and throwing into the audience).

They started out the show with a riff I didn’t recognize (which another show noted as “Sold”) and as then as Ronald came out, they switched to “Organic Funeral.”  First off, “Electric Funeral” is a pretty deep cut and it’s a song I’ve always loved.  So the fact that they got the sound right and the guitar was perfect made it just wonderful.  I really didn’t pay all that much attention to Ronald’s lyrics, I just enjoyed watching him stomp around the stage.  He had ketchup and mustard bottles filled with water which he drank out and then squeezed all over us.

As the show progressed the atmosphere of circus or at least magic show just grew and grew.  The second song was “Sweet Beef.”  “Sweet Leafs” starts with an echoing sound of someone coughing, “Sweet Beef” started with an echoing sound of Ronald throwing up into a bucket.  During the song he proceeded to pour “Pabst Blue Ribbon” (actually water) into the bucket.  He then ran around the stage like the Harlem Globetrotters looking to throw the bucket on someone.  He chose a woman near me and so I got covered in wet confetti.

(That’s three out of four shows where I have been covered in confetti: Beck, Tame Impala and now Mac Sabbath).

After “Sweet Beef” Ronald started talking in his outrageous accent and this is where I felt the show kind of fell flat.  Nearly all of his bantering was about other food-pun-named bands.  It was sort of funny at first but man it got tedious.  I was sure I could remember all of them but I am having a really hard time retaining the bad jokes.

Sometimes when he said a band name the rest of the band would jam out a riff.  So when he said Van Halen (I cannot for the life of me even think of what food-based pun this could have been), Slayer MacCheeze played a perfect-sounding “You Really Got Me.”  They didn’t play more than the riff before Ronald stopped it.

Then he called out a special guest.  A guy came out in a Lizard costume and they played “The Lizard” (the tenuous connection to fast food appears to be that the Lizard was radiated in a McDonalds, maybe).  Anyhow, the Lizard played the harmonica intro of “The Wizard.”  Now, I’m trying to figure out just how they did this.  I can’t see any way that the guy in the mask was able to blow into the harmonica, so I assume it was a taped segment.  But his hand motions were pretty spot on. So well, done.

He mentioned a few dozen more bands.  He started with heavy metal bands and moved onto other genres (Taco Belle & Sebastian, Fleetwood Macaroni and another good one, N.W.A & W).  Then he mentioned Motörhead & Shoulders and they played an unexpected Motörhead parody.  It took me until the chorus before I realized that it was “Killed By Death” a single that was on the first Motörhead album I ever bought.  I didn’t even realize he was saying “Grill My Pet” until I saw it in another setlist.

He also made a joke about Twisted Sizzler but when Catburglar started playing the drumbeat, Ronald refused to sing their hit “We’re Not Going to Shakey’s.”  There were a lot of groans from the crowd, a few “Jesus Christs” and after about half of their set a number of people in the front left.  I’ve never seen so many people leave a show before. But I assume they had free tickets.  In fact as I was walking out I heard someone say “I think everyone had free tickets.”

Given how many free tickets were distributed, I don’t see how the band made any money.  I have to assume that this band is made up of independently rich guys for them to put this level of detail into their stage show.  I mean the stage set was totally tricked out with details, like this strange little amp (right).  Or even the creepy statues.  There were two fog machines at the front of the stage that looked like Ronald’s head on a pike.  And in the back on either side were statues that shot red laser beams.  I have since learned that they sold out shows all throughout Florida and there were quite a number of people who seemed to know them pretty well, so they must have a decent-sized fan base.

I don’t really know how many Black Sabbath songs would be considered popular enough for parody. I assume the first six albums are ripe for picking (no Dio songs allowed).  In fact, their Wikipedia page says they play songs like “Never Say Diet” (“Never Say Die”) and “Zipping Up the Uniform” (“Symptom of the Universe”).  But I was more surprised to hear “GMO Blind” as a parody of “Snowblind,” another fairly deep cut with a great riff, once again executed perfectly by Slayer MacCheeze.

I can’t remember (or even figure out) what the food parody of Weezer could be that led them to play “Corn Beef Hash Pipe” (just the riff again).  But after that, things took a turn for the super surreal (as if it could get anymore weird).  First, Ronald, ever the consummate magician, proceeded to unfurl a ten foot straw from out of his pants.  It wasn’t meant to be dirty, it was just craaazy.  So he held this giant straw over his head and as the song was nearing its end, he had his merch guy pour a “beer” into it which he drank from.

A word about the merch guy.  I love that Mac Sabbath is so fully committed to the gimmick that their merch guy wears a fast food uniform and paper hat.  He also came out on stage and cleaned the spill from the “beer.”

So this is when it got way surreal.  Ronald asked the guy what kind of beer it was and the guy said it was Heineken.  A guy in the audience–not a plant, I am sure–shouted the line from Blue Velvet–“Heineken, fuck that shit!”  Whether the guy knew this bit from another show or not, that is exactly what Ronald was going for, because he pointed to the guy and then shouted “Pabst Blue Ribbon!”  Funny enough, but then, Ronald grabbed a light in a cage that handymen use and proceeded to sing into it.  He started lip synching “In Dreams” just like Dean Stockwell does in Blue Velvet.

What the hell?

This went on for about half the song and they abruptly stopped and Ronald said, “That was weird!” and then introduced the band and left the stage.

Slayer MacCheeze proceeded to play the raging guitar solo from “Wicked World” (the part where the song stops and it’s just Iommi’s unhinged solo) and he got it perfect.  I was really impressed.  This instrumental section turned into a medley of Black Sabbath riffs, including” Into the Void,” “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Megalomania,” possibly “Supernaut” thrown in there, too.  There was also a brief drum solo, which was a lot like Peter Criss on Alive II (with cowbell).  During this jam someone came out dressed like this guy on the right.  He was hunched over and bouncing up and down for a couple minutes.  He looked really familiar and it wasn’t until I got home that I remembered he was a “Fry Guy.”  (McDonaldland was a pretty trippy place).

Ronald came out riding a tricycle (of course) just in time for them to segue into “Chicken for the Slaves.”  I honestly have no idea what the lyrics to that song might be, and I couldn’t even hear the words to the chorus, but I loved that they played this other deep cut.  And just like the original “Children of the Grave” which ends with Ozzy echoed whispering the title, Ronald was doing a kind of Jason from Friday the 13th “ch-ch-ch chicken” whisper.

The instrumental section was certainly my favorite part of the night and I feel like everyone who left early missed a really good segment of the show.

And yet, for all of the people who left early, I saw a bunch of people already wearing Mac Sabbath shirts and the merch booth was packed afterward. And while Ronald was talking, someone kept shouting for “More Ribs” [War Pigs], which they did not play.

After talking about punk bands, like G.B.H.& R Block, he joked about Agent Orange Julius playing the CBGBs in Newark Airport.  I thought this was really funny, then he copped on that it was already a joke, but I’m not sure if he claimed credit for the original.

I forgot to mention that his podium/mic stand was a grill from which dry ice came–just like a grill.  He had various props in there, like when he held up a frying pan and the crowd went nuts as he announced “I HAVE FRYING PAN” as the riff to “Iron Man” came forth.  As I say I don’t know most of the lyrics, but this one was online and there is a general sense of corporate bashing here:

I once burned your meal
My old job was cooking veal
Now it’s a culinary crime
All our future is pink slime

Everybody wants it
On gluten bleached flour bread
Everybody needs it
Till they’re fat and dead

So, pointed parody, I guess?

Interestingly, Mac Sabbath have never released any music (aside from a flexi disc).  But their merch table was just chock full of stuff: T-shirts, scarves, coozies, and even a coloring book.

That was the end of the main set.  They left, presumably to take their massive costumes off for a minute and then came back out on stage for the encore.  Ronald informed us that he was going to “clown surf” and told the middle of the crowd to make sure the strongest people were there.  When he mentioned “clown surfing” the band played “Misirlou” and I assumed that was the end of the joke.

Then Ronald explained that they had a coloring book for sale (someone showed their copy in the audience as a visual aid).  The book contains a flexi disc with the single “Pair-a-Buns” (perhaps the worst parody joke in their whole repertoire).  And with that they launched into the “Paranoid” parody.  While he was singing, the merch guy (who better get paid well) came to the front of the stage so that Ronald could ride his shoulders to the audience, where he was (somewhat reluctantly, judging by the audience) crowd surfed out a bit and then back.  I wasn’t really sure there were enough people in attendance to support such an act but he did fine–although the landing seemed a bit rough.

There was also a giant inflatable hamburger or two bounced around–not destroyed like the Okilly Dokilly donut.

As Ronald got back onstage, Slayer MacCheeze stared playing the “Crazy Train” riff, but Ronald cut him off saying they don’t play solo stuff.

And that was pretty much the end of the show.  They all stood for the customary bow and then the merch guy brought that Mac Sabbath banner in front of the stage to preserve the anonymity of everyone involved.

As I was walking out they played the Wesley Willis song “Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald’s.”  I don’t know the song, but there were lots of people in seats (not free seats) who were singing along.

I walked out through the merch area and it was really packed, so this show had diehard Mac Sabbath fans or people who were won over.

I enjoyed the show quite a lot, although I think 45 minutes would have been plenty–it was a bit overstimulating.

I give the band a lot of credit for gong through with all of that shtick.  They put on a mostly entertaining show (bad puns aside).  The clowning and stage silliness were a strange excess that really created a circus-like atmosphere.

And again, the band were really good.

But I don’t think I ever need to see them again.  Once was enough.

SETLIST

1. Organic Funeral [Electric Funeral]
2. Sweet Beef [Sweet Leaf]
3. You Really Got Me (Van Halen)
4. The Lizard [The Wizard]
5. Grill My Pet (Motörhead & Shoulders song)
6. We’re Not Going to Shakey’s (Twisted Sizzler song snippet)
7. GMO Blind [Snowblind]
8. Corn Beef Hash Pipe Weezer
9. In Dreams (Roy Orbison cover)
10. Guitar Solo (Wicked world)
11. Into the Void / Drum Solo / Sabbath Bloody Sabbath / Megalomania / Into the Void (Reprise)
12. Chicken for the Slaves [Children of the Grave]
13. Frying Pan [Iron Man]

    Encore:

14. Misirlou (Dick Dale and His Del‐Tones cover)
15. Pair-a-Buns [Paranoid]
16. Crazy Train
    (Ozzy Osbourne cover) (snippet)
17. Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonalds (Wesley Willis song)