I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] Ice Nine Kills

This was my third time seeing Ice Nine Kills (and my son’s fifth time, I believe).  For this show, I specifically wanted to see them from above the crowd, rather than from the pit.  I assumed that the visuals would be even better if I could clearly see them.

This was true, except that the lighting was rather poor and I felt like things weren’t as clear as they could have been.

But that’s okay.  The band was still great and the performance was really enjoyable.

The last time we saw them, they were co-headlining with two other bands, so their set was only 50 minutes.  This show was longer, but not a lot longer (they played two more songs than last time).

The show was largely the same songs as the last time, but done in a different order and with a different stage setup.  There were two TV screens on either side of the stage and they showed commercials (real and fake) between songs as introductions to the movies the songs were about.

This time, they opened with “Hip to be Scared” and I enjoyed filming the scene where singer Spencer Charnas hacks up the hapless guy who wandered on stage. 

For the Resident Evil inspired song “Rainy Day” there were some zombies wandering around the stage–they must have added several new extras.

They played their latest song, “Meat & Greet” (Silence of the Lambs) and even brought out a guy on a dolly in a straightjacket.  And then Spence put on a chainsaw hand for the Evil Dead song “Ex-Mortis.”

They didn’t play too many songs that they didn’t play last time too, but they did play “Rock the Boat” for the Jaws tribute–which even had a shark running around on stage.  They also played Stabbing in the Dark, a super catchy song about Halloween.  Then they returned to their first album for “The Fastest Way to a Girl’s Heart Is Through Her Ribcage.”

In neither of the last two shows did they play anything from their book-based songs

My favorite extra with Ice Nine Kills is Shevvy Marie, the actress/make-up artist who is usually the extra who gets killed during most songs.  I know she was on touring Europe with someone else, so they clearly got someone else to play the victim in several scenes, including IT Is the End, “Your Number’s Up” (dressing like the Drew Barrymore character in Scream) and being the victim in the “The Shower Scene” (one of my favorite props during the show.

I loved the huge sing along for the Nightmare on Elm Street song “American Nightmare.”  And they ended with “Welcome to Horrorwood.”  I assumed there’s be an encore (since In This Moment pretty much had one.  But they didn’t.

And worst of all we waited on line for merch and the item we wanted was already sold out.

I’m curious what they will do next.  I feel like any change in the kinds of music (if they stop writing about horror movies) will necessitate a very different kind of stage show.  So who knows what they’ll get up to next.

But I’d like to be much closer to the stage for whatever they do next.

♥ Welcome to Horrorwood: Under Fire edition
$$ The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood (2021)
$ The Silver Scream (2018)
ß Every Trick in the Book (2015)
⊗ The Predator Becomes the Prey (2014)