Bella Morte and 16Volt at the Knitting Factory

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You know you’re exhausted when you can’t even motivate yourself to get out of your chair to pour a cup of coffee. :P

I’m so glad I went to see Bella Morte last night. They played at the Knitting Factory, opening for 16Volt. 10zlaine and I got there a bit late, after 9pm, just as they were starting. I think they’re getting better every time I see them. The first time (2001?) I left because they were boring; now, I think they own the stage with far more confidence, and their songs have gotten so much better. They’ve got these disparate influences–punk, metal, goth–and I like how they’re merging all of these into each song, rather than doing one “punk” song, then one “metal” song, and so on. (Plus, the shallow: Andy Deane’s growing his hair out and has dyed it black; he looks about a million times hotter than he did with that absurd orange mohawk.)

I wasn’t going to talk to them after, but I did go over to buy a CD, and Andy recognized me and gave me a hug. I apologized for not owning any of their CDs and asked for a recommendation; he said “Bleed the Grey Sky Black,” so I bought that. I swear, I wasn’t even trying to “meet the band”; I’m just like a natural rock groupie or something.

We stuck around for 16Volt, because Steve White from PIG is playing with them. He was amazing, and I’m so sad that I never got to see him play with PIG. I guess I must’ve seen him with KMFDM twice, but that’s not the same. He co-wrote some of my favorite PIG songs, actually. I don’t know anything about the technique of playing guitar, but I know the difference between “mediocre” and “decent” and “fucking awesome,” and he was definitely on the “fucking awesome” side.

I must’ve seen 16Volt years ago (didn’t they open for KMFDM or something?) but I didn’t know any of their songs. The vocals were annoying, but the music itself was great. I must’ve had a hell of a lot of frustration to work out, because even though I was exhausted, I ended up completely rocking out like I haven’t done in years, banging my head and jumping up and down like a lunatic. I was thinking about my old landlord and roommate; it’s really easy to feel aggressive when you’ve had a week like I’m having!

It was so, so good to go to a club show. It’s been way too long; I think last time was Chemlab in, um, November? I’ve been going to these arena shows lately, where the band are distant specks on a stage, and you’re surrounded by confused teenagers, and yuppies who leave before the encore, and frat boys who are just there to guzzle as much Budweiser as humanly possible during the space of three hours. This was a dark dingy club with about 50-75 people who genuinely care about the music, and the band is on a four-foot stage right in front of you, and they actually *do* feed off your energy and you feed off theirs and you interact, and you can go to the merch table and meet them afterwards if you want to. It’s just so much more gritty and honest and real.

Current Mood: exhausted & satisfied

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