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BLOOD OF WECZ @ ROYAL ALBERT HALL
As the members of the huge audience at London’s Royal Albert Hall start to file back from the bar in anticipation, some chanting starts near the front of the stage. Someone throws a beach ball from near the back of the downstairs area and the crowd play keep up with that for a while. A big boo rings around the old building when some guy bursts the beach ball with his lighter. However, the beach ball is replaced moments later by two or three inflated condoms flying around the place...
...Backstage – Blood Of Wecz, Ryan Lee, Scott H, Mark Talley, Santi Padora and Maxxi Starr are seated in their large, white painted dressing room. They have just finished an in depth interview with @Chaos Magazine, and the reporter has just left the room.
Ryan – Right guys, so have we decided yet? Are we gonna play it acoustic or are we just gonna be us?
Scott – I dunno man, I dunno if I’ve prepared my voice for singing clean vocals tonight, can we save that one?
Santi – I think the bigger issue is, are we gonna, do, you know, it?
Scott – Sounds like a good plan to me...
Ryan – Yeah, but you know...
Scott – Look man, Jakey, and Raven and shit are up there tonight! People from fucking Thunderwolf and My Freaky Valentine, we haven’t seen or played alongside those guys for fucking years! Lets just go for it, yeah? It would be like a fucking tip of the hat to those guys.
Ryan – Well, we might land in some hot water...but ok, lets go for it! Why the fuck not?
Scott jumps from his seat and throws his arm around Ryan’s shoulder
Scott – That’s it man, fuck him anyway! We’ll do it, and it’ll be fucking memorable.
Mark – Uh guys, what is it we’redoing, and what do you mean “fuck him?”
Ryan – Shit! He doesn’t know...Well Mark, before you joined Wecz...
...Onstage a few minutes later. The PA cuts out, and the lights go off all of a sudden. A few people cheer, but most aren’t sure whether this is a power cut, or just the entrance to the stage.
Out of nowhere, a big square white light flickers on at the back of the stage. Some people groan that it’s hurting their eyes, and one guy near the front takes an epilectic fit, and has to pulled over the barrier.
The light goes out and is replaced by numbers which start to count down, from 10, to 1. As one is reached, two big balls of flame erupt from the edge of the stage, and then green lasers dart all over the place for about 20 seconds before going out. The white screen comes on again, and blood starts to trickle down it. The whole screen is a dark red...
...The blood starts to trickle away, leaving only the words BLOOD OF WECZ dripping slowly from the screen. A voiciferous cheer erupts from the floor and the crowd start to chant the bands name loudly.
The intro of Metallica’s “ThatWas just Your Life” starts to play out from the tannoy. The crowd wait in hushed anticipation, before the song cuts out again, and the chanting starts. A low booming, echoing voice then cuts them off...
...PA - “Many moons ago, in the highest, most remote highlands of Scotland, a band would form. They would remember the brutal and barbaric past of their region...and they would tell their tale through booming choruses, and folk music for all ages...That band no longer exist...BUT PLEASE WELCOME...BLOOD OF WECZ!!....
The crowd chant and scream and cheer, and the atmosphere in the building is now electric.
Green lasers light the stage up, and through the smoke and light, the crowd can see Blood Of Wecz standing on the stage, ready to go. Scott H is standing atop the front monitor, his right hand raised above his head, horns raised to the sky. He stands there, in a statuesque glory, for around 45 seconds...then as the smoke clears, he leaps from the monitor on to the stage again.
Santi Padora counts in four beats, and the churning riff from “MIASMA” blasts from all four corners of the old Albert Hall. As the drums pound like thunder, and the squealing lead guitar plays over a plethora of mind bending chords, Scott H is standing at the right hand side of the stage, surveying his kingdom, and conducting the crowd in a violent rage of circle pitting.
TAKE! A deep breath!
Suck it all up inside
PUTRID MANIFESTATION
A sickening stench of death!
MIASMA!
As the song draws to a close, the enigmatic front man rips off his shirt throwing it into the baying mob standing below.
Scott - ROYAL FUCKING ALBERT HALL! We are Blood Of Wecz, this is Delta Tau Round three, let me fucking hear you scream!
Alright, thank you so much guys. And hey, if you voted to keep us in so far then we fucking love you! Alright, so I noticed that Troy Mascenon was wearing a Blood Of Wecz shirt earlier on! How fucking cool was that? I don’t have a Reckoner shirt, well I actually don’t have any shirt on as you can see, but check out this funky shit…
The big screen zooms into to Scott’s belt to show an LED belt buckle, displaying the letters “R-E-C-K-O-N-E-R-R-U-L-E-S-!-!-!” Alright lets hear it for Reckoner! Oh yeah, back to business though, this song is called “Repentance”, and I want to see you all fucking move!!
The band launch straight into the song without the familiar acoustic intro, giving the song a furious energy that seems to transfer to the fans, who start swirling in a huge pit. Mark Talley feels the energy and starts running around the stage during the tremolody section of the song. He looks almost demented. Scott H looks at him in dismay, but, not one to be outdone by anyone, he climbs an amp at stage right, and careers head first into the crowd, disappearing amongst the baying crowd. Ryan Lee looks on slightly worriedly as his front man is nowhere to be seen, and the chorus is just a few seconds away…
…as the chorus is reached, a hand suddenly pops up from the mass of hair and limbs, holding the mic and vociferous Wecz fans take turns at singing the chorus…
You think you know me?
I got news for you!
I’ll put you down and out
And kick the shit!
You wont forget me!!
RE-PEN-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNCCCCCCCEEEE!!
The song ends and Scott slowly pulls himself back to the stage, the band play Blackwater without any break, and the crowd start wildly chanting throughout. After Blackwater, a roadie comes onto the stage with two stools, and two guitars, handing one to Scott and one to Ryan. The rest of the band leave the stage as Ryan and Scott perch on the stools, and throw the horns to the audience.
Ryan - As this is a special kinda night, we wanted to do something special for you guys! We wanna play you a little acoustic number, a cover song. Is that cool? Alright, well this song, is dedicated to the girl who got arrested yesterday for stalking Sco…
Scott - Fuck man! We weren’t supposed to mention her! Bullshit Ryan you are gonna get us in big trouble dude!
Ryan - Oh yeah! Ha! Well I guess when you have a few beers you kinda forget. Anyway, buy all the papers, and read that shit that I…didn’t….just….tell you. Alright!! This track goes out to….no-one really. It’s not a song you would ever normally hear us play, but it’s a slow song, and it’s kinda cool, and apt…if you knew that story…that you obviously don’t know…cos I didn’t tell you.
Scott - This is called “Watch Over you” by Alter Bridge.
The guys play the Alter Bridge track on their acoustics as a deathly silence eerily surrounds the audience, who watch on in awe, never having seen Wecz like this. As they take turns at singing the verses, the guys get little cheers from the fans, before the voices sing together on the big crescendo, and Santi is back on drums.
And When I’m Gone
Who Will Break Your Fall?
Who will bla-a-a-a-a-me
I can’t go on and let you lose it all,
It’s more than I can taa-aaa-aake
Who’ll ease your pain, ease your pain?
At the end of the song, the guys play the outro slowly, over a chorus of whistling and whooping, as they strike the slow final chord, some girls cheer in the audience, and the rest applaud.
Scott - Thank you! He smiles at the audience, and then the stage goes dark….
…The lights come back on and all members of Blood Of Wecz are back, in their normal positions, Ryan Lee takes the mic from Scott and walks to the front.
Ryan - Hey guys, as you all know, we have made a huge comeback this year. It’s been around three years since we were as full time as we are now. And let me tell you, we are loving being back into this with all our hearts and full commitment. We love playing to you guys, and we love when you guys devote even the tiniest bit of your life to us. So give yourselves a round of applause…you earned it guys.
Now, over the many years that we have been around, we have made a lot of friends, a lot of old ones (he shoots a look to the balcony and toasts Jakey Comatose et al), but we’ll come to those later. Forst of all we want to thank all of the bands who have helped us come back from semi part time status and welcomed us back…we have made some awesome new friends like MIND….RECKONER…BLACK GOLD REIGN…CHIMERA…and many more that are just too many to mention…but anyway, this song goes out to all those guys, for the reasons I outlined before…it’s a new one, if you know it from last time out then feel free to join in…this one is called “PUTRIFICATION IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION!!!”
Ryan Lee and Mark Talley launch into the riff that is riddled with bends and hammer ons as Scott H encourages the crowd to move, which of course they do, swirling round and round in circles as he beams at them. When it comes to the chorus he jumps into the between crowd and stage bit and grabs the most intense looking Wecz fan by the back of the head and screams into his face…
Putrified!
Liquified lover!
Broken down and beaten inside
Bleeding orrifice! Weeping eyes!
*growls*Revelations from your God!
The last part of the song is an acoustic outro, which both guitars play without any backing from bass and drums. Scott H leaves the stage and a spotlight falls on Mark and Ryan ans they stand back to back, playing what sounds almost like a Spanish melody. They play it fast and slow for a full four minutes, before they are backed by violin and cello on the PA for another 3 minutes, the song fades, and the crowd marvel in the poeticness of Blood Of Wecz and the mastery of Mark and Ryan on guitar.
As the crowd cheer at Ryan and Mark, the stage goes dark again. Then two bursts of flame erupt again, and the screen flickers. An old school looking Blood Of Wecz logo flashes up….
…The band walk back on stage to huge cheers and chanting. Scott H takes the mic.
Scott - Hey guys, what a fucking night we have had. I think we only got time for one more song tonight, but it might just be a treat.
As Ryan said earlier, it’s time to turn our attention to some old friends. It was quite the shock to us when Dame Katie told us who would be sitting up on that there balcony tonight! (he looks up and the spotlight turns to the balcony for a second) At one point or another earlier in our career we played with all of those bands. My Freaky Valentine, Thunderwolf and of course, fAthOm helped to shape a lot of what you now see on this stage before you. So we wanna play something for those guys that means something, to us at least.
So we thought of what song we might dedicate to them, and we had a lot of debate…it didn’t seem right to play something too new, cos it’s out of sync with when we were close to some of those guys…(some audience members anticipate something and start to chant something inaudible)
..Now let me give you some background, for those who don’t know! This line up you see is not the original line up of Blood Of Wecz. No, no, around five years ago, we had a man, a man who was a fucking awesome guitarist, playing in this band. He was there from the very fucking beginning along with me, Ry and Santi. His name was Alex Polanska. Now whilst Alex was a fucking awesome axe player, he was also a bit of a dick!
On tour, one summer, a band we were touring with called Trivial had their front man go tragically missing mid - tour. We were all shocked, but the next night Alex took the mic on stage and fucking swore and made obscene remarks about the poor man!
This started off a horrendous chain of events that saw him drinking heavily, fighting fans and journalists, and eventually being kicked from the band! In 2007, this fucking douche took out a court injunction, claiming ownership of the songs WE had wrote, for his new band, Narcissus smile. That now means that neither we, nor him, cos he also lost, are allowed to play songs from before our album “Creator’s Wrath”….
…But you all heard what Ryan said earlier, THIS IS A SPECIAL FUCKING NIGHT!!!! AM I FUCKING RIGHT??
The crowd start to cheer.
Scott - Then all fucking right. This goes out to all of the people who have ever loved Blood Of wecz, especially if you have followed us right from the start (tears of emotion are streaming down his face), we don’t give a fuck about your fucking court! This also goes out to MORONIC CHANGELING, THUNDERWOLF, MY FREAKY VALENTINE, GIRLSPICE, FATHOM, and anyone else we have EVER shared the stage with…
…let us take you back to our very FIRST album, this song, and I want to hear every fucking person sing, is called “PRICE TO PAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The roof almost comes clean off the Albert Hall as thousands of Blood Of Wecz fans roar a gutteral roar that shakes the floor. Some start to let the same tears of emotion that Scott has shed flow down their faces, it has been a long time since Blood Of Wecz have been allowed to be true Blood Of Wecz, and this is clear to see in the band and their fans.
As Scott and Ryan bounce off each other on stage, Santi is literally on his feet, blast beating for his life, Ryan shrieks into a solo, after solo after solo run, and after ten glorious minutes of the bands former signature tune, they almost collapse in an adrenaline fuelled heap.
The whole band are now in tears, this has been a long time coming, and they are finally playing a song that they love again! They embrace each other on the stage before they take a bow in front of the chanting fans, many of whom (the hardcore following who have been there for years) are also in tears now. Blood Of Wecz leave the stage with no more words, but with their heads held high…
SETLIST
MIASMA
REPENTANCE
BLACKWATER
WATCH OVER YOU (ALTER BRIDGE COVER)
PUTRIFICATION IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
PRICE TO PAY |
