The Dome, London
1 December 2012
Thirty years ago, thirty years ago to the very day, the original power couple of electro-goth, Nik Fiend and his wife, erm, Mrs Fiend, first unveiled their psychedelic horror show for the first, and for what they admit they believed would also be the last, time. And somehow they’re still here, thirty years on. And it’s time for a party.
Nobody seems as surprised by this as Nik himself, apart from possibly Mrs Fiend, but she isn’t saying much, she’s just piling on the beats as they launch with goth club floorfiller and bona fide Fiend classic “Ignore The Machine.” Some muddy sound takes the edge off this, unfortunately, but it’s soon fixed, and within the first couple of songs it’s like a particularly weird episode of Dr Who, where we’ve all been sent back in time and it’s the golden age of Fiendishness again.
And Alien Sex Fiend’s low-rent horror show is as engaging as ever. A self-professed Alice Cooper devotee, Nik yet again proves that you don’t need a Hollywood budget to put on an awesome B-movie spectacle. He’s Roger Corman to Cooper’s James Whale (not the radio asshole, the horror movie legend – otherwise the analogy would make no sense), and proves that you can make up for what you lack in budget with enthusiasm, heart, and most importantly, awesome tunes. Alien Sex Fiend have always been the most fun of all goth bands, pitched somewhere between Evil Dead and Rocky Horror, if either of those movies had tried to get all punk by including a homage to Never Mind The Bollocks. Like a four-colour Rob Zombie cartoon of Rudimentary Peni. Or something. Only where today’s shock crew, yer Zombies and Mansons, alternately play the roles of tormentor and tormented, Fiend goes a more psychedelic route and flips between confused and Master Of Confusion.
By the end, when there are thank-you speeches and the offer of cake (yeah, cake! Remember, kids, it’s a made-up drug…), Nik’s a king celebrating his jubilee bedecked in razor wire and drowning in stage blood, and it’s all just about as awesome as you could possibly want it to be.
I know you never went away, but welcome back anyway, Nik. And the Mrs.
-DEUTERONEMU 90210’s brain is in the cupboard-
-Pictures: Ben Guiver–
One thought on “Alien Sex Fiend (live at The Batcave)”
My Alien Sex Fiend thing wot I wrote. http://t.co/3cUW5y5T #aliensexfiend