Powerclown: Not So Scary After All (Show review, March 7th, 2024, Heavy Wood / Hollywood Theatre)

All photos in this post are by Allan MacInnis. Nothing on this blog is to be used without permission. Comments by unknown parties will not be read or published. Thanks! See my interview with Matt Fiorito (and Blind Marc) here: https://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.com/2024/03/matt-fiorito-and-blind-marc-interviews.html (and see Matt, AKA Sketchy Clown, tonight with the Dayglos)

Okay, so I discovered something last night. I think I may have been mildly afraid of Powerclown. 

Can't say whether that is due to a slight, unconscious case of coulrophobia or a sense that the band was on some level unwholesome, debauched, and dangerous, but I have actually, despite countless opportunities, avoided them quite deliberately... until last night. 

I mean, it's not because I don't like Iron Maiden. I've seen Maiden twice, even: once on the Piece of Mind tour, in my youth, and once on the Legacy of the Beast tour, a few years ago with Erika (I had the opportunity to get us comps and thought it important that she not miss the chance; she had fun, too!). I do not care about Iron Maiden the way some people might, and I think I have only two of their seventeen studio albums on vinyl (and maybe two others on CD)... but I like'm, sure!   

Maybe having just finished AHS Cult -- in which a Trump-loving posse of killer clowns terrorize a community -- has put Powerclown in perspective, or maybe my brush with mortality and cancer has made me more inclined to lick whatever honey I find on the cliffside, but whatever my reasons for having avoided Powerclown previously, I can say only this: they were fucking dumb. 

No, no, not Powerclown. They were quite witty, if in a faux-dumb way. No: my reasons for having avoided them were dumb. Let me illustrate just how menacing and unwholesome Powerclown were with an example of the level of humour at work last night at the Hollywood: at one point, Sketchy dedicated a song to "Kaopectate and immodium." 

That song proved to be "Running Free." Get it? (They're anti-diarrhea medications). That's essentially a Dad joke, fer fecksake. I bet some of these clowns ARE Dads:

So menacing, pshaw; Powerclown are (is?) very (very) silly, in the most delightful, liberating way possible. They both mock and yet joyously celebrate this thing we all love called music; it is not possible to parse the distinction. The singer, whose clown persona is named "Blaze Daily," jumped around from foot to foot, punctuating the guitars with honks of a bicycle horn and occasionally affecting a Bronxish accent. He began the night by releasing a garbage bag full of balloons into the audience (see above), which people delighted in popping throughout the evening. A couple of those balloons had been previously employed, before the band took the stage, when Blaze was wandering the Hollywood (AKA the Heavy Wood, for the purposes of the Invisible Orange series) with giant, ridiculous balloon-boobs; what with the boobs, the gender-neutral clown costume, and the pigtails, on first glimpse I actually was not entirely sure what kind of gear this clown was packing, though a telltale glimpse of male pattern baldness ultimately gave it away, when I caught a glimpse of the back of his head. 

I also found myself wondering about some of the clown shoes. Are these, like, Amazon clown shoes, or something more custom, more homemade?* 

Blaze -- Denton -- was very deliberately non-clown-shoe'd, electing to wear red sneakers, the better to jump around in. I support this decision and marvel that anyone COULD perform with clown shoes on. Maybe they're more comfortable than they look?

Blaze had various silly bits of stage patter during the night, talking something about how the band were well-qualified to offer moral instruction in the dangers of flying too high (referencing their other singer's arrest at Narita airport in Japan, apropos of "The Flight of Icarus;" Dan's bust -- his arrest, that is, not any balloon boobs he might have sported -- also popped up in "Running Free," with a line about spending the night in a Japanese jail). 

It was fun, too, to contemplate just how stunning Matt Fiorito is as a musician. It's harder to catch this seeing him on bass or drums -- which are more supportive things by nature. As a guitarist, though -- cripes, Sketchy is hot. 

By the time I ducked out, Powerclown had in fact played my very favourite Maiden songs ("The Flight of Icarus," "Aces High" and "The Trooper"). I had also learned -- not being the deepest devotee -- that Iron Maiden in fact have a wicked song from their early years about "The Phantom of the Opera," which clearly informed some of Powerclown's merch, previously mentioned on this blog. So I learned a Maiden song which I had missed previously. They also did covers of other early Maiden that I do not know so well, "Wrathchild" and "Iron Maiden." I captured MOST of the latter tune on video. Has anyone ever uttered the words, "Scream for me, Kitsilano" before, I wonder? They seem slightly incongruous. 

Then my battery died. 

As they kicked into "The Trooper," maybe eight songs into their set, it was after 11; with a 45 minute commute ahead from Kits to Metrotown, a desire to stop for food, and a 7am scheduled wakeup, I elected not to wait for a bus and splurged instead on a birthday taxi, wherein I had a chatty ride with an Indian cabbie. At one point, I talked about running across a delightful album of Indian disco, I think called Babla's Non-Stop Disco Dancing Volume 2; I regret to this day not having bought this when I had the chance: 

The cabbie and I also got into an unexpectedly philosophical conversation about the nature of the show I had just seen: were the members of Powerclown actual clowns, or, as the cabbie observed, musicians who dress up as clowns? I mean, I dunno: is there more to being a clown than dressing in a clown suit? ("It's not like you have to go to clown university," I remarked). Or, like, do you have to be professionally employed as a clown to earn the name?  (Can you have "hobby clowns?"). If you've got the shoes, the nose, the makeup... if you entertain people in a clown suit... is that not enough, even if you are playing Iron Maiden songs? What is the difference between a clown playing Maiden song and a musician playing a Maiden song while dressed as a clown...? Am I a butterfly, dreaming I'm a man? 

...I hope the cabbie was amused.

Somewhat to my surprise, openers Tuff Duzt, with Penny, formerly of Red Cat, on drums, did my second-favourite set of the night; I really had fun watching them, despite my being somewhat vexed by the creative misspelling of their name. There are creative misspellings which actually are phonetically more accurate than our own piss-poor spelling system allows, but "Tuff Duzt" is not one of them. 

 

This may get a bit pedantic, but having taken phonetics courses as part of my ESL-teacher training, I can assure you, we are not really making a Z sound when we say the word "dust" (we are, however, really making a Z sound when we talk about, say, the Godz; their stylized spelling is actually an accurate representation of what we are doing, with the -S assimilating to the voiced "d" sound before it; see here for more, and note that there is a similar rule in place for -ed endings, which sometimes sound like "t," sometimes "d," and sometimes "ed," as an extra syllable -- one of many complex things English speakers do instinctively without realizing it). Unlike "Gods," which looks like it should end on an -S sound but actually ends on a -Z, "dust" is, in fact, an phonetically/ orthographically more-or-less correct representation of the sounds we make when we say it; it's the kind of word that someone learning English will have little trouble producing correctly, based on the letters used, compared to, like, "phone," which in spoken form begins with an F sound but which, when spelled, might suggest to someone newly acquainting themselves with our weird spelling rules, or coming from countries with aspirated P's, as rhyming with "mahone" (note: as creative misspellings go, I have no trouble with Kidz Help Fone, who are at least misspelling on the side of the actual sounds made. They have a gig with the AK-747s later this month, by the by. But "Kidz Help Fone" is actually how we say those words; if we spelled phonetically, that's what it would look like!). 

Vexed, I even checked with Penny last night, at the merch table: "We're not supposed to try to pronounce this as 'duzzzt' or something, are we?"

We are not.

But I liked Tuff Duzt a lot. They embraced the kind of goofiness of metal in a vintage 80s way that made them an ideal support for Powerclown. Rob Halford would approve of their fashion choices, and there was a playfulness in their retro-ness that wasn't really there for the somewhat "deathier" Fearbirds and only marginally present in thrashers Terrifier. Who I think might once have been called Skull Hammer; I may have even caught them under that name at Funkys, a long time ago (I certainly had their CD). 

If Fearbirds (who I got no vid of, sorry) were a bit on the "serious, intense" side for me -- lately I prefer my metal goofy and joyful, or at least possessed of a range of emotions beyond "brutal" -- they did have the best t-shirts, and the best taste in band shirts, of the night (re: the guitarist's cool Bison shirt, above). I'm not really into the whole "name three songs" thing -- it's a strange hobby, going around making people justify their shirt choices -- but I like the plague doctor imagery just fine!

Terrifier had fearsome musicianship and a singer who reminded one, physically, a bit of Ronnie James Dio, but they also weren't quite silly enough for me. It was interesting that I got to get right up close for that set and only got jostled a few times by moshers, so spread out was the pit. In fact, even when Powerclown were playing, I was surprised how un-crowded the floor was; I guess it might be down to it having been a Thursday, and the Hollywood being a pretty big room, but you kind of got the sense that a lot of people were missing out, last night.

Terrifier had pretty cool merch, too, but, like, seriously, "Trample the Weak, Devour the Dead?" Can't we just have a pizza? Great cover art, though, cool logo, and Weapons of Thrash Destruction is an amusing title; surprised not to have seen it before. 

On the other hand, Terrifier's singer had an interesting habit of building up to a statement and then shrieking the conclusion so that it was completely incomprehensible: "How you doing Vancouver, are you ready to BAJKAA-SHAGGA-smoo-CHA!" That happened a few times, so I have no idea what any of their songs were about or what the band might believe; I basically never understood the last six words of any sentence he said. But he had some really great moves, really great charisma, and the band played tight and fast and tunefully, so even though I'm not really a thrasher these days, I liked 'em! 

On the way out, I high-fived Mayo, the Invisible Orange promoter. It was only my second trip to the Hollywood for a show (the first being the Residents, a couple years ago) but the space reminds me quite a bit of my still-favourite live music venue in Vancouver, the Rickshaw, except the neighbourhood is harder to get to, much more yuppified, and way less dodgy (which these days means you won't be walking by people who just might be dead, wondering if you should call 911, which is about where the DTES has gotten to, lately). Alas, cool a room as it is, it doesn't seem to have caught on as much as it might have; so I checked in with Abelardo to ask. Was the sparse attendance a deal killer on future shows? Will there be more "Heavy Wood" to come?

Take heart, music fans, his answer is hopeful indeed, for at least a few more shows! Abelardo (AKA Mayo) writes: 

This is the first of a series of showcases at the Hollywood called Heavy Wood, in which we will showcase local talent. It will happen once per season, so about four in the year: March, June, September, December. For now all presented by The Invisible Orange with support from The Hollywood to open the space for local talent. We hope to find sponsors for more events.

About other gigs we are excited about, well we have a lot on the works this year. Last year was our busiest ever and this one seems to be in a similar route. We are celebrating 15 years of The Invisible Orange and we have a lot of events around that, like Wake at The Rickshaw on March 30, and Unleash The Archers album release shows in Victoria and Vancouver in May.

More from the Invisible Orange on their website. Speaking just as a fan, I hope that regular bookings of the Hollywood continue, and that the "Heavy Wood" phenom catches on, because last night was terrific. 

*Matt Fiorito on Facebook, re: the clown shoes: "I made them."