Wasp/Seven Witches

So Seven Witches go through another lineup change on their latest release “Amped” with new singer Alan Tecchio and Kevin Bolembach on bass and both formerly from Jersey band Non Fiction. Jack Frost has always been the father of the band and has maintained a rather signature sound since its beginning. Now with “Amped”, the new voice has given the Witches a slightly different sound and it comes across on stage. While James Rivera had a Halford/Dio quality to his voice, its hard to put a finger on Alan's tone, he really has something distinctive about his voice. He hits both high and lower range notes but just has a different texture and is what adds something different to Seven Witches.

The setlist was one of their best yet as they added “Second War in heaven”, the title track to “Xiled to Infinity and One”, and the headbanging slow rollin cruncher “The Answer”, which reminds me a lot of Germany's Grave Digger. Others included “Metal Tyrant”, “Mental Messiah”, “Apocalyptic Dreams”, and off “Amped” “Sunnydale High”, “Dishonor Killings” and opener “GP Fix”.

Wasp were just in the area last year and once again the setlist was basically the same with a couple changes. Now I heard they were going to change things around a bit like adding “Tormentor” which would have been beyond acceptable but it unfortunately didn't make the set tonight. Personally I want to hear “The Torture Never Stops”.

I have to start off with some bitching because I am a long time fan aside from being a journalist. Along with the usual staples Blackie threw us a bone with “Widowmaker” off “The Last Command”, “Charisma” and “Hate to Love Me” off “Unholy Terror” which were nice adds. It was also great to hear the entire version of “The Idol”, what I consider to be one of the greatest concept albums ever and one of Wasp's strongest songs. Also, when Blackie returned for the encore to do his acoustic set it was basically the same as last time with a medley of compositions from “The Crimson Idol”. With such a great song like “Forever Free” how could you not include that one? My biggest gripe is in why o why is the only representation of the “Headless Children” “The Real Me”, a cover song? When you have such a powerful title track, not to mention so many others to pick from, that's unacceptable in my opinion.

The show itself and the bands performance was just fine, I really like Darrel Roberts in the band and its good to hear him do justice to the solos. On board, and I think only temporarily is Patrick Johannson from Yngwie Malmsteen's band on drums.

Of course its all about the music and for such a talented history behind it Wasp deserves to play as much of the past and present as possible but I did miss Blackie drinking the blood out the skull though and I would really like see some more theatrics return, like Wasp was in the early 80's.