Sunday, March 31, 2013

Otep, One-Eyed Doll, Picture Me Broken - 3/30/13 at Empire, Springfield, VA

Although I like Otep pretty well (perhaps less now than two years ago), what motivated me most was that One-Eyed Doll was touring with her again. We missed One-Eyed Doll last time, and I really wanted to see them because they seemed interesting, to put it mildly - very gothic with a cheeky sense of humor. (That judgment was entirely based on this video, but luckily it wasn't mistaken.)

Unfortunately, it turned out the show would go on much earlier than we expected, so we had to hurry to get there, and we still missed Picture Me Broken.

We did get there before One-Eyed Doll's set, of which I was glad. They are a two person goth rock band, with a girl on vocals/guitar and a guy on the drums. They were very loud, but with more of a punky cabaret sound than metal or rock. Although there was no vampirism on stage, there were a lot of silly antics - the vocalist used a high-pitched, mechanical-sounding voice to introduce the songs and interact with the audience, she dug silly hats and other items ( such as a severed foot) out of trunk or box onstage, called the place various combinations of "Springfield Virginia Austin Texas," and climbed up onto the speakers for the guitar intro to one song. Although they didn't play the vampire song, all their songs were similarly humorous with morbid themes. I enjoyed their set immensely.

Otep was good as well. It's been a while since I've been able to relax and immerse myself in the music, but for Otep's set I was able to. Almost the entire set was quite heavy, and she didn't seem to spend as much time on artistic whinging and stage antics as last time - although she did don a military cap and do a salute before "Warhead," and brought out the pig's head for "Blood Pigs." I went in the pit for "Battle Ready" (my favorite song) but there really wasn't much of one - only for the first chorus - and not for other songs either. This was in stark contrast to last time we saw Otep, when there were huge pits for every song. However, the crowd was pretty large and they seemed into it, jumping and waving their fists. I just headbanged a lot. Otep did play an encore this time, perhaps partly just to give the finger to the venue, which was kicking everyone out early so that some hiphop event could happen at ten.

People seem to have strong opinions regarding Otep and her music, but I definitely think she's worth checking out if you're into heavy music. She put on a good, heavy show, and I had a good time, even not being very familiar with most of the songs. And of course, I was glad that I finally got to see One-Eyed Doll.

Next concert: We actually went to see Lich King and Possessor the same night XD

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