Wisconsin Death Trip

Static-X 3/12/20

X ticket

I was fortunate enough to see Static-X five times in the early part of their career but the possibility of seeing them again live disappeared when Wayne Static passed away on November 1, 2014. Then in 2019 it was announced that the original members minus Wayne were getting together with a masked mystery singer/guitarist to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wisconsin Death Trip in honor of Wayne. I was conflicted about seeing this since Wayne was so unique and I was able to see the real thing so many times but then I remembered how great it was to hear STP songs live again with singers other than Scott Weiland. None of my feelings mattered since there were no San Diego dates…until the tour resumed in 2020 with San Diego as the first date.

When I started thinking about how much I love Wisconsin Death Trip and received an email from Brick By Brick announcing there were less than 50 tickets left something finally clicked in my brain and I came around. Unfortunately this being on a Thursday did not make it very easy to find anyone else willing to accompany me so I ended up going alone.

Static-X aside this was an interesting time because I had not had any weed or alcohol in over 30 days after taking a self-imposed break and because Coronavirus panic was taking hold of the world. Bands started cancelling shows and elected officials were putting orders in place to prevent gatherings of more than 250 people, then 50 people and finally 10 people. This show was in question up to the last hours before showtime. Ultimately these gathering restrictions went into place midnight of this night, making this the last show I was going to be able to attend for the foreseeable future.

After returning to my gummy taking ways I arrived at Brick By Brick with exactly enough time to grab a tall boy Modelo and situate myself at the familiar back end of the floor area before Static-X came out. The mystery man, who was later revealed to be Edsel Dope, wore a semi-creepy mask that has X’s through the eyes and on the forehead and must have not had enough time to re-create Wayne’s famous hairdo since he wore a hoodie the whole time. He did an admirable job filling in for Wayne and I thought it was pretty cool of “Xer0” to address the crowd basically saying, “I am not trying to replace anyone. I was friends with Wayne and love these songs as much as you guys so I’m thankful that you are allowing me to be a part of bringing these songs back to life for all of us to enjoy.”

It took all of two songs for them to get to the title track of Wisconsin Death Trip for me to feel really great about my decision to attend. After a fantastic “The Trance is the Motion” they hit the highlight reel of rippers from Machine then hot selections from the rest of the catalog before coming back around to “I’m With Stupid” and “Push It” and then they were gone. All in all the show was badass but they need to fire the sound guy because the performance was great but the actual sound was inconsistent.

Next up in the Static-X orbit is Project Regeneration, which will be new music featuring Wayne’s voice from recordings before his death set to be released later in 2020.

SETLIST: Bled for Days, Wisconsin Death Trip, Sweat of the Bud, Love Dump. I Am, Otsegolation, The Trance is the Motion, Get to the Gone, Black and White, This Is Not, Destroy All, Start a War, Behemoth, Cold, I’m With Stupid, Push It

Ozzfest 7/18/99

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Main Stage: Black Sabbath, Rob Zombie, Deftones, Slayer, Primus, Godsmack, System of a Down

Second Stage: Fear Factory, Static-X, Slipknot, Puya, Drain STH, hed (pe), Apartment 26, Flashpoint

This was the first Ozzfest that had come in my proximity. Ozzfest had been going since 1996 and kind of filled the summer void that Lollapalooza had left. I was pretty excited about this show because every band on the main stage was a band I wanted to see even though I had already seen some of the bands before. A girl in one of my classes named Tawni turned me onto System of a Down. I was lucky enough to sit next to her in my math class and we had similar musical musings. My cousin Earl really liked them too and gave me their first album on CD for my 21st birthday. They were the first band on the main stage and touring for their eponymous album. Claude strikes again though. Bless his soul but the guy’s just not all there sometimes and this time he didn’t quite comprehend the importance of leaving at a specified time. Long story short we arrived just in time to see the last 3 songs of System of a Down’s set. By we I mean Earl and I only because we ran all the way down to the floor from the moment we arrived inside the Pearly Gates. I believe Roscoe was also with us? The next band up was Godsmack who was also touring for their eponymous album. They were on it. They played pretty much their whole first album. Primus was next and let me just say that Les Claypool is a badass. They were still a few months away from releasing Antipop so they technically touring for their EP of cover songs Rhinoplasty. This is probably about the time in the show we started shifting from the first stage to the second stage all the way up on the hill. We saw Static-X up there, who was on tour for their new album Wisconsin Death Trip! We also saw Slipknot who had just unleashed their debut eponymous album on the world a few short weeks earlier. I wasn’t really into them at the time but did find it quite entertaining to see nine guys dressed up in fucked up masks rocking their ass off and just flat out going crazy onstage. Back to the mainstage was Slayer whose newest effort at the time was Diabolus in Musica. I love their fat ass guitar riffs but at the time just could not get with Tom Araya’s voice. Next up was Deftones. This was the third time I was lucky enough to see them and they were nothing short of amazing. Deftones are a hard act to follow but Rob Zombie somehow managed. It had only been three months since the last time I saw him but I think this performance was much better. Maybe it was just because I knew Korn wasn’t following him this time. The closing band was none other than Black Sabbath! I’m not talking about that shit with Dio, I’m talking about the real Black Sabbath with Ozzy. I was as excited about this as any other band of the day. Never in a million years did I think I would ever get the opportunity to see a band that was huge in the 1970’s. I really got into Black Sabbath when I was about 16. It started with the album Paranoid and then I bought the whole catalog one album at a time. They did not disappoint me. Ozzy was still as crazy as he was made out to be, Tony Iommi was razor sharp on his riffs, and the rhythm section was holding down the groove. Little did I know that this would not be the last time I would see them.