Danzig
The Guvernment, Toronto ON - February 24,
2005
By Kendall Shields
April 01, 2005
 
Glenn Danzig,
who turns 50 this year, hasn't lost a step, despite
recent streaming-video evidence to the contrary. When
Danzig came out on the wrong end of his much publicised
July 2004 scuffle with Northside Kings’ Danny
Marianinho, a man twice Danzig’s size and many years his
junior, the bloom seemed off Danzig’s black rose. But
this fierce Toronto crowd of brawny men and suicide
girls saw anything but a man past his prime. As
demon-skull banners loomed overhead, all five-feet-four
of Danzig stood black-clad at centre stage, his
oversized silver skull belt-buckle reflecting the
Guvernment’s dim light. In full-throated metal god
croon, Danzig tore ferociously through a rapid-fire,
headlong set that drew heavily on his recent
back-to-basics material and the core I to IV records,
wisely staying well clear of the meandering excesses of
his late ’90s output. "Twist of Cain," which dates back
to Samhain, was the only hint dropped of a musical life
before 1988’s Danzig, no doubt disappointing the
Misfits-hopeful punk rockers scattered throughout the
club. Lucifuge’s "Her Black Wings" and Thrall:
Demonsweatlive’s "It’s Coming Down" offered the night’s
best evidence of Danzig’s near-genius for the anthemic
chorus, as the fist-pumping crowd tunelessly bellowed
along with devil-horn hand gestures passing from
audience to performers and back again. Danzig’s backing
band, in its current incarnation, plays with admirable
tenacity and bite but one acutely feels the loss of John
Christ’s steady hand. Ex-Prong guitarist Tommy Victor’s
rushed "Mother" — still the crowd-pleasing encore —
skipped almost merrily from one chord to the next,
whereas Christ’s would slouch, lurch with a gait like
that of the barely-conscious, bloodied man led out of
the room by security halfway through the show as the
slow grind of "How the Gods Kill" filled the
room.
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