Weirdos, misfits, and freaks gathered at The Anthem in Washington, DC on Tuesday night to catch one of the last few dates of the Kiss of Death tour, with coheadliners Ice Nine Kills and In This Moment. Swedish metal gods Avatar provided support, as did California’s New Year’s Day. It was a fun and fabulous evening for lovers of heavy music with a theatric bent, and I was delighted and honored to have the privilege of covering this tour date for The Vinyl District. It was a spectacular night.
With four bands on the bill, the festivities got started early. At 6:15 PM the lights went down, and the members of New Year’s Day took the stage. Avatar followed precisely at 7 PM. But more on those bands in a bit.
The first coheadliner to take the stage Tuesday night was In This Moment. I’ve been hearing about In this Moment and their lavish live shows for years now; somehow, I’d never seen them until Tuesday night. As their set began, I was eager to experience what was in store. The stage was hidden by a white sheet adorned with a giant black spider. Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” filled the room until the curtain dropped—and the crowd lost its collective mind.
Led by the beautiful and mysterious Maria Brink, In This Moment hails from LA, and was formed in 2005 by Brink and Chris Howorth. Along with Brink and Howorth, the current lineup includes Travis Johnson, Randy Weitzel, and Kent Diimmel. Live, In This Moment couples heavy but catchy music with an elaborate stage production.
From numerous costume changes, dancers, masks, makeup, to detailed set designs (including my beloved pyrotechnics), In This Moment delivers the goods to their fans. Even those of us sitting in the very back of the venue. From my perch in the Anthem’s lounge area, I could take in the entire spectacle. A few of us newbies sat there with our jaws open. It was impossible to look away. It’s as much musical theater as a metal concert, but the theater never overshadows the metal.
The ten-song setlist included a few selections each from 2012’s Blood and GODMODE, which was released just this year. A favorite moment for me came when ITM broke out a delightful cover of Björk’s “Army of Me,” a song I personally listen to almost daily. It was great. That was followed by a beautiful rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ “Something I Can Never Have.”
For the final song of the set, clearly the cherry on top of the night for ITM fans, Brink appeared at the top of a large lectern, with the word “WHORE” scrawled down the front in large red letters. The crowd exploded as the band closed their part of the night with its signature song. As explained by Brink, the song is about rising above expectations others place on us. From my vantage point back of the Anthem, enormous white balloons seemed to appear over the crowd out of nowhere; the fans wasted no time bouncing them around. Finally, the room was sprayed with red and white confetti. One last baptism. Incredible—a thoroughly enjoyable set.
After a relatively quick turnover, Ice Nine Kills took the stage to close out the night. Here too, the set began with a large curtain that obscured the stage—red with a nod to MPAA movie rating graphics—which read, “This show is rated IX for psychotic audiences only.” It was a large neon arrow pointing to the horror movie themes to follow. Like ITM, I was an Ice Nine Kills newbie Tuesday night. Being an old person who grew up watching horror films and who is well-versed in late 20th century pop culture, I knew I’d have a great time.
Ice Nine Kills, or INK, as the band is referred to, comes to us from Boston. Initially founded in 2000 by Spencer Charnas and Jeremy Schwartz, the band has evolved from its earliest days as a ska-punk outfit to a metalcore band, one known for its horror-film-inspired songs. The band (Charnas, along with Ricky Armellino, Patrick Galante, Joe Occhiuti, and Dan Sugarman) leans into its inspirations—Charnas took the stage in the form of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho and from there it was off to the horror races.
Each song featured choreographed reenactments from horror films, with the music serving as the vehicle. Some Pet Sematary here (“Funeral Derangements”), some Silence of the Lambs there (“Meat and Greet”), a little Psycho thrown in (“Shower Scene”). Actors darted across the stage to assist with the visuals, getting stabbed and hacked up along the way in front of large TV screens. As someone who was traumatized by Jaws as a child, to the point where I couldn’t even look at pictures of sharks until I was in college, I got a huge kick out of “Rocking the Boat,” which of course featured a lucky soul running across the stage in an inflatable great white shark costume. I cackled out loud.
Frontman Charnas has loads of charisma and is an active participant in the proceedings, hacking up his own share of bodies while nailing the vocals. In less capable hands, a show like this could run the risk of simply being gruesome or goofy, but INK expertly handles both the metalcore music at the heart of the show and the wildly entertaining visuals. It’s a pop culture and horror fan’s dream come to life and is a wild ride from start to finish. It’s easy to see the comparisons others have made to the live shows of Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie.
It’s great fun and masterfully done. I loved it. The crowd did too—moshing broke out along with a ton of crowdsurfing which lasted the entire set. It’s easy to see why INK has such a devoted and enthusiastic fan base. I’ll certainly be back the next time INK comes around.
As mentioned earlier, the night kicked off early, with New Year’s Day taking the stage in front of a screen emblazoned with the band’s logo. Formed in 2005, in Anaheim, California band’s current lineup is Ash Costello, Nikki Misery, Brandon Wolfe, Jeremy Valentyne, and Trixx Daniel.
New Year’s Day utilized Myspace in their early days and released their self-titled EP in 2006. The first LP, My Dear, was released in 2007. In the years since, NYD released three more EP’s and three more full length albums. New Years Day started their explosive set with “Vampyre” from the upcoming Half Black Heart, set to be released in 2024. The band reeled the audience in from the first note.
Guitarists Misery and Valentyne ripped through every song, while the rhythm section of Wolfe on bass and drummer Daniel kept things tight on the low end. Meanwhile, the charismatic and glamorous vocalist Costello commanded the stage and crowd as the band moved around her, often shrouded in smoke. The band’s 30 minutes flew by and, as quickly as they took the stage, they were gone, but not before Costello thanked the crowd for supporting women in metal and heavy music.
After spending the last four years catching Avatar in clubs in college towns and places like Baltimore, Nashville, and even the DC area’s own Fillmore, it was great to once again see Avatar in a truly awesome larger room like the Anthem. At this point, I’ve done a thorough job documenting that this is where I first fell hard for the Swedes (Johannes Eckerström, Tim Öhrström, Henrik Sandelin, Jonas Jarlsby, and John Alfredsson) the very first time they performed inside the District of Columbia, when they supported Babymetal in 2019.
Since then, I’ve gotten on airplanes and trains, requested press passes, and edited a million photos. I’ve stood outside in the rain, bought merch, and navigated the Avatar Country website. I’ve watched YouTube videos an embarrassing number of times, made some new friends, and probably bored everyone to tears with my Instagram feeds, which by now are both just poorly disguised Avatar fan accounts—I know no one is fooled by photos of my cat Jim. I don’t care.
Reader, if you experienced Avatar, you’d know why. From the moment the about 6’4” or so Eckerström emerges from a small, strategically placed gift box on the stage, clown makeup still fresh, balloon in hand, and aided by a charming “stage gimp,” anyone who is conscious would know they are about to have loads of fun. Within seconds, they would also hear how powerful and talented the band is. It’s not just the costumes, the swirling hair, or the theatrics. It’s not just the wit, surprising wholesomeness, and joy of the live performances. It’s the synergistic interplay of the five men and their abilities—they create something larger than themselves. Avatar is simply one of the most talented and spectacular live acts touring today. Lucky for all of us, they keep coming back to the US, but I’m not above flying over to Europe if needed.
I was still physically recovering from seeing Avatar’s headlining show two nights earlier in Albany, New York (see my earlier “stood outside in the rain”) and was grateful for one last opportunity to see and photograph them in 2023 (gentlemen, thank you for everything you’ve given us this year and hopefully “we’ll meet again” soon). Their set included an amalgam of new and older material, including “Valley of Disease” and the Billboard chart-topping “The Dirt I’m Buried In,” both from Dance Devil Dance, along with old favorites “Smells Like a Freakshow” and “Hail the Apocalypse.”
While they were obviously not a headliner on this tour, and an amuse bouche of 40 minutes is hardly enough Avatar, it’s good knowing The Kiss of Death tour is exposing them to new fans. I know for a fact they gained at least two more fans Tuesday night, as my esteemed photo pit colleague and her plus one were both blown away by Avatar’s set. She bought a shirt, and he couldn’t stop talking about how much he liked the band. Welcome to the circus.
The Kiss of Death Tour wraps up in Wheeling, West Virginia, on December 2.
NEW YEAR’S DAY
AVATAR
ICE NINE KILLS
ICE NINE KILLS SETLIST
Hip to Be Scared
Rainy Day
Meat & Greet
Ex-Mortis
Rocking the Boat
Stabbing in the Dark
The Fastest Way to a Girl’s Heart is Through Her Ribcage
IT is the End
Wurst Vacation
Funeral Derangements
Your Number’s Up
The American Nightmare
The Shower Scene
Welcome to Horrorwood
IN THIS MOMENT SETLIST
The Purge
The In-Between
SANCTIFY ME
Blood
Sacrifice
Army of Me (Bjork cover)
Something I Can Never Have (Nine Inch Nails cover)
Adrenalize
Big Bad Wolf
Whore
AVATAR SETLIST
Dance Devil Dance
The Eagle Has Landed
Valley of Disease
Bloody Angel
The Dirt I’m Buried In
Smells Like a Freakshow
Hail the Apocalypse
NEW YEAR’S DAY SETLIST
Vampyre
Come for Me
Hurts Like Hell
Shut Up
Kill or Be Killed
Nocturnal
Angel Eyes
