Pictures will come soon!!!!!


Biloxi, MS Review of Zombie in Concert & Backstage on March 05, 1999. Posted by Brooks Johnson on Sunday, 7 March 1999, at 2:17 p.m. What a hell of a day... Anyways, I arrived at the Gulfcoast Coliseum with my brother Robert to pick up our tickets at the Will-Call Window, and had no problems getting in. The woman at the window seemed kind of surprised, though. She asked me something like, "Did you win yours, or are your tickets from the band?" I said, "From the band". "Which member?", "Rob", I said again. She, and the people behind me were like, "Holy shit, he's got to be kidding." She had a shocking look on her face too, then pulled up the envelope that Rob had given her, and it had my name on it! It was hard to hear, but she was telling me to read the envelope and do exactly what it reads. It stated, "* Come backstage after Zombie's set." Wow, people behind us were still kinda' freaked out. So I said "Okay", and she handed me the envelope to sign, so nobody could claim they were Brooks Johnson, and get the tickets. I let my brother hold the tickets and all, and we waited at the gates for about 2 hours so we could get seats up front. Well, the doors opened, everyone got inside after being searched with a metal detector. Damn, I could have brought a camera in, they didn't pat anybody down! I was extremely angered for a little bit, because I could have taken some really kick ass pictures. Oh well, anyways, many people bought shirts before the concert, and I saw quite a few of them being torn, stretched, and what-not. My cousin lost 2 shirts during the concert, so go figure. This should teach anybody a lesson: Never buy your gear before the concert. As we walked inside the coliseum, we were going to go to our seats, and I noticed that nobody cared where they sat, and nor did I. My brother and I were supposed to sit in Seat V, Row/Box 104. This was towards the back, and I said, "Fuck that shit, let's go somewhere else." So we did, and we were above one of those overhangs for the hallways, we were pretty high-up on the stands, but extremely close to the stage. We were less than halfway up the stands though, but they are very tall. I told Robert (just picking on him by-the-way), "When Zombie comes up, we are going to the mosh pit"... He didn't really look to happy about that, because this is his first "real" concert. Anyways, between stage changes, and before shows came on, they were playing hip-hop/R&B type music... Weird eh? Oh well, it's not like that was a big deal. So anyways, Videodrone, the opening band comes up, and people went crazy for a little while, then calmed down. This has to have been the worst fucking opening band ever. To me, it sounded like the band, "Orgy" with a hardcore rap-tinge to it. What can I say, they totally blew, and I didn't dig it. Anyways, it took about 30 minutes (or an hour, I can't recall) for Zombie's stage to come up, and god damn, everybody was really fucking hyped. Halfway into the stage setup, people starting screaming and yelling like fucking maniacs, I looked on stage, and couldn't tell why they were, but I was thinking because someone from the band may have peeped out the curtain to look. People were just going insane, I'm just so fucking amazed. This was my first Zombie show I've ever been to, and I've been a big fan of Zombie for years and years. I was usually busy or broke, so I couldn't go to them. Well, on with the review. The crowd went quiet for a while, as people were coming back from the bathrooms and what-not. A few minutes later, the lights dimmed, then turned off... Next thing I do, I look around at the audience, and there are lighters every-fucking-where, up and on, at this show of 13,000 people, who sold the motherfucker out. It felt like this was some sort of ritual... Lighters went off, Perversion 99 played, then merging at the end of Perversion 99 was Call Of The Zombie... The oscillating sound at the beginning of Superbeast played (UFO sound, as I call it.), and the crowd began with a big fucking uproar towards the end of the sound. Mother fuck, I was filled with MAX on my adrenaline meter, Johnny T., on drums, banged away, and fucking blew everybody out of their minds while Riggs and Blasko started the song crunching their fucking instruments better than it sounds on the CD. My fucking god, I was extremely surprised, this shit actually sounded better LIVE, than on the CD! Good thing they were recording this. (Cameras and soundboards were in the center of the Coliseum, in the crowd.) I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to the upcoming LIVE CD this year that is to be packaged with Hellbilly Deluxe. Usually it's the other way around, I'm more into the studio recordings, rather than live sounds. But these songs were heavier live, and better live, than on the CD. Also, about More Human Than Human, it sounded better live, and I don't understand why people say it's fucked up now, it sounded excellent. Rob barely ran out of breath as well, but what can you say, I'd run out of breath a few times too running around the whole time, ya' know? Anyways, I didn't see much, but shitloads of pyro was used, movies playing in the background, smoke, robots, dancers... You name it, you got it. At moments the pyro lasted for a long time, and lit up the entire crowd. In between songs Rob had the guys aim the lights to the crowd, and stuff like that. Anyways, here are some highlights: During Meet the Creeper, a giant robot on wheels came out and rolled around the stage and danced. Later on backstage, I found out that there were two guys inside of it, controlling it. This is a new Robot, and was my favorite robot that I saw during the show. During More Human Than Human, the Robot from the back of Hellbilly Deluxe also came out and started dancing. During Dragula, some sort of Confetti fell down all over the place. And also, during the last chorus of Dragula, a bunch of big bright red flares went up and lasted through the entire chorus, turning the audience a color of blood red! During many songs, the Go-Go Dancers came out and danced on pedestals. Supposedly a naked chick came out and started dancing right behind Tempesta while he was drumming. I didn't see this, but many of my friends did. All in all, Zombie put on a hell of a show, and I recommend ANYBODY, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT A ZOMBIE FAN, to go to that damn show, because you'll have a hell of a time. My brother wasn't a fan of Zombie at all, but now he has a deep respect for them. (Especially after talking to them backstage and all.)
Play list:
Perversion 99
Call Of The Zombie
Superbeast
Super-Charger Heaven
Real Solution #9
Demonoid Phenomenon
Electric Head Pt. 2
Meet The Creeper
More Human Than Human
What Lurks On Channel X?
Living Dead Girl
Return Of The Phantom Stranger
Thunderkiss '65
Dragula


That's the play list from what I can remember (Over an hours worth), also, before Dragula, I believe it was Grampa Munster racing his Dragula, or something, I couldn't see, because my vision is pretty bad, but that's what it looked like to me. Most people sang with Thunderkiss '65 as well, and Rob was saying, "I'm gunna do somethin' a little old, somethin' you've probably never heard, maybe your parents have, so ask 'em about it..." Something like that, that's not exactly what he said, but that's basically what he was saying. Anyways, I missed Korn, because Zombie's set was over. So my brother and I left, and went to the back gates for backstage. We put our V.I.P. stickers on, and anxiously waited to get backstage because one of the Coliseum's security guards was a dick, and said, "No, you have to wait here, you can get back.", I bitched at him about it, and told him bullshit, and etc. (What's funny, is that he looked alot like George Romero!) Then as I waited, some nice lady (and quite pretty as well), confronted me a few minutes later and asked me, while she was walking backstage, "Are you Brooks Johnson?", "Yeah" I answered. She told me, "Rob's been lookin' for ya', come with me."... So I was like, "Okay, cool...", and we walked, and people waiting to get into Korn's little Cage were watching us walk by, it was cool. Then we got into the room with the other (35) backstage people. It's weird how they got backstage, but I wasn't able to until Erin came by and asked me who I was. Anyways, Wookie was really nice, and treated everybody with major respect, everybody backstage was treated with major respect actually. All the people that worked for Zombie were really damn nice and cool. Anyways, Blasko came out, then Riggs came out, then John, then Rob. Blasko came out with a towel on his head, and everyone was yelling, "Hey Rob!", and I kept trying to tell everyone, "No, that's Blasko!", but people didn't understand until Rob actually came out, and when Blasko took the towel off his head. They do look very much alike though. Then Riggs sat down, and I was surprised, he looks like he just crawled up from the graveyard. He looked extremely Zombie. He has a large "X" burned into his forehead also, and has a big tattoo of a Pentagram on his chest, and around the pentagram it says, "Scum Of The Earth". There are also other tattoos on his chest, but couldn't actually tell, he just pulled up his shirt for somebody for a little bit to show them. He was covered in tattoos. His ears were bleeding too, the earrings came out, and the holes were bleeding a bit. I actually talked to Riggs for quite a while, and he was talking about how he wasn't able to view the site for a while because his modem blew up and all. He's pretty damn cool. Blasko was pretty cool too, didn't talk quite as much, and was pretty quiet, but he was cool. Johnny, was bombarded with people for a while, and he didn't talk much to me until after the other backstagers left. Then Rob came out, and he was bombarded as well, and I waited for a little bit, and then he saw me and said, "Hey, you need to hang out for a while."... So I did, after everyone left, and I and Rob talked for quite some time about stuff, and then John walked by, and Rob introduced him to me, and we talked for a little while. Rob told one of his guys to bring us 2 of EVERYTHING. So we got tons of shirts, and skicaps. That rocked, I told Rob, "Well I was gunna' buy them after the show.", and he was like, "Nah, no need to do that." or something to that matter. What I found really cool, was that the whole band is EXTREMELY down to Earth, and etc. Rob asked if we (My brother and I) were thirsty, and said something like, "We've got Tea, Coke, Water..", and we both asked for a tea. It was Snapple, (PLUG!), anyways, after talking in the little area where they were signing autographs for a while, Rob said, "You guys wanna' come back here?", so we did, and Rob opened his dressing room curtain for us, and Sheri and some other lady (Who I believe is Johnny's girlfriend [I could be wrong, I don't know who it actually is]), were sitting on the couch, talking, and we all introduced each other and stuff, it was cool. She's really nice as well. Rob offered us food as well, that was on a little table, boxes of chinese food, and a peanut butter jar open for peanut butter sandwhiches. Rob said, "It's not the greatest, but it's food... You can make yourself a peanut butter sandwhich, or some chinese food...", that was nice of 'em. I would have eaten, but I really wasn't hungry, so I turned the offer down, while he was showing it all to us, opening the boxes and all... My brother didn't talk much, I talked quite a bit, and I wasn't nervous at all, that's how comfortable I felt around them all. For some odd reason, it just felt as if I had known them for a long time already, that's why I wasn't nervous. Charlie Clouser and Danny Lohner were both back there as well, and the whole time, we were all just joking around and stuff like that. The room was rather small, and everybody was in there, talking and such... Rob and the band, etc, were all joking around, laughing and such. It was pretty cool, Charlie was trying out Rob's spiked shin-guards while talking about remixes of Zombie stuff and such when Rob mentioned to him that he needed to do some more, and Charlie just blurted out some name like, "Megalomaniac Mars Mix", out of the top of his head, just goofing off. He wasn't serious at all, they were all just goofing around. It was fun though, and I had a blast. Sheri also talked to me as well, and said, "Here, give these to your girlfriend, or do you have a sister?", while handing me these really nice looking shirts for females (2 of each, again) from her own clothing line. I said, "I have a girlfri... Well, had... But I've got a sister, but she's only 12!", and Rob and Sheri were like, "So? And?", just messing around... That was pretty funny, anyways, Blasko talked quite a bit more, after getting over to the food, and sat down and talked as well. Riggs came in for a bit, as well as Tempesta, and it's getting a bit crowded in Rob's dressing room now, and pretty late. They had to leave around 12:00 that night for Jacksonville, Florida... So Rob says, "Hey you're gunna' need a bag for all that stuff, let me find you a trash bag".. So he goes and searches for one, and holds it open for me while I chunk all of our gear in there, then he goes and grabs a shitload of stickers/postcards, and hands them to me, then also pulls out his tourbook, tears me a few pages of his tourdates, and hands them to me, (Because I asked for them) and tells me about the show, and how much he enjoyed it. Riggs enjoyed it too, and the whole band had a blast there. It was about time for them to leave, so Rob brought me out to the door, and we had our last words, and was pretty worried that people would try to mug me with my bag full of goodies, so he got Wookie to bring me out to the front, and Wookie said, "Well, if you can't find your ride, just let me know, and we'll help you out man..." All in all, to dispell everyone of any rumors about Zombie (& Co.), they don't act as if they are larger than life, and they are very down to Earth, nice, and funny... They joke around alot, and are really just cool people. Everybody got along fine, and etc. They were all outgoing too. Also, I've gotta' give credit to Zombie's workers, they treated everyone with major respect. It was a hell of a night, and I'll never forget it, nor will my brother.