Twisted Sister Christmas Concert
Irving Plaza
New York City, New York
December 6, 2008
Tony Pijar
The familiar sounds of AC/DC’s “It’s a Long way to the Top” blasts out over he house PA, and for anyone who’s a devout Twisted fan, you know that’s the cue that the bad boys of rock N roll are at he ready to conquer the stage. Let’s cut to the chase, there isn’t a band alive that puts on as entertaining show as Twisted ‘F**kin’ Sister; and that goes from the first time I saw them way back in 1982 up through last year!
But I digress, the sold-out 1,000 plus crowd was bursting at the seams and I swear if anyone had exhaled the roof would have blown off – it was that tight! And why not? Twisted is New York’s favorite sons who’ve come back to serenade us with an assortment of Twisted Christmas carols and a few of their hits too. Admittedly, it’s weird not hearing the chugging riffery of “What you don’t Know” that always started their shows, but in its place we got “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with Dee strutting onstage dressed as a demented Santa Claus while pelting the audience with candy canes and condoms! Jay Jay, sporting the most obvious and hideous wig I had seen in a while, remains the rhythmic backbone of the band. AJ Pero is still a monster behind the drums. Eddie, with his patented bulls-eye guitar played those familiar lead breaks with aplomb. Animal was more massive and menacing than ever, and Dee…well, what can be said about the man! He still commanded the stage with ferociousness unique to only him. And he still has the best onstage banter in the world. Of course, we didn’t get those filthy soliloquies of yesteryear – after all this was a Christmas concert of sorts!
I never thought I’d hear the likes of “Silver Bells”, “White Christmas”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, and “The Twelve Days of Christmas” reworked as “A Heavy Metal Christmas” presented in manic metal fashion. Thankfully, we also got “You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll”, “Shoot’em Down”, “Stay Hungry”, “I Wanna Rock”, and “We’re not Gonna take it.”
It’s too bad that Twisted doe not tour much anymore; comfortable playing the select Euro festivals where they’re still enormously popular. I’ll count the days until the next Twisted Christmas show!
.JPG)
