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Steel Panther / Sleakstain

12 February 2014, Große Freiheit 36, Hamburg, Germany (Photos by Samira Alinto on Flickr)

When talking about a Steel Panther gig, there are a few things one should keep in mind: 1. It´s not just a musical act, but also a comedy; as such, you should never take it seriously. 2. All jokes aside, they aren´t bad at all musically. 3. It is fun as hell. This was already their second time in Hamburg and Grosse Freiheit 36 was sold out and filled with wigs, eye-liner and 80´s clothes.

The support band, Sleekstain, warmed up the crowd with their energetic sleaze rock. Honestly said, I can´t say that I have heard of them before and I can´t really remember any of their songs in particular. What I can say, however, is that I was really surprised to hear that they are French –my money was almost on America. They were obviously bathing in the joy of having a full house and the crowd enjoyed their performance as well.

Steel Panther kicked off with fresh material of their upcoming album, after which they joked around for a bit and towards the end the room was shaking with laughter. “Our singer is so metal; he had his first threesome when he was nine. Sure, it was his uncle and Shirley, but it still counts!” Naturally Lexxi was mostly busy fixing his make-up during these comical interludes. His highlight for the show was the first ever hair solo, which consisted of him playing a bass solo while Satchel and Starr were on their knees blowing into his hair. They also played some of their older, beloved material, like “Asian Hooker” and “Death to all but Metal”. Pretty early on, Satchel got a t-shirt from someone in the crowd; he was pretty impressed with its text “I eat pussy”, but when he found the Edguy text on the other side, he threw it back and said his thanks anyhow.

This being a Steel Panther concert, there was a bit of bare skin. After some of the ladies bared their boobs to the band, one of the broads was ushered on stage so that the audience could indulge in seeing some skin too. After this a whole bunch of women got on stage to party while the panthers played “Gold Digging Whore”. When the song was finished, the girls and boys got off stage and when the band was back, they announced having had sex with each and every one of the girls seventeen times.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the evening was the audience. Not only were they dressed appropriately and cheered after every song, but when the band left the stage, the crowd started singing the lyrics from “Party All Day” until the band returned on stage with huge grins on their faces. Satchel asked the crowd if they wanted to do a song with him and they all sang “Community Property” together; they did it without any instruments until they were about half way through and then the band took over and finished it off. Then the audience was covered in red, white and blue confetti and the panthers finished the show with “Party all Day (Fuck all Night)”.

I have to say that this was one of the best gigs I´ve been to for a while. No serious instrumental masturbation, no showing off as to how many chords one can play in a minute, no bland announcements to the upcoming songs, just pure fun. The missing half point is merely because the show could have been a bit longer.

Ozzy Aikas

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