I’m really not sure why I didn’t enjoy this gig. Type O Negative were one of my favourite bands at the time, whom I’d seen twice before and were amazing live, plus Brixton Academy is one of my favourite venues. Loads of my friends were at the gig, but for some reason this Tuesday night outting just came off pretty flat for me.

I was not keen on the support band at all. Entombed were a Swedish death metal band and I thought they were terrible. I was never a big fan of death metal in anycase, so that could have clouded my judgement – and they might have been very good if you liked the music. I did not, and they were almost certainly in the top five worst bands I saw in 1997.

I’d seen Type O Negative a few months back in December ’96 on the same tour supporting their October Rust album. As mentioned above, this was the third time I saw them live and on the previous two occasions they had blown me away. What was different on thus occasion? I have no idea. Maybe I felt the support band was so bad it ruined my mood (unlikely as even with a band or medicore support I usually still really get in to the main act if they’re good), maybe I didn’t feel like going out after a hard day at work (again unlikely as I was out most nights and to be fair loved my job and it rarely ever felt like work let alone hard work…), maybe Type O just were freakishly off-form for a night (which is possible but if others enjoyed the gig I’m inclined to say it was very much me and not the band). Whatever the case I found them very so-so on this occasion. Given how they’d blown me off the stage the last couple of times I’d seen them this was rather a disappointment. But hey, everyone is llowed an off night once in a while.

SETLIST

1. Prelude to Agony
2. Love You to Death
3. Cinnamon Girl
4. In Praise of Bacchus
5. Kill All the White People
6. Light My Fire
7. Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 × 10⁻⁸ cm⁻³ gm⁻¹ sec⁻²
8. Christian Woman
9. Wolf Moon (Including Zoanthropic Paranoia)
10. Too Late: Frozen
11. My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend
12. Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)