Event:	Deathstars: UK Tour
Written by:	itsjoeymoose
Published:	02.05.2009

Young girls, old men and glam rockers, what do they have in common? Not much really, apart from all being present at the Deathstars show in the Liverpool Academy on Sunday night. As strange as it seems, apart from the usual metal contingent, the minuscule crowd was dominated by screaming young girls at the front and middle-aged men with their beers at the back - go figure.

Openers The Defiled were basically Machine Head wearing a shitload of makeup and ripped jeans, but the London band were adored by the crowd, well certainly the 1st row. The "Hey kids, we have Jagermeister! We're fucking cool!" part of the show was incredibly lame, but at least a few fans managed to drink some as well. That said, they certainly played their asses off and did a decent job of getting the show started.

Marionette were the 1st of two Swedish bands, and after a brief lesson on how to say, "cheers" in Swedish, things got a-rocking. Fairly generic, but still decent music is Marionette's music in a nutshell. Some nice riffs and vocal melodies, but the band were ultimately just a crowd warmer before the main act.

Most interesting was when the singer, Axel, had an impromptu break to run off to the bathroom, leaving the crowd and his band mates slightly bemused. After a bit of jamming and a lot of standing around, the guitarist, Aron, said to the crowd, "Fuck it, you'll have to come up to the stage and entertain us!" Five minutes later, Axel returned, only to say, "Don't take drugs".

There is no doubt the loudest screams were saved till last, as Deathstars took to the stage. I hadn't heard much of the band, and what I had heard wasn't that great, but after tonight I was deeply impressed by the Rammstein meets J-Rock Swedish quintet.

After so many metal gigs, I grow incredibly weary of the standard banter most singers display. There was no "We drink shitloads of alcohol so we're fucking cool!" or "Beat each other up and fucking mosh!", instead Whiplasher had a different method of saying as many sexual remarks as humanly possible before the songs. "We want you to be moaning, not screaming" and "If I unbutton my shirt, will everyone else do the same thing?", were just a few of the many quotes throughout the evening - interesting stuff indeed.

Possibly overlong by about two songs, nevertheless, Deathstars played an entertaining gig with many highlights. Judging from the reactions of the females in the crowd, maybe even some entertaining gigs of a different kind.