The Adicts and Reverend Horton Heat at First Avenue, Minneapolis (24 September 2015)

The Adicts Setlist

Reverend Horton Heat Setlist

Adicts Tour Dates

The psychobilly band was obviously influenced by Reverend Horton Heat and seemed genuinely saddened to leave the tour behind, but their two weeks on the road, they had truly an “amazing time.”

Singer Kenda Legaspi was fun to watch, as she ran back and forth during her performances of “Grave Diggers”, “The Devil’s Son”, “Born To Lose”, and “They All Fall Down.” The majority of their music seemed inspired by horror films or had evil/demon elements, which would explain their name (probably named after the George Romero film Creepshow).

They ended their set with “Rue Morgue Radio”, taken from their 2008 album Run for Your Life.

Next up was legendary godfather of rockabilly Reverend Horton Heat with a full 75 minute set. This obviously wasn’t their first rodeo, playing plenty of tracks from across their 11 albums, including a few from their latest Rev album (available on Victory Records).

For those not familiar with the Heat, the trio is built around Jim “Horton” Heath. His music is reflected in his love for good old fashion Country & Western and Honky Tonk music. He crafted a sound that pioneered what we know as modern-day rockabilly and psychobilly.

It was pretty amazing to watch the way Health played his guitar. It was effortless, he can be looking at the upright bassist Jimbo Wallace, pose for a photo, winked at a girl, and all the time playing complicated notes with his fingers were running up and down the neck of the guitar like it was nothing.

Once the music got going, it never stopped. There was no guitar changing, no re-tuning, it was just songs after songs. There was a rare instrument exchange, for their cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny Be Goode”, which had Health playing (more like slapping) the upright bass and Jimbo playing the guitar.

I think the highlight of the show was probably for “In Your Wildest Dreams”, which is a bit of a rare live song. Health explained, “You may noticed that when we play live, we don’t play slow songs…. that is until right now!” The song is taken from the 1994 Sub Pop/Interscope album Liquor in the Front (subtitled “Poker in the Rear”).

They ended their set with an extended “Galaxy 500”, featuring a rather long drum solo by Scott Churilla, followed by a brief Jimbo bass solo. As you watch them perform, you realized, in stark contrast to the Adicts, that these guys didn’t need props or theatrics to entertain us. It was just good old fashion rockabilly music.

Closing out the show was UK’s The Adicts (aka ADX). This was an odd pairing, as there were little crossover fans of rockabilly and punk music. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the band’s first appearance in Minneapolis. I don’t really see The Adicts as hardcore punk, they’re more like pop-punk, similar to The Undertones or The Buzzcocks.

Before The Adicts took the stage, we had to sit through a full remix of “Girls & Boys” by Blur. I believe it was the Pet Shop Boys’ 12″ Mix, which clocks in at nearly 7 minutes. As a Britpop fan, I loved it, but I’m not entirely sure the mostly punk audience appreciated hearing the pop song with its commentary about American Spring Break party/sex culture.

If anything, The Adicts is one of the most entertaining bands touring right now. I’ve never seen so many stage prop used on stage, from pounds of confetti (used in streamers, umbrellas, hats, etc.) to Chinese take-out cartons (used for “Chinese Takeaway”), playing cards (used for “Joker in the Pack”) to light-up plastic glass (used during “Who Spilt My Beer?”) to various costume changes (hats, gloves, shirts) to beach balls, to stuffed monkeys (thrown into the audience). Although this may seem gimmicky, you can’t ignore that this was a first-rate production and worth the price of admission.

In typical Adicts style, the band is dressed like the droogs from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (white clothing, black boots and bowler hats, jock straps), with the exception of singer Keith “Monkey” Warren appearing in an outlandish jacket, with an umbrella, and joker makeup.

If you own their greatest hits or singles collection (for example The Complete Adicts Singles Collection from 1994), they basically played all the favorites. Mostly original songs, with a couple of covers thrown in near the end of their set. Personally, I felt they could have just ended their set with “Viva La Revolution” (which featured The Creepshow’s Kenda Legaspi invading the stage). When they followed up with “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, it felt almost anticlimactic.

As an excerpt of Sir Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance Marches” played over the speakers, we knew the show was completely over. If you aren’t sure that song, trust me, you’ve heard it before. We’ve previously written about the instrumental song, you can read about it here.

Overall, a great lineup, despite the opposite in music genre… but it doesn’t matter who you came to see – you’ll be completely entertained.