SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The glamorous rock freaks of Hollywood-based Davey Suicide recently made a stop in San Francisco, CA, running hot on the latter end of their tour across the western end of the United States. On a night that was cold, damp, and dreary, inside local performance hotspot Slim’s, these guys sparked up some much-needed heat.
After an initial review of their material online, especially their YouTube videos, I quickly became curious about their live show, and looked forward to catching them for the first time. Slim’s is big enough to house a fair bit of people, and the SF show was a sold-out event, so it was already crowded before the band started. Luckily, the venue is also small enough to allow shows to be an intimate and intense experience, and the gents of Suicide brought it on and then some.
After a sufficiently dark and spooky intro, which allowed the band to slip onto the banner-clad stage one person at the time, the quartet launched immediately in one of my favorite tunes of my pre-show research, One of My Kind. Vocalist Davey Suicide’s energy was apparent from the beginning, pale dreads flying wildly as he moved with the music. His energy as a frontman was in your face and highly contagious, but his bandmates, Derek Obscura on bass, Niko Gemino on guitar, and Needlz on drums, were by no means mere background players. They carried their own supply of enthusiasm, not satisfied with simply hiding behind their instruments and playing the songs.
The set list from Davey Suicide’s opening featured a tantalizing combination of song picks from their musical repertoire, including Medicate Me from their upcoming release Rock Ain’t Dead, slated to be released on January 24, 2020, Too Many Freaks (which includes one of my favorite musical lines: “too many freaks, not enough circuses”), and Generation Fuck Star, one of their earliest tunes going back to 2012. While they were not tonight’s headliner, it was clear that Davey and his companions have their share of fans in the audience, and by the time they closed out their set with the new album’s title track, where Davey got off the stage and into the crowd to sing the new album’s title track, the response made it clear that they earned quite a few more, myself included.
While we wait for Rock Ain’t Dead to be unleashed upon the masses, check out the two videos that have been released for a taste of what is to come, and give a follow to their social media for future tour dates on the horizon.
Video: Medicate Me
Video: Rock Ain’t Dead (music starts at 6:13)
DAVEY SUICIDE Photo Gallery
Show Date: 12/17/2019
