Rob Zombie and John5 - Great Show in Chicago

Rob Zombie and his "new" axeman John5 pumped out their new tunes to a sell out crowd at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom on April 8, 2006. Zombie and crew are out promoting their new album "Educated Horses" which was released in late March. The show kicked ass and the capacity crowd of 4,500 got pretty loud.

John5, formerly of Marilyn Manson, performed his nightly circus trick of playing our National Anthem on lead guitar with his teeth. John5 really adds another dimension to Rob Zombie's music. I mean this guy is a REAL guitar player. Nothing against previous Zombie axemen at all, but John5 is rocking it right now.

Rob did his usual stage antics of running around like a wild man and jumping up on the front stage monitors. In a lot of ways, particularly his stage antics, Zombie reminds me a lot of Ted Nugent (no, I'm not that old, but I have cable and I saw Ted Nugent "Behind the Music" on VH1 too!). The highlight of the night was when Rob brought back the giant staggering robot during the White Zombie classic "More Human than Human" performance.

The new album "Educated Horses" is pretty good. If you like Rob Zombie and White Zombie, you will definitely like it. I personally didn't find any groundbreaking tracks on it, but on the whole, it's damn good. There isn't anything on there as good as the White Zombie track "Thunderkiss '65" for example.

Getting back to the show, Lacuna Coil opened and was disappointing. I like some of their music, but the live show was weak. I haven't seen a band stand around like that during a performance since Megadeth (I love Megadeth, but their live show is all about the music, no show to speak of).

That's it for now Metalheads. Later, TommyKnocker