Crazy Town & Hotwire

"Hey Chico, come here and dance with me!" yelled Hotwire’s frontman, inviting the scattered crowd to come up to the front of the stage where more fun was to be had and more hearing damage could be caused. The crowd complied with his request, assuming that by, "dance with me," he meant, "start a huge mosh pit and act like a bunch of gorillas on heroin." With crushing guitars, aggressive vocals and a style marked by creative dynamic changes, Hotwire really seemed to connect with the crowd. Often times, the music would stop abruptly, allowing the guitarist to continue his line alone for a measure or two — a technique that was usually followed by an increase in the intensity of the moshing by the heroin gorillas.
Nearly as entertaining as the music was the between-song commentary from the singer. At one point in the show, he picked up a wrench that he found lying on stage and, showing deep concern for the safety of his bandmates, announced that he was going to sue The Brick Works. Later that night, he introduced a song as follows: "This piece is called, ‘How It Goes,’ and this is how it goes."
Hotwire ended their set just as powerfully as they had begun and wasted no time breaking down their gear in order to make way for the night’s headliners, Crazy Town. I must say that it was nice not to have to sit through three or four opening bands for once in my life. Props to whomever was responsible for that.
With anticipation thick in the air, the house lights finally went down and everyone started screaming. I’m pretty sure that the lighting guys just got bored and decided that turning the lights off would be funny, because Crazy Town didn’t actually come out for another 15 minutes. When they finally did take the stage, I took careful note of the fact that the noise coming from the teenyboppers in attendance alone could have stunned a yak in a neighboring county.
Anyway, "Butterfly" opened the night and there wasn’t a person in the room who wasn’t feeling the music. I must admit that I was wondering if Crazy Town would be able to pull off the rest of the night with their biggest hit out of the way already, but they did it. Their diverse set moved effortlessly between softer pieces in the same vein as "Butterfly" and harder numbers like, "Wasting My Time," which was performed with the help of Hotwire’s singer. The interesting thing was that neither of the musical extremes dominated the other and the crowd responded very well to both.
As the night came to a close, one of Crazy Town’s two vocalists, who was obviously not in bad shape, took off his shirt, and though I really enjoyed "Drowning" and "Toxic" — the last two songs of the evening — I think I suffered an aneurysm from all of the screaming girls.
– Dana Hocking
– Photo by Matt Beier

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