I’ve loved Danzig’s music for 30 years and last night I saw him at Brixton Academy! It was the hottest indoor gig I’ve ever been at, so hot that even when standing still everyone was sweating and you could have turned to the chap next to you and wrung out his beard. I stood in the same spot I stood in to see the Ramones in 1992 and had such a great time. I’ve seen Danzig at Wacken Festival, Download Festival and the Roundhouse in Camden but last night was somehow the best. He spoke to the audience more than at any previous gig I’ve seen and I defy anyone not to get goosebumps when they hear him sing “Mother”, “She Rides” and “Long Way Back From Hell”.

Danzig gets 26 mentions in the Eviscerated Panda Saga and 37 mentions in the Cleo Howard Diaries. Here are just a few;

“Cleo danced around her room to the sounds of her getting ready to go out playlist. This included AC/DC’s ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’, X-Ray Spex’s ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’, Flotsam and Jetsam’s ‘Hammerhead’ and Danzig’s ‘The Hunter’”.

“It was a chilly Monday morning in autumnal Reading. Glenn Danzig was singing loudly; ‘She rides, let loose upon the world, she is the night’. Cleo got up quickly, having set her iPod alarm for as late and as loud as possible”.

“Ian’s reply came in the form of a quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; ‘Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space’. He followed this up with ‘Don’t panic’ and pointed out that in another, parallel  universe Jez and Cleo got married and lived happily ever after, but in this one they didn’t. In one universe they never even met. In one universe the Spira was never discontinued. In one universe Glenn Danzig is a tall man. In one universe Jason Statham is unable to say the word ‘trousers’ in a threatening manner. In one universe Gene Simmons is a shy man who doesn’t like to put his name to merchandise and refuses offers of casual sex. In one universe Rocky’s wife has a proper girl’s name. In one universe Ted Nugent is a pacifist vegan. In one universe bass players get all the chicks. In one universe Pete Steele has average sized genitals. In one universe furry pants wear Manowar”.

“Ian caused a tickle fight by saying that Danzig would have a willy like a fun size Mars bar. I couldn’t let him get away with that. Since last year Ian has got a lot stronger than me, Dear Diary”.

Since I was in Brixton I also took a look at the Bowie shrine.