Me and a friend of mine had actually purchased the last two tickets for this show, how lucky were we. It was three years ago since I had first seen them so I was anxious to see them again. With new drummer Nick replacing Ken Jay I wondered if they still could play like they used to. But they damn sure could!

The opening act was Smogus. I had heard a track of those guys once, and that didn’t attract my attention, to speak mildly. Seeing them live could be considered as something completely unnecessary, but for unknown reasons I arrived in time to catch almost their entire show. Which I didn’t do of course, after three or four songs they irritated me too much and I went to have a drink in the bar.

Then it was time for Static-X to enter the podium. They opened up powerfully with their most known track "Push It" of their debut album Wisconsin Death Trip. That album would provide the most tracks for the evening, instead of their new album Shadow Zone. Tracks that were played of their debut were: "Push It", "I’m With Stupid", "Bled For Days", "Wisconsin Death Trip", "Stem", "Love Dump" and "The Trance Is The Motion". These tracks (could be more, or less, my memory is not that great) got the best response from the crowd. An enthusiastic moshpit could be found throughout the entire performance.

Of course a lot of tracks from Machine were played as well. Classics like "This Is Not", "Cold" and "Black And White were delivered quite well, except for a microphone failure during "Black And White" which caused the entire audience to sing the lyrics. That moved Wayne Static so much that it brought tears to his eyes. Touching. When they played the next track, his mike still wasn’t fixed and he obviously became irritated. Then he found the solution, sing in Tony’s mike! A bit hard, since Tony is a couple of inches smaller than Wayne, but very funny to see Tony trying to sing in Tripp’s mike again, which he could barely reach, standing on his toes.

Tracks from the new album were among others: "Shadow Zone", "Destroy All", "The Only", "New Pain" and my favourite "Monster". The evening was ended with the beautiful ballad "Get To The Gone", probably the roughest Static-X song ever. Kick ass.

The performance was very entertaining. They all played well ( and the drummer lived up to my Static-X standards) and there was enough to see throughout the show. EXCEPT for one thing. Tripp Rex Eisen, the guitarist. What a show-off that is. Standing almost the entire show on the edge of some big ass speakers letting himself be touched by a couple of 13 year old girls, doing idiot show-off moves with his guitar. Highly irritating, when you consider that he’s throwing wine gums at the crowd as well. Who in the hell does that?

But the show was great, the atmosphere was great and the music was great. This is the future of industrial metal; Static-X.