I actually don’t know Skinny Puppy very well, but when I heard that they are pretty heavy live, I was intending to witness their show the next time they would visit Holland. Some time later Otto Von Schirach, long-time friend of Skinny Puppy, was announced as the supporting act and so this gig turned into an absolute must-go for me: experiencing something completely bizarre as well as some quality industrial in just one night.

Now this is a great thing, introducing Otto Von Schirach to the masses. If you want something completely bizarre, ridiculous, offensive and yet somehow musically justified, you met your match. This show was made of mostly utterly incoherent beats, and for as far as I could follow it he just played one ‘song’ in the way he recorded it, being his cover of Prince’s ‘When Doves Cry’. This show was the most theatrical one I’ve seen of him, he was dressed in a sort of Zorro costume and he had a zebra skin on his table which was filled with equipment and a plastic dog that occasionally lit up. Halfway through the show a giant ridiculous monster with bananas for teeth enters the stage and starts a fight with Otto, whom stabs him with a toy sword with a whole lot of lights. Another figure in a giant pink suit which says ‘Woopsy’ also flies by. For the rest Otto produced a whole bunch of terrible noise that oddly seemed to be received quite well by the Skinny Puppy crowd. And he has promised me that his set with The Locust next month is going to be more extreme. I can’t wait… (DemonDust)

After Otto’s absurd but awesome show it was now time for something more severe: Skinny Puppy. The stage looked great with nice visuals on a big screen in the back and a white folding screen in the corner, behind which frontman Ogre performed the first three songs so only his silhouette was shown to the public. On the moment that he enters the stage his face and outfit are fully covered with blood. Blood of which he had some left, because he’s spitting it around on the dais as well as on the white cloth. Everything’s blood stained, and together with the powerful live drums supported by heavy synths, a great atmosphere has been created in the Tivoli. Only the dreary vocals bore me during the show, but for the rest I definitely dig my first ‘big’ industrial experience. Only left with the question why so less Skinny fans got crazy with their favourite act... (Mindsaver)