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Ephel Duath, Monkey Beats Donkey - Horrified and flabbergasted
As usual the Italian jazz-metal band Ephel Duath does a yearly trek through Europe, and since the first time I saw them at the Little Devil I’ve always come out to at least one show. This tour was no different; again a show at the Batcave, but with surprisingly less people than the previous time.
 
The band to open the night was the Dutch act Monkey Beats Donkey. They arrived way too late at the venue so the show started later than planned. As the band took the stage I was simply horrified by what they were trying to do; imitating Faith No More. The songs they played were dumb rip-offs for the entire set, simply horrible. The guitarist also broke a string and didn’t have a new one, but they somehow managed to resume the show minutes later, much to my irritation. This brings me to the worst thing about Monkey Beats Donkey; their vocalist. It was the most ridiculous Mike Patton imitation I’ve ever seen. The way he moved his body while singing, the way he acted like he was conducting the band, the stuff he tried to do with his voice (which wasn’t good at all, since he had just hooked his microphone to a Chaos Pad kind of thing, thus making himself sound way cooler than in reality), even the way he held his microphone looked like Patton. It made me mad. This was one of the lousiest performances I’ve seen this year, but it’s nice for them somebody gave them a chance to play at 013 and fuck up miserably.
 
Okay, after being horrified it was time to be flabbergasted by Ephel Duath, as I’m used to with their shows. The first thing I noticed was that bassist Fabio was no longer in the ranks, and no replacement had been found. The next thing I noticed was that they again switched their drummer, this time they had the guy whom I saw play with them the first time I saw them, the other couple of times it was that guys father, and now he’s back again. The last thing that had changed was the vocalists hair, he is bald now! The absence of the bass guitar really spoiled the fun a bit for me, it sounded a bit weird having just guitar and drums with the panic-like vocals. But a noteworthy difference was them not playing with click-track anymore, but keeping it tight by looking at each other. Quite amazing to see how they perform the most complex songs with the greatest of ease. In the end it was a quite enjoyable show, yet being a bassist myself, I really missed Fabio. But still, I finally bought one of their shirts and hung out with them backstage, smoking weed and drinking beer. See you on the next tour guys!