One of our favorite bartenders at the High Noon Saloon started growing a beard on a bet at the beginning of 2009. It grew to such impressive proportions that you knew he was losing stuff in there. Since it’s now 2010, I suspected the beard would be gone. Sunday night is his usual night behind the bar, and the most metal band on the planet was playing. It sounded like the perfect double bill. Steve’s new look was disappointing, even disturbing, the middle of the beard was gone, but long, curling muttonchops remained, um ew. Luckily the Lords of the Trident were far more fun than I had expected.
The band had been an inside joke for awhile. One night at the Frequency last spring I was handed a disc promoting an upcoming show. I took one look at the band’s name and handed it to Michelle, “Here, I got you this.” It kicked around her car for awhile until one day we put it in. Surprisingly, it wasn’t terrible. Over the top certainly, but definitely not terrible. The band could play and the dude could belt those high notes. Still, we didn’t go out of our way to see them, until tonight. “They’re really theatrical,” the other bartender told us, but even then I wasn’t prepared. I couldn’t have been. First there was the fog machine, then the voice of Satan introducing them. My face lit up, this was going to be awesome.
It isn’t exactly a secret, but I’m only recently cool. I listened to a fair amount of metal in college and I’ll admit to still enjoying bands like Cherry Pie that cover classic hair metal, and I have an especially soft spot for Dokken. I’m no expert, but Lords of the Trident aren’t really the most metal band on the planet. But they do put on a show and that is a big part of it. The quiet, bespectacled, and slightly nerdy lead singer transformed into a weapon wielding ringleader once he pulled on the (fake?) leather pants and leather arm bands. I’m not sure exactly what all the fake swords, maces and axes were about but he had a new one for every song. Occasionally he would jump off the stage and “attack” the audience with them, though he was gentle and so obviously kidding that it wasn’t the least bit threatening.
The rest of the band was also dressed up, there was a pirate, a gladiator and some sort of Japanese warrior. The end result was sort of a metal Village People. Only the drummer with his horned mask with glowing eyes and bondage gear was genuinely scary. As far as the music, the song “Rape Shore” with its non-PC title and chorus of “you’re gonna die” may have been the most frightening thing about them. It’s hard to be intimidated when the lead singer asked us all to sing along on the “hey hey ho” type chorus of a pirate song as he waved a giant skull & crossbones. It should be noted that the pirate did get a bass solo on that one.
I couldn’t stop smiling the whole thing was so ridiculously entertaining. We had heard Fragile Utopia sound checking earlier and they sounded pretty good, but after the Lords they seemed to have lost something. Even Droids Attack and their more genuine rock didn’t pack the entertainment punch that Lords of the Trident did. Next time I won’t scoff until after I’ve seen if a band can back their claims.
Lords of the Trident
Droids Attack!
Fragile Utopia
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