Blakk Spyder is a fiery ball of awesomeness—with eight blakk legs. At least that was the general feeling in the Ryley Room last Friday night. The campus 80’s band’s show was a wailing, shredding, saturnalia straight from the hearts of Deadly McBeethoven (frontman Martin Quiñones ’04,) William Chops Shredinski (lead guitarist Scout Kingery ’04,) Wagner Von Deustchland (rhythm guitarist Alex Malozemoff ’05,) Demitri Bartoxic (bassist Kevin Gordon ’04,) and Johann Sebastian Rock (drummer David Coit ’04,) McBeethoven, clad in leather pants and a savagely torn white t-shirt that revealed his hardcore muscles belted the hits of the 1980’s all night to an enthusiastic and excited crowd. In the words of McBeethoven, Blakk Spyder focuses most of its talent on “gimmicks, girls, and rocking– in that order.” And indeed, the band put on a high-octane show. The cover of “Welcome To The Jungle” by Guns ‘n’ Roses gave rise to images of cavemen throwing rocks at cave walls in attempts to make music. Part way through the second set, Blakk Spyder, in keeping with their well-known addiction to evil, dedicated “Heaven,” by Warrant, to Satan—“without whom none of us would be here.” Though their “I’ll Remember You” by Skid Row pulled at the heart strings, the raw beauty of “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn,” originally by Poison, brought audience members literally to their knees and “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC was truly worthy of the title “ROCK.” Blakk Spyder closed the show with a barrage of great music: “Youth Gone Wild” by Mad Caddies led into “The Young” by Quiet Riot, finally ending with a surprise encore of “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the Scorpions. By the time 10:00 rolled around, everyone left hot, sweaty, rocked, and wanting more. Well, everyone except for the half of the Ryley crowd watching the projector -screen television or gossiping over soggy french fries. I have to admit, the french fries looked really good. However, I’m willing to bet that those who, through their miraculous powers of observation, noticed the screaming boys with instruments in the far corner of the room had a better Friday night than those who did not. Blakk Spyder is a focused band of dedicated and talented musicians. It is the band’s undying love for “gimmicks, girls, and rock” which keeps them from going. Their fans witnessed this dedication first hand when Spyder sternly refused the pathetic pleas of a certain Ali Schouten ‘04 to play “Sk8r Boi” of Avril Lavigne fame. Not only is Avril a girl, a Canadian, a member of our generation, and a wuss, she probably does not even know how to skateboard. Oh man. Although they managed to avoid the humiliation of playing this Canadian wuss’s teenybopper music, they may have isolated members of the international community. Stefanos Kasselakis ’05, who hails from Athens, Greece, had this to say: “I sometimes felt that it was good and enjoyable and other times I did not really like the songs that were playing. In general, though, I think it was a good night.” Although Spyder hit rock bottom earlier this year after trying to incorporate their awesomeness into the totally superficial environment of the fashion show, they have vowed never again to play anything but their own shows. They are back on top and ready for action. The band is enthusiastic about the future and proud of their performance on Friday. “The second set was a hit parade,” said Shredinski, “Well, it was.” McBeethoven added “One of the nice things about the songs we play is that everybody knows the words to the chorus, but only the chorus, so if I forget one of the verses I can just make up stuff about how Blakk Spyder is awesome.” Indeed Blakk Spyder is awesome. Even if those are not the real lyrics to the second verse of “Rock You Like A Hurricane,” they should be.
