Live Gig Review: Mac Sabbath at Le Poisson Rouge on 5/01/25

On Thursday, May 1st, comedy enthusiasts, fast-food junkies, and metal fans gathered to laugh, scream, and watch in awe at Le Poisson Rogue in Greenwich Village during a fun night out to celebrate ten years of drive-thru metal with Mac Sabbath. Even better? Mac Sabbath was supported by Flummox and Guttermouth, two off-kilter bands to assist in keeping the avant-garde times flowing. On the side of me loving comedy metal and higher-end fast food, you would think I would take it easy or rest on my laurels by dining at a Global grease chain near Astor Place or in Greenwich Village for two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, as it would have been a more thematic fit for the wicked idea of Mac Sabbath celebrating ten-years of parodying the music of the Sab four, but I instead ate at my favorite East Village eatery, Paul’s Da Burger Joint, to revel in a beast of an Eastsider Burger and a grilled chicken salad. You have to admit that it is a better option of what was to be a heavy metal evening. If you ever visit New York, check out Paul’s.

The first act to begin the festivities at 7:30 was Flummox from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, of which I missed most of their set due to running a bit behind schedule. It is what it is, so I rationalized it as next time. But from what I was able to witness, Flummox knows how to create a sludgy McFlurry for your earworms to delight their tastebuds without the adhesive aftertaste. The vocalist and bassist of Flummox, Alyson Blake Dellinger, would appear once more in a few hours with Mac Sabbath to characterize the dynasty of a certain elf with the voice of a giant now a force ghost in the mists of the metal mythos. Check them out if you are into that style of experimental doom metal like Melvins or Mr. Bungle!!!

Flummox

Photo Credit: Mathieu Bredeau

Next up to keep the party going, keep, keep it going, my friends, were everyone’s off-the-rails punk rock band, Guttermouth. I’ve been on the more metal-injected side of the punk rock variety of bands like Municipal Waste and Nuclear Assault, but I enjoy the more simplistic one, two, three, four styles of straightforward punk in small doses. But hey, I finally got to see one of the heavyweights of late eighties punk. The chaotic riffs. The roaring bass. The drums are getting beaten to the point of breakage. Mark Adkins’ style of crowd interaction and stage banter!!!! All of it combined creates the most fun, untamed, sorta-80s rock party you’ve gone to since Steel Panther’s last show in your area. The place went wild for a rousing forty-minute set of just music to skank to and get a room full of rockers, metalheads, thrashers, and punks for the heavy metal Big Mac snack attack of Mac Sabbath.

Guttermouth

Photo Credit: Mathieu Bredeau

We have managed to get sprayed with blood, ooze, and all kinds of alien fluids from the people who control the splooge cannons at Gwar shows. We have been dragged through some of the eeriest shit with all types of insanity of an Imperial Triumphant gig. But I have never seen what Mac Sabbath put Le Poisson Rouge through. Mac Sabbath serves a savory feast for the senses—an hour and ten-minute excellent adventure of iconic parodies that give Okilly Dokilly a run for their money. Mac Sabbath is a tasty treats truck driven by the mechanics of a functioning McFlurry machine between Ronald Osbourne (vocals), Slayer MacCheese (guitar), the Grimalice (bass), and the Catburglar (drums). Their deep-fried provision to Black Sabbath’s music extracts this energy into a night of thrills and chills as brightly colored and as loud as the Processed patty palace’s Play Place we got lost in for hours during an evergreen time in our youth. Produced by four denizens of Golden Arches cuisine land after dark, Mac Sabbath channeled the genre-defining, doomy, and raw energy of Sabbath’s Ozzy-led legacy through a satirical filter, diverse and versatile crowd interaction between the audience from Ronald Osbourne and songs that simmer with hilarity—whether through the obscure might of the campy opener of Organic Funeral (Electric Funeral) the defiant charge of Frying Pan (Iron Man), or the anthemic More Ribs (War Pigs).

More than a mere parody band, seeing Mac Sabbath live is consuming seventy-six Big Macs and living with your arteries unclogged. Unlike most tribute acts, Mac Sabbath loves to put on a show. Every song included compelling stage wraps from Ronald Osbourne, no matter how many food-related puns he made about bands of yesteryear like Dokken Doughnuts or Great White Castle, for example. Their skits, no matter the style or timing, had their moments concerning the following song about to be performed. Without giving the entire performance away, some highlights to mention would be Ronald Osbourne leaving the stage for the Catburgler to serenade LPR with Bread (Beth by Kiss) with piano accompaniment from Mac Tomorrow Morning, as well Mac Sabbath acknowledging the Dio years of Sabbath with Alyson Drake Dellinger of Flummox as Mickey Dio on vocals for the Slob Drools (The Mob Rules). Also, Mac Sabbath grilled a few musical entrees in celebration of Iron Maiden’s The Trooper in the Grouper, with Ronald Osbourne waving around a Union Jack in the Box flag. My favorite apex of the gig was a running gag! With the mention of Cake, the Employee of the Month, the man with seemingly ninety-seven jobs sprinted onto the stage to wave around a sign like any time the secret word was announced and flashed on-screen during an episode of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. That excited me, and I’m sure others in the crowd, for the release of Pee-wee as Himself on May 23rd. With all costumed members and the audience involved in the joke, Mac Sabbath slid into a short version of Cake’s The Distance with a reprise.

Now that we are halfway to Halloween, the most metal of all holidays, the audience mixed in with the nature of the night by mainly cosplaying as the Hamburgler – an easy costume to put together. Some attendees came to vibe with the scene, and some dressed up with the intention to Hamburgle… Robble! Robble! Mac Sabbath is, for all intents and purposes, a band that caters to metal fans of all ages, creeds, races, and religions, but even ten years into delivering a big meal concert, there don’t seem to be signs of this tour being a final time to see them; no winding down, no chill-out time or sitting back and relaxing. But don’t let your guard down with seeing Mac Sabbath live: just because Mac Sabbath reviles the music of Black Sabbath, one of the perks, despite their attire, is the creativity they put into their crazy supplementations, and you don’t need to be a highbrow professor of musicology to realize that they respect the wondrous talents of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward as the rest of us gratefully watched up close and from afar the stupendious side show of Mac Sabbath.

As the hellish dinner service wound down, Mac Sabbath sent us home with some musical party favors of Fries Above as in Black Flag’s Rise Above with a vocal assist from the Employee of the Month and their Paranoid cirque du macabre of Pair-a-Buns. Overall, what we saw was surreal. I almost believe Mac Sabbath was a pixie figment of our imaginations, as if Ronald Osbourne pranked us by filling our heads with a haze of the Grimace shake and bewildered us without any semblance of normalcy through some powerful Ozzmosis. Whether real or not, I know that no two Mac Sabbath shows are alike. You will become a fan when they’ve finished their space circus catastrophe. One amusing band, one entertaining night! Mac Sabbath is an example of a stunning show and killer music — a work of art. May is no joke and neither are the concerts. If you’re ballin’ on a budget, they keep the ticket price low and the production value high, so get off the couch and see Mac Sabbath, as they’ll be on the road until early September with a few festivals to hit up as well, guaranteed to fill your summer concert quota. Plan your night out, get your tickets to mayhem, and take a friend to witness the sizzling escapades by way of a great time full of tasty riffs, super-sized vaudeville, and Mac Sabbath-fueled fun.