Photos/Review: Wednesday 13 @ The Glasshouse

Horror punk mayhem master Wednesday 13 has consistently been putting out new music every 2-3 years since his 2005 debut albumTransylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying, and the Dead as well as making music with Murderdolls before his solo material and releasing albums with Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13 before Murderdolls, quite a busy man and a quality pedigree of accomplishments and kickass music. April 25 has been set for the release date for Mid Death Crisis, Wednesday 13’s latest collection of soon to be horror classics and with the first single “When the Devil Commands” already released, the anticipation is high for the full release.

Celebrating the release of Mid Death Crisis as well as the music he made with the late Joey Jordison and Murderdolls, Wednesday 13’s There’s No Such Thing as Monsters tour with support from Stitched Up Heart, The Dead Rabbitts and I Ya Toyah made a stop at The Glasshouse in Pomona, CA on Saturday night March 22 for a ghoulish night of extreme music.

At 7:00pm sharp, I Ya Toyah, the singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist hit the stage to kick off the night with a very entertaining 30-minute set of her flavor of industrial/electronic rock. In Polish “I Ya Toyah” means “It’s Just Me” and that is all that was on stage – she played guitar, sang and worked the all the synths and electronics as she delivered quite a show that included her own video screen and various lasers setup across the stage which provided a visual spectacle matching her smooth yet chaotic vocals. Her musical style is in the realm of Gary Numan and KMFDM and she played six songs that included a creative cover of Depeche Mode’s “It’s No Good” and even though the venue was still filling up she had all those already there fully engaged.

I Ya Toyah

Photo Credit: Chris Loomis

There were definitely some Escape the Fate fans in the house as ETF’s vocalist Craig Mabbitt’s side project The Dead Rabbitts played next and delivered an eight-song set of metalcore to satisfy the appetite of The Dead Rabbitts fans. The band is supporting their latest album that was just released back on March 14 and three songs were played off that album including “Hellscape” that had Alecia “Mixi” Demner from Stitched Up Heart come out and sing on vocals with Mabbitt as she appears on the album version of the song.

The band wears horror inspired, sinister looking rabbit masks that adds to the presentation of the music although on this night the stage lighting was extremely dark making it difficult to truly get the visual element of the aesthetic of the masks. Overall, the band hit hard with brutal breakdowns and brutally melodic vocals taking the crowd further into the zone of readiness for Wednesday 13.

The Dead Rabbitts

Photo Credit: Chris Loomis

This was somewhat of a hometown show for Stitched Up Heart as Mixi is from down the 91 freeway in Riverside and guitarist Merritt Goodwin was born in Pomona. The band opened the set with “To the Wolves” which was the title track from their 2023 album and Craig Mabbitt came out onstage to share vocals with Mixi as he sang on the record with her – quite a way to open the show. The band ripped through nine songs during their 40 minutes onstage and Mixi repeatedly was asking for a bigger mosh pit in between songs. The band complimented the sound of The Dead Rabbitts well with their own heaviness and brutality. Mixi has a powerful, sometimes super aggressive, sometimes soft and gentle voice and the band hits hard making for a unique and heavy sound. She grabbed a guitar for a few songs and the band ended with their biggest hit “Monster” which is truly a monster of a song in-itself. Again, the stage lights were non-existent which is unfortunate as you could barely see the band as they were performing which sacrifices the band to audience visual connection.

Stitched Up Heart

Photo Credit: Chris Loomis

The Duke of Spook, Wednesday 13 took the stage at 9:30pm and played an outrageously electrifying 90-minute set for the Pomona crowd. Opening with a trio of classic songs – “Look What the Bats Dragged In”, “197666” and “I Want You . . . Dead”, immediately you felt like you were in a B-movie fever dream brought to life at The Glasshouse. With his trademark white corpse paint, Wednesday 13 came out headbanging and kicking along with Diego “Ashes” Ibarra and Jack Tankersley on guitars, Troy Doebbler on bass and the hard-hitting Mike Dupke on drums.

After the first three songs, Wednesday 13 addressed the crowd and asked them to sing the chorus for the next song, the recently released banger “When the Devil Commands”. With flashing backlights and bright lights up front rotating between white, blue, red and green, the stage was the perfect playground for the horror themed night. The front of the stage was lined with two-foot-tall risers that Wednesday 13 would march back and forth on allowing the crowd in the back a perfect view of the ringmaster at work.

The set was all killer with no filler and songs like “Rambo” and “I Walked with a Zombie” got the crowd rowdier and more energized, two additional new songs were also played and went over well live – “No Apologies” and “In Misery”. On the record, Taime Downe from Faster Pussycat contributes vocals on “No Apologies” so that is something to look forward to hearing. The band was tight, and all members certainly seemed to be having fun interacting with each other which always adds to the visual experience from a fan perspective.

After “Bad Things” the band left the stage for a few minutes then returned with a magnificent six song encore consisting of Murderdolls and Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 covers. Wednesday 13 with his captain’s hat on led the charge that ended with the super catchy “Dead in Hollywood” then of course the FUCK umbrella came out and the night ended with the cheesy yet brilliant anthem “I Love to Say Fuck”. Wednesday 13 is a fireball of energy and based on what has been released already from the new album, we can expect another slab of timeless anthems that we will all be singing 20 years in the future. The “There’s No Such Thing as Monsters” tour runs through early May and completes the west coast run the week of March 24 then heads east, don’t miss this twisted traveling circus of horror – buy your tickets today!