THE 69 EYES WITH WEDNESDAY 13

Brighton Music Hall
Allston, Massachusetts
January 25, 2020

Photos & Review by Michael LaFleche

Is there anything better than spending a rainy Saturday night with your friendly neighborhood metal band? Yes, when, when there are four of them coming in to blow your mind like The 69 Eyes, with Wednesday 13, along with Canadian band Sumo Cyco and Texas based The Crowned.

THE CROWNED Photo Gallery

This happened to be the second date on the “Hell Has No Mercy 2020” tour for this particular quartet of bands starting off in Brooklyn. The Crowned were first up, taking to a cozy stage at the Brighton Music Hall. The band hails from Texas and offers high energy hard rock, oozing with sexual overtones, great tight riffs from guitarists Anthony Carrillo and Jesse Rodriguez with Johnny Damien on bass and Marc Coronado lead vocal and drums. The band was great. Nothing dark about the music. Hard rock that is fun is how I would describe it. For example, towards the end of their set they release inflated condoms for the crowd to bat around.

SUMO CYCO Photo Gallery

Sumo Cyco was a great follow up to previous group, ratcheting up the energy even more for the denizens of the Brighton Music Hall with a 4 piece band that mixes dance vibes with more fun metal. The amazing Skye Sweetnam leads the metal free for all with her fantastic voice and dance moves. The band reminds me of a really, really hard No Doubt with Skye offering up a metal version of Gwen Stefani Ska with heavy bass driven metal. She had the crowd eating from her hands the whole night. Skye was simply not able to contain herself to the stage, routinely venturing into the crowd, hopping over the the bar on the other side of the club for shots, getting a ride from a crowd member on his shoulders back to the stage. She even got everybody in the crowd to sit on the floor for part of the show during the set. A great and entertaining metal band with some industrial/pop sensibilities make Sumo Cyco ripe for being a band to look out for!

WEDNESDAY 13 Photo Gallery

Next up was the legendary goth metal figure with Wednesday 13 for a wild time. Wednesday 13 always know how to get creepy, shocking, hardcore metal to come off as not so weird. Musically, the band had it put together matching Wednesday 13’s post apocalyptic Jack the Ripper style goth look.

Hailing from Finland, again where all good metal comes from, The 69 Eyes took to the stage for the final set comprised of 90 minutes of leather and guitars. The five member band fronted by Jyrki 69 has a dark country metal style that is a cross between the late vampire Peter Steele of Type O Negative and the late great Johnny Cash. Much of the lyrical content is filled with porcelain skinned goth themes, which I am certainly a fan of. The 69 Eyes set list included a dark and melodic theme including:

Two Horns Up
Never Say Die
Black Orchid
Perfect Skin
Betty Blue
Borderline
Hell Has No Mercy
Crashing High
The Chair
Cheyenna
Wasting The Dawn
27 & Done

The Hell Has No Mercy 2020 tour continues for the next month across the country.