Chicago-based Disturbed sounded and looked like the gents from Anthrax. With a cornrow beard and gas-station attendant attire, lead singer David Draiman began the band's set in a straight jacket, grunting like a skinhead heavy-metal mutant. Disturbed offered up grinding hardcore complete with some decent tempo changes and sampling courtesy of DJ man and keyboard hack Mike Wengren, whose work countered guitarist Dan Donegan's one-fingered leads and Draiman's Arabic-like chants, dog barks and growls.

Whereas Disturbed were drone, dark and serious, Dope were edgy, dangerous and fun.

Tripp Eisen of Dope at the Bowery Ballroom, 5/31/00, photo by Glenn Emerstone © 2000 NY Rock

New York-based Dope opened with "I Am Nothing," punching holes through the police barrier tape that hid the band's stage set. The props, which were both ugly and urban, included barbed-wire fencing and target-practice posters on the band's amps – all as if the band were escaping from the scene of a crime.

Guitarist Tripp Eisen looked like an escaped mental patient with his pale-faced lanky frame, herky, jerky head movements and dreds whip-lashing to and fro. Singer Edsel Dope sounded and looked like a replica of Red Hot Chili Pepper's Anthony Kiedis. Equal parts Kiss, Chili Peppers, and hardcore rap, the band puts back the "show" in show business with its distorted, creepy and heavy sound. Ultimately, Dope's act was as cheap, warped, repetitious, gassy – and fun – as a couple of 50-cent hot dogs at the local Papaya King in NYC.

Ending their all-too-brief thirty-minute set with NWA's "Fuck the Police" and "Pig Society," Dope shot their load straight up the asses of the kids left clamoring for more, unfortunately, with no encore. Nevertheless, with their assaultive, doomsday, fist-raising industrial metal, Dope managed to score big time with the crowd. Move over Rob Zombie.

June 2000

• Music News • Join our mailing list • Send this page to a friend