Tragedy – All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees and Beyond – Swansea, Wales
Tragedy – All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees and Beyond
Let’s Make Tragedy Happen!
How Deep Is Your Mum Tour, Sin City Swansea UK 7th March 2017.
Tragedy are an all metal tribute to the Bee Gees and beyond. With over-the-top bombastic camp, these New York City glam rockers have been bridging the glittery gap between disco and metal since 2007 and their ‘We Rock Sweat Balls and Can Do No Wrong’ debut release.
As first glance, you would be forgiven for thinking that Tragedy are a cheesy, novelty, short-lived, flash-in-the-pan concept type band. Well, you’d be right, that’s exactly what they are, just without being a flash-in-the-pan and, short-lived. On paper, Tragedy read like a bad joke but in practice they are anything but.
Tragedy are changing the face of music with their unique blend of cheesy disco-metal, from the Bee Gees to Sister Sledge, from Cher to The Weathergirls; heck, even Rick Astley and Madonna get the metal makeover treatment!
On Tuesday, 7th March 2017 Tragedy brought their unique blend of Disco Metal to Sin City, in the City of Swansea, the second largest in Wales.
Sin City is one of the most popular music venues in Swansea. Regularly full of both students and live music fans, it’s known for being one of the best places to catch live performances. It caters for wide range of musical tastes across its three regular club nights.
Sin City is a large venue spread over two floors, each with their own bar. The low ceilings make it an intimate venue, helped further by the small gap between the crowd and the low stage. It also features some more secluded areas if you’re looking to take a break from the music.
On arriving at the venue, it was clear to see from the outset that this was not going to be the most populated gigs of all times, when the doors opened there was just six of us entering the venue. Punters slowly drifted in, but if I said there was 150 people there, you’d be wanting change. Apparently, this was the same last year the when they played Wales.
This lack of patronage certainly didn’t deter the bands and the proceedings were kicked off by all girl classic rock trio Häxan, from South Wales / Cheltenham.
Enter Tragedy! Led by Lance and a blaring siren, the anticipation was building, the atmosphere ever more electric and I for one was looking forward to this!
Tragedy played their hearts out throughout the set despite the sadly sparse crowd and continued to do so with all the camp vigor expected from New York City’s number 1 party band.
Think Alice Cooper stage theatrics (without the deaths) with Lance being the class clown, set to the mid-70s, early 80s disco sound tracks with everything turned up to 11 and you have a sense of what Tragedy are about.
During the encore the boys dragged everyone on the stage and were rocking out to Rick Astley and KC/DC and the Sunshine Band.
That’s just the start of it though, as well as musicianship to rival the best of metal bands, it’s the ability to mashup disco and metal that is the real skill. Take The Weathergirls 1983 hit “It’s Raining Men” for example, this is mashed up with Slayer’s 1986 metal classic “Reign in Blood”, and seriously, you have to hear it to believe it. (There’s a music video on YouTube, so really, there’s no excuse).
This trend continues throughout Tragedy’s songs and I’m hearing Black Sabbath riffs, Whitesnake, Ozzy Osbourne and countless other classic rock and metal songs intertwined with classic disco and pop anthems. Whoever came up with this idea must have been off their rocker, but needs to be applauded and as ludicrous as it sounds, this actually works.
Tragedy are heavy riffs, blistering solos, twin guitar harmonies, searing falsetto only dogs can hear with a good dose of the Village People throw in the mix. Confused, I did tell you it read like a bad joke.
Tragedy has headlined festivals such as Bloodstock, Rebellion, Summer Breeze, and Hammerfest, which makes it’s more bewitching (no, I don’t think they’ve had the treatment yet) that there was such a poor turnout. The real tragedy here is that no one has really got hold of these boys and shown the world what they can do. Granted, we hard rock and metal fans know what they are all about, but even non-believers I’ve shown them to are converts. Their music is infectious, and even the most staunch doubters can’t help but shout “turn it up” when I play their versions of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ and their take on the classic “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease that broke the internet in 2015.
Tragedy has appeal to all walks of life, from metal fans, to disco and pop fans. Take Rick Astley’s 1986 number 1 hit (in 25 countries don’t you know) “Never Gonna Give You Up”. This gets the proper treatment with the thunderous death metal intro and pounding beat throughout whilst maintaining the original facade of the song and its danceability.
Tragedy are a six piece outfit formed in 2007 consisting of:
Disco Mountain Man – Lead vocals, lead back-up vocals, lead keyboards, lead cowbell
Mo’Royce Peterson –Lead vocals, lead back-up vocals, lead lead guitar
Andy Gibbous Waning — Lead bass, lead vocals, lead back-up vocals
Garry Bibb — Lead guitar, lead back-up vocals
The Lord Gibbeth – Lead drums, lead vocals
Lance – Towel boy, complete idiot
Tragedy are a rather strange looking outfit, but thoroughly nice guys and have to be seen to be believed. If you get the change to go to a show they will definitely make “You Feel like Dancing” and I bet you can’t resist the urge to “shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your booty”
