[EVENT REVIEW] The Scene of a Crime: Two Nights With Ice Nine Kills
There’s no mistaking the band for anything else, as my nine-year-old daughter and I walk up the sidewalk in front of the House of Blues in Houston, Texas. It’s a blisteringly warm June day, and yet the line that stretches on for blocks consists of a mix of people dressed in varying shades of all black, fishnets, prop weapons (which will be gently confiscated or turned away at the security checkpoint and then dutifully stowed in cars or at the bag check), and enough fake blood to rival a night at Universal Studios in October.
An Art the Clown cosplayer in a full Santa suit high-fives my daughter as he walks past, while a girl with a blood-soaked nightgown offers us a bracelet from a Ziploc bag bulging with them. Fans sit in the shade and engage in lively discussions ranging from what they thought of the new Final Destination film to which song they’re most looking forward to tonight. In short, it’s an Ice Nine Kills show.
While the band has been chugging along for twenty-five years now under the stewardship of founding frontman Spencer Charnas, it is impossible to argue that the band has never been bigger than they are at this exact moment in time. Charnas has become something of a thirst trap slasher “final guy”-esque icon for those who like their men in masks on social media, as well as a staple at red carpets and conventions for all things spooky, and the band’s shift to being a horror-focused rock outfit has brought in an entire audience not used to seeing their favorite films reenacted onstage during a concert.
When The Silver Scream album debuted, clever lyrics and blistering riffs, along with scorching vocal work by Charnas, celebrated genre favorite films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, Friday the 13th, Jaws, Halloween, and more. The accompanying music videos saw the band paying tribute to these films and others, and the smash hit record was followed up with a sequel (as are all good horror properties): Welcome to Horrorwood.
These two albums catapulted Ice Nine Kills into much bigger stages and platforms than they’d previously occupied, seeing them touring nearly nonstop for several years running now and supporting massive acts like Metallica. With both albums, while the songs themselves pay homage to the horror films that Charnas loves so much, there is also wraparound mythology and lore, including a fictional slasher icon known as Silence, video cameos from genre icons such as Miko Hughes, Scout Taylor-Compton, Bill Moseley, Joe Bob Briggs and more, and elevated production value that turns the music videos themselves into actual cinematic experiences.
This has led to a fanbase that not only feels involved with the worldbuilding Ice Nine Kills is creating, but active in it - the band has created the lore, yes, but the fans have done everything from engage in a “Psychos Only” exclusive Discord server to appearing in the music videos themselves. The most recent offering, a video starring current horror icon favorite David Howard Thornton in his seminal role as Art the Clown in a tribute to Terrifier, has surpassed in views anything the band could’ve dreamt of and has led to everything from a major merch collaboration at stores like Hot Topic, Spirit Halloween and Spencer’s Gifts to convention appearances with hours-long lines wrapping around the con floors.
The band is officially in their “horror rockstar” era, and they decided to embark on a huge tour called “The Silver Scream-A-Thon” which sees them occupying each chosen city for two nights, playing a different album in its entirety each night. Night 1 sees The Silver Scream and Night 2 Welcome to Horrorwood, with different set pieces, costumes, and more for each night to make them unique and special.
While I myself have been an INK fan for many years (I remember seeing them at a side-stage at Warped Tour probably twenty years ago, I’m of “A Certain Age”), in the last year I was able to introduce my daughter to them. Her father is a special FX artist for horror movies, and since we both work in the industry, she has been exposed to horror all her life, but on kid-friendly terms. Now that she’s slouching toward her pre-teen years, she and I have been finding new ways to bond, and concerts have become a big part of that.
From choosing her outfit to making an ‘on the way to the venue’ playlist, concerts have become something of a ritual that my daughter and I share, and Ice Nine Kills is undoubtedly her favorite band. She can sing every lyric and has been working her way through the backlog of films the songs reference - I’ve restricted a few (I don’t think she’s quite ready for The Devil’s Rejects, Saw, Hostel or a few other selections just yet or maybe anytime soon) but the others she has wholeheartedly embraced.
When the tour was announced, we saw that the nearest date to us was Houston - and it landed squarely on my 39th birthday weekend. It was a no-brainer. We splurged, not only grabbing two GA standing tickets (a reasonable $60 each plus of course those lovely Livenation fees) but the special add-on VIP. For all of the INK shows I’ve seen thus far, they offer two tiers of VIP experience. The initial experience, “The Thrasher”, one VIP gets you a commemorative lanyard in a tote bag, a 12x12 flat of the album art, a photo with the band members taken on your own device, and some other commemorative item - in this case, it was a “Tour Passport” which is a very cute leather passport book with pages in it that you can have stamped each time you see the band, and a set of novelty Christmas string lights shaped like the Silence mascot.
You also get early entrance to the venue to stake out that perfect standing spot and early access to the merch table, which is a nice perk considering how long and unwieldy their line can get. The second package, “The Slasher”, is the same experience except the addition of a solo photo with Charnas where he will ‘kill’ you using your method of choice - he has prop weapons on hand as well as his own gloved hands to strangle you if you prefer a more intimate death for your new profile pic.
In my opinion, the packages are worth the money for the commemorative items and the early venue/merch access - the crowds for this band are intense and if you don’t get a spot on the barricade you’re likely not going to, as people are unlikely to move or shift around once the mayhem starts. But as a longtime fan, I do feel like the quality of the experience has gone down. At that price point, I would think the album art would come pre-signed or that fans would be allowed to bring one item for them to sign, or that the band would be a bit more engaged and take a little more time with fans.
However, the experience paid for itself for us - we ended up on the barricade both nights, which meant my daughter had a perfect unobstructed view of the madness we were about to experience. Very helpful when she’s only four feet tall.
For this particular tour, each night of the show featured entirely different merch options - Day 1 all of the merch was based on the Silver Scream album, and Day 2 was Horrorwood. They also had the new Pretty Evil makeup line on display, a collaboration involving Charnas’s fiancée Nadia Teichmann. The makeup includes a new Horrorwood-themed eyeshadow palette, lipsticks, and a pomade endorsed by Charnas himself to keep your ‘do in line, all in stylish packaging.
The show opened each night with three openers - Night 1 featured Melrose Avenue, The Funeral Portrait, and The Word Alive, while Night 2 highlighted Dark Divine, TX2, and Hail the Sun. All six bands kept it tight and polished, with energetic and upbeat sets that got the crowd moving in preparation for the main event. Both nights, Ice Nine Kills took the stage after Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand”, made iconic by the Scream franchise, of course, with the band slinking onstage right after a brief blackout to the thunderous screams and cheers of the crowd.
Night 1 saw Charnas sporting his signature Freddy Krueger glove and ripping into “An American Nightmare” as the band attacked their instruments with a vibrant energy that can’t be denied, while Night 2 saw the title track “Welcome to Horrorwood” whipping the crowd into a sing-along frenzy. Both nights, the audio mix was perfect, with the band on point and Charnas’s vocals soaring through the sold-out space.
The sweaty crowd screamed lyrics back at him, brandished blood-stained hands, and slammed amiably together in a spirited mosh pit. Crowdsurfers sailed overhead as cosplayers started a circle pit just behind us, knocking into each other with gleeful grins on their painted faces. Fans old and new delighted in hearing cuts like “Love Bites” and “A Grave Mistake”, and the crowd collectively lost their minds during “Rocking the Boat” when a giant inflatable shark took the stage to attack the band.
Each song came with its own stage set-up, consisting of custom-made masks and costume pieces, props, body parts, scrim screens, and actors portraying everything from T-virus zombies to Deadites to camp counselors to Laurie Strode to chainsaw-wielding Leatherfaces - a bloodsoaked Santa Claus, a group of torturers in Hostel aprons, businessmen in suits and ties lining up to be killed by a swing of Bateman’s axe, blondes in nightgowns holding up their hands in protest against a running shower and a mama’s boy with a kitchen knife.
Each night the show ended with such a bang the room seemed to vibrate with it - the final song left the crowd screaming so hard my ears were ringing even through the earplugs, and after a brief pause the band took the stage again for a three-song encore - Night 1 saw older hits “The Fastest Way to a Girl’s Heart is Through Her Ribcage” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and ended with the Hannibal Lecter-centric “Meat & Greet”, while Night 2 featured “The Nature of the Beast”, “Communion of the Cursed”, and of course, “A Work of Art”--- complete with Art the Clown performing a childbirth onstage and then whipping said prop baby around on an umbilical cord, then dispensing balloon-animal weapons into the crowd and asking for a Wall of Death. Only to happy to comply, the bloodthirsty crowd split like the Red Sea and on Charnas and Art’s dual command, the room exploded with feral horror-fan energy.
As we all stumbled out of the venue, exhausted and soaked in sweat, with bits of popped balloons and toilet paper clinging to our shoes, a Ghostface slumping past us toward the parking garage with his mask in one hand and a crumpled bloody set list in the other, my daughter looked up at me with absolute joy on her tired little face and said, “You already got us tickets for the August show, right?”
Words and photos by: Amanda
