Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction fail to inspire much crowd reaction at the Commodore

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 24, 1988

By Steve Newton

It was supposed to be a triple-bill of up-and-coming hard rock acts. First, Balaam and the Angel had a falling out with Zodiac Mindwarp (a.k.a. Mark Manning), and opted for a tour with the Mission instead. Then the guitarist for L.A. Guns broke his hand falling off a motorbike during a video shoot.

Luckily enough, Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction made enough noise for three bands last Monday (June 20). They also got some help from fast-rising local rockers the Scramblers, who opened up.

Yup, Zodiac and the boys sure did make a racket–but the Commodore crowd of 650 or so was the exact opposite. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a quiet bunch of hard-rock/glam-metal fans in my life. There must have been a lot of energy-depleting parties on the weekend that nobody invited me to or something. I mean, the crowd was just dead.

That didn’t stop Mindwarp and his cohorts from trying to raise them, using rude lingo and flashy strobes with equal abandon. “Lock up your daughters…and grandmothers too,” warned Zodiac, while introducing wildman guitarist Cobalt Stargazer, “’cause this guy will [you know the word] anything!”

Then Cobalt headed out into the crowd for a thoroughly boring solo that he played while running around the club, cruising up the Commodore’s balcony to the soundboard, walking on tables, and making crude gestures every which-way. But even that hardly got a response from the crowd. Tuff luck, Stargazer.

Looking biker mean in enough black leather to make cows wince, the British band whipped through most of the tunes from its latest release, Tattooed Beat Messiah, but I couldn’t lick the feeling that they were just going through the motions. And judging by the reaction of the crowd as a whole, I wasn’t alone. Still, they were kinda fun to watch.