W.A.S.P. at O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester on September 27th 2025

There are old adages, that says you can never go home. That you can’t cross the same bridge twice, and the past is something to be left in the past. For many years, Metal Survivors W.A.S.P.  have adhered to that doctrine, preferring to make new music as opposed to feeding the nostalgia machine. But there is a point where you start to re-evaluate everything, and suddenly Blackie Lawless and co. found their past glories being rehabilitated and venerated as cornerstones of our world. Rather than just another potty-mouthed hair metal band, W.A.S.P. have been reclassified as the great creator we all knew they were. This includes their debut album getting the spotlight and plaudits it never really got the time. Shadowed by all the furore about that song, it is easy to overlook what a masterpiece their self-titled debut actually is. Yes, it revels in melody, but there is also a heaviness that spoke to those wanting more crunch and corrosion in their metal. Many of those who would go on to cultivate thrash and death metal openly cited it as a waypost to these forbidden musical lands.

Next Saturday sees W.A.S.P.  finally give us what we want. That first album in full (though not THAT song as contrary to what some say it was pulled before the album was ever released). The O2 warehouse in the delectable tropical Trafford is the place to be on Saturday, 27th September, as W.A.S.P.  reanimate the past and bring back the album that, for so many, started it all. Whilst ‘L.O.V.E. Machine’ and ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’ have been constant mainstays in their set down the years. This retrospective has seen tracks like ‘Tormentor’ and ‘School Daze’ reactivated for the first time in forty years. So get yourself down to sunny Trafford as it is the place to be to relive the past that shaped so many of our futures.