by Michael McNichols
2/4/07 Chicago, IL

“Jesus is a cunt!”

These words greeted me from the back of a teenager’s t-shirt as I stepped into the lobby of the House of Blues on Superbowl Sunday for the Cradle of Filth show. If you’re Jewish, that really means nothing to you, doesn’t it? It’s the thought that counts I suppose.

Gas masks, surgeon masks, chains, leather, fishnets, I saw it all. Oddly enough, Dani Filth (hey, he wants to be called that) and his Cradle of Filth bandmates were the most normal-looking people at the show. After scraping off some of their makeup, they could have walked into McDonald’s and ordered a Big Mac without much complaint.

I expected to see teenagers at the show, but it really threw me to see so many little kids running around, dragging their parents behind them. Like everyone else, the kids had caked their faces in makeup reminiscent of The Crow though they’re probably too young to have ever seen that movie. Some even dragged long trench coats behind them or wore spike-studded dog collars around their necks.

What did these kids have to rebel against? Long division? Did a fire drill interrupting their naptime make them want to slit their wrists? Why didn’t their parents think to add a leash to the dog collar?

And where’d they learn about Cradle of Filth anyway? Their older brothers and sisters? Did MTV make them just look really, really “kewl?” It couldn’t have been their parents. Every chance they got, they snuck off into the corners to watch the Bears versus Colts on TV.

I should note that outside temperatures had reached below zero and a cold draft drifted throughout the venue.

All the same, more than a few guys eagerly took their shirts off and a few their pants. Many girls wore skintight outfits along with skirts or shorts that just barely stretched down onto their thighs. Yeah, some of the guys dressed like that too.

Now I don’t really care how other people dress. I myself wore a long leather trenchcoat to the show, the type teens wear to conceal their automatic weapons before opening fire on their high school cafeterias.

However, many who attended the show are obviously going through a phase. Ten years from now, they’ll laugh at how they dressed. Another good chunk of people likely only dress up like that when going out to see bands like Cradle of Filth. While I wonder if a gas mask you only wear once or twice a year or at all is really worth owning, neither of these things are that bad.

As a fully-grown, somewhat mature, cynical young man, I find tattoos, piercings, and moody, incessant, suicidal darkness interesting, as do many others around my age. If someone wants to go out, dress up as Count Dracula or Captain Zombie, I say more power to you. It’s not like you’re free to do at work or school. However, don’t take yourself too seriously.

I constantly overheard people moaning “too many people here are freaking douchebags!” One bald, white guy, dressed as a voodoo priest with a plastic skull hung around his neck, even told me, “Everyone here shops at poser place! You know, Hot Topic!” When I asked him where he bought his outfit at, he laughed and admitted Hot Topic.

Never forget that no matter how you dress someone will always think you look stupid. But what is the point in badmouthing someone because they don’t look as much like a vampire or zombie as you do? How do you know what an actual creature of the night looks like? They don’t exist! And if, by some freakish chance, you are a vampire or zombie, why aren’t you more concerned with killing us all?

Cradle of Filth understands this. For years, people have pointed out their sly sarcasm and its blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention. Between songs, Dani Filth talked about cankerous pits of hell, angels of universal destruction, and whatnot in a scratchy, sinister child’s voice. He actually sounded a lot like the girl possessed by Satan in The Exorcist reading her bad poetry.

If you believe this is his real voice, please raise your hand. All right, now I have to slap you. Can you imagine Dani Filth dragging a goat’s skull behind him on a noose into his accountant’s office and ask to get his taxes done in that voice? No matter how you like to dress up, could you do the same thing and expect to be taken seriously?

People who get upset over Cradle of Filth’s antics and those who take them too seriously aren’t in on the joke. Like the background decorated with a large imprint of Filth’s shadow, his voice, the flickering lights, smoke, the dim lights along with the outfits they wear all create a little fantasy world for everyone at the show.

It’s an utterly ridiculous fantasy world, but Cradle of Filth knows that and doesn’t care. If they did care about playing the part of zombie-vampires, they’d turn on the crowd and feats on their flesh and blood. So why should you care? If you’re going to the trouble to wear a straitjacket and a gas mask to a show, do it to be part of the show, not to impress anyone.

Realize how absurd it all is and go with it at least for one night. You’re not Cradle of Filth. Tomorrow you have to go back to the real world so enjoy yourself while you can and let everyone else do the same.