Although known as a smaller venue among the many decadent destinations around Los Angeles, the elegant El Rey Theater has been home to many big names in both the underground and main stream popular music. The intimate proximity of the stage, killer sound system, and red velvet everything make for the kind of venue most suitable for industrial royalty like Oh Gr.
Opening the El Rey is a dance punk band from Vancouver who call themselves Left Spine Down. Through a very energetic series of novelties and stage theatrics, singer kAINE D3L4Y engages the audience beyond their fast tempo bass lines and guitar distortion. Their ability to blend musical genres while still remaining under a dark and baroque moniker is a talent which Jay Gordon himself would tip his hat to. This electro-industrial hybrid is not to be missed.
Nivek Ogre has a signature singing style you could pick out of a choir. With the deft aid of sound engineer and synthesizer jockey Mark Walk, OhGr puts on a performance capable of whipping an apathy fueled audience of industrial youth into an all our dance frenzy. Though the music is not your typical electronic dance music – far from it – OhGr employs plenty of dissonance, heavy lyrical motifs, primal screaming, compressed or chopped up vocoding, and even tap-your-toes hip-hop beats. While slightly more abstract than Skinny Puppy, fans of the genre are both engaged and satisfied with the ethereal vocals of frontman Nivek Ogre. Undoubtedly esoteric, OhGr puts on a powerful performance that is the elation of any leather clad rebel.
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