There are over 40,000 college students in the Boston area when school is in session. By my count, that left about 39,970 students who missed the most amazing rock spectacle of 2002. This show was by far the greatest tour de force of glam, sex, rock and roll that this city has likely seen in decades. The Bentmen are certainly the reigning kings of good, clean (albeit messy) over-the-top rock in this city, but the delightfully perverse ISS step things up a notch and throw even crazier antics into the mix. It was already obvious that the band was a crowd favorite after one of the ISS dominatrixes handed out jaegermeister shots to everyone in the front row prior the first song. Proceeding past that, the tone was locked in for the night as the band stayed towards the back half of the stage. Meanwhile half-naked dancers and a sprightly demonic character introduced as “Buster the Human Blowtorch” completely amazed the hell out of everyone there, as well as partially singeing off some eyebrows in the process. If that wasn’t tough enough to follow, the next track was a masterful rendition of KISS’s “Rock and Roll All Night,” complete with more explosions, fire-eating and S+M cavorting than you can shake a giant rubber penis at. After this, chronology gets a tad blurry. Somewhere in this spectacle there was an incident involving a power-grinder and a steel chastity belt. Adding to that was the hypnotic groove laid down by the musicians proper, as well as the fact that the only illumination was being provided by strobe lights that were nothing if not trance-inducing. Later, we would find Buster out in the audience, dancing around on a nice pair of drywall stilts. Given the relatively low (10ft) ceiling of this room, it was no small feat for Buster to avoid the hanging light rigs. After growing accustomed to the massive sensory overload that was being forced upon me, I actually took some time to really listen to the music.

Musically, the band was tight, even amidst the orgiastic chaos on stage, everyone managed to hold together just fine. The guitarists really shone the brightest of all instrumentalists. Drawing it’s power from huge, arena-rock riffs, the music of the ISS is (and was) an exemplary showing of outright glam rock. It’s larger than life and louder than hell. The strongest original song of the night was definitely “Remake Me,” a powerful and longing song that the assembled crowd had no trouble headbanging along with. As for the man who completely stole the show... Normally there’s a rule that states that your back-up vocalist shouldn’t be better than your lead vocalist. The ISS apparently missed this when they singed on Torment as a backing vocalist. For those who are unfamiliar with the glam rock scene, Torment is the female stage persona of the incredibly talented Pat Briggs, formerly of the glam legend Psychotica. It took me a few songs to decide that it really was him, as his presence on the tour is not documented anywhere. Luckilly, he later introduced himself, much to the delight of the six or so rabid Psychotica fans (author included) who had no idea that he was touring with the ISS. His timbre is angelic and his range of expression would make many broadway producers stop and take serious notice. Indeed, Pat was actually asked to play in the original production of Rent. Make no mistake, Pat has one of the best voices to ever grace the stage of any popular music genre in any time period. If you can’t believe that, simply pick up any of Psychotica’s three releases and prepare to be proven dead wrong.

After returning to the stage for a much-demanded encore, Pat stepped up to the task of singing lead in a fantastic cover of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” Everyone’s favorite half-naked dancers returned to satiate the massive outpouring of testosterone at the front of the stage. Once again, there was much merriment had involving fire, explosives and the like. Finishing off the night was the obscenely wonderful group sing along to “People Who Died.” Essentially what happened is this; the dancers just kept pulling people up on stage until nobody else wanted to come up and dance around. I don’t know what’s wrong with some people, but dancing around on stage with the headlining band and a bunch of audience members is not the sort of thing that anyone would want to pass up. I had more pure, wacky fun on that stage in those five minutes than should be legally allowed.

To sum it all up: if you missed this show, you should be kicking yourself….very hard. Entertainment like this does not come around all that often and you have to seize the opportunity when it presents itself. I would like to extend a personal thanks to all band members for hanging out afterward to chat with the fans, you’re a great bunch of folks. Also, my best wishes go to Pat Briggs who has fallen on some hard personal times lately. Everyone here at SFTP offers our support and we can’t wait to see you in the spotlight again. Long Live Glam!!