I'm shoulder-to-shoulder in Brisbane's The Princess Theatre (21 November), sweating under red lights thick enough to feel like stage blood, getting shoved deeper into the pit as Wednesday 13 stride out like they're dragging a storm behind them.
The place is already humming – punters painted up, ripped fishnets, PVC, a bloke in a cowboy hat with a skull sticker peeling off the brim. Perfect chaos soup.
Wednesday 13 aka Joseph Poole from Murderdolls, is stepping out like he's stalking a foggy graveyard in a B-grade Hammer horror flick; the room is frothing. They tear straight into 'Look What The Bats Dragged In', the guitar cutting through the air like someone sharpening a stake on concrete.
The crowd yells the title back like a curse. Before I can breathe, it's mutating straight into 'Good Day To Be A Bad Guy' – I'm laughing because everything feels a bit too on-the-nose. Too theatrical. Too good.
Wednesday 13 - image © Clea-marie Thorne
'Rotting Away' is crawling through the room, everything pulsing like a swamp that's come to life. Three teens in corpse paint are acting like they're choking on the chorus, one of them shrieking every line like he's practising for a séance. 'I Want You... Dead' lands like a punchline from an undead stand-up comic – fans are loving it.
When Wednesday hits 'The Ghost Of Vincent Price', the whole place is glowing purple and shadowy like classic gothic cinema while the recording plays. A bloke behind me whispers: "This is some proper spooky sh.t," and his mate just nods like they're in church.
'When The Devil Commands' stomps through the speakers, pure grindhouse energy. 'Summertime Suicide' flips the mood. Backlight shimmer, fans screaming every word even though some are nearly already out of breath.
Wednesday 13 - image © Clea-marie Thorne
A fan favourite '197666' turns the pit into a carnival ride you can't get off, as I'm pin-balled between strangers with wide eyes. Wednesday is clearly loving the fan reaction to this.
'In Misery' and 'Haunt Me' wash over like some undead love letter, all dread, all drama. By 'Nowhere', Wednesday's voice is sounding perfectly frayed, like grave dirt caught in the throat.
When they hit 'I Walked With A Zombie', the entire crowd is doing this janky, hilarious undead sway – arms out, heads back, like extras from 'Night Of The Living Dead' who got into the tinnies early.
They duck off, but the chanting is instant – "WED-NES-DAY! WED-NES-DAY!" – and then the encore blows the doors wide open. 'Bad Things' has people grinding, moshing, throwing devil horns like they're auditioning for hell.
Wednesday 13 - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Then the last grenade. The signature umbrella that says it all. 'I Love To Say F...' explodes through the room and middle fingers are raised toward the stage. Everyone is yelling "F...!" so loudly the floorboards are frightened.
Half an hour of sweat, make-up streaks and tiny spiders thrown from a halloween Jack-o-lantern infesting the floor of the venue ensue. The horror-punk hymns replaced by a dark stage for changeover. Now everything changes.
When Kim Dracula (vocals) walks out for their first headliner set down under, it's Tassie's Samuel Wellings, in their custom-made military/ airline-style jacket with gold details and epaulets and blackened eye sockets, who is now before us in full supernatural form as Kim Dracula!
Within seconds of their appearance, they suck the whole venue into another dimension.
Lights flicker like faulty morgue bulbs. Smoke billows low like it's crawling straight out of a crypt. It feels theatrical, but in that unsettling, arthouse-horror way. German Expressionism meets TikTok fever nightmare.
Kim Dracula - image © Clea-marie Thorne
The intro hums; people are frozen, waiting for the strike of 'Land Of The Sun' and as it hits, the room erupts. 'My Confession' thumps through the floorboards, and Dracula is pacing like a vampire king inspecting livestock. 'Romance' swirls into 'The Bard's Last Note', everything shimmering with blood-red strobes like a heartbeat under a microscope.
'Undercover' has the crowd bouncing like a demented trampoline park. A goth couple just back from the barrier are shouting the chorus at each other like they're mid-breakup, but having fun anyway.
Kim Dracula - image © Clea-marie Thorne
By the time 'Kitty Kitty' slinks in, the whole place is vibrating with unhinged energy from the electronic pulses, screams and riffs snarling like feral cats under a full moon.
'Industry Secrets' feels like someone leaking classified files from hell. Then that first chord of 'Even Flow' hits – yes, that 'Even Flow'. I'm on the fence for this one, but some punters lose it like cavemen who have just discovered fire.
Kim Dracula - image © Clea-marie Thorne
'Reunion And Reintegration' follows like a weird ritual, everyone swaying in cult formation. 'Are You?' flicks in like a blade. 'Divine Retribution' lands heavy, theatrical, dripping in wrath – classic Dracula melodrama but dialled up to 900.
Then comes the chaos medley: 'Paparazzi' folding into 'Seventy Thorns', the room snapping into this whip-crack rhythm, moshing like a possessed cheer squad. The sax steals the light for awhile as we cheer them on.
'Luck Is A Fine Thing' locks jaws with 'Say Please'. It's campy, sharp, playful violence. Then the cursed mash: 'Careless', 'Rose', 'Smooth Criminal', 'Make Me Famous'.
Kim Dracula - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Each one stitched together like Frankenstein limbs. So wrong, but so right. Pretty but grotesque. A little funny. A little scary. All too soon they vanish, but of course we're not done. It's encore time.
The finale starts with 'In Threes' and creeps in like a witchlight. This could be a séance or a lullaby for a creature under your bed. It's hard to tell. Then the final beast – 'Killdozer' slams into the room with that Silverchair twist, every Aussie in the crowd yelling-singing along like it's hardwired into our DNA. The pit is spinning, bodies are crushing everywhere, while horror rock-rave madness swallows the entire theatre.
Dracula stands in the lights at the end, chest heaving, eyes blackened out, looking like a demon that just stepped off the set of Nosferatu 2: Tasmanian Blood Reckoning.
I guess you could say the Horror Down Under 2025 tour hammers like the stolen pulses of the undead.
Each band is supplying beats charged with some feral musical necromancy, thudding through the bodies of their fans. All the while, the lighting and PA are lurking as loyal ghouls who know exactly what spell is being thrown from the stage – the part they must play in this rock ritual brings life to the dead parts inside each of us.
Kim Dracula - image © Clea-marie Thorne
The wild part? This is only the first summoning. The rest of Australia is yet to step into the circle, offer their sweat to the stage altar, and let this tour carve its mark into them.
Poor bastards won't even know the ritual has already begun, until their under it's spell! I'm standing here, sweat-dripping, rattled, grinning like a spellbound sicko.
