Halloweeny musical madness with The Ghastly Ones!

Today I'm sharing pictures of the Halloween Rock and Roll Spook Show held Oct. 6th at The Thunderbird Cafe in Pittsburgh. It was one of the coolest event I've been to in a while: the music was cool, the concert-goers were cool, and even the cars parked outside were cool. (Click on any picture to see it larger.)

A 1959 hearse with tail fins!


The Voodoo Queen and I arrived at 9:00 PM, just in time for the screening of Night Of The Living Dead, which was followed by a showing of movie previews for fun films such as I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, Blood Of Dracula, Scream Blacula Scream, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Deathmaster, and many, many more. After that, local horror garage-rock band, The Forbidden Five opened with crazy, kick-ass songs like "Love And Formaldehyde" and "Chop You Up". They were followed by the spooky-surf instrumentals of The Nebulas, who were traveling with fellow Californians and headliners The Ghastly Ones.

All of them put on a great show, but the crowd was revved up to its highest pitch by The Ghastly Ones, even though their set was delayed by 20 to 30 minutes due to a series of equipment problems. (At one point before starting, the keyboard was not functioning right, and the lead singer told the crowd "We're experiencing massive organ failure.") Everything was finally fixed or replaced, and The Ghastly Ones knocked everyone over with their tremendous tunes and excellent guitar, drum and organ playing.

Hallowe'en trick-or-treat goodies were on hand for free, and all the bands had cool merch for sale, too. The CDs were all bargain priced, and I bought each of the CDs the three bands had for sale.

The event was a blast of visual and musical color, and the crazy concert-goers were dressed to kill.

A sampling of the creepy crowd:

The spooky cutie below, a sort of Halloween Betty Boop, welcomed you inside and took the cover charge:
I'm sorry I cut off the top of the head of the person on the left in the above picture. (Very sorry, as I had to pay the janitor $100 for cleaning up the spilled brains and getting rid of the body.)

A not-so-shrunken but seemingly drunken shrunken head:


Above: Derek Anderson, bass guitarist for Forbidden 5, and mad scientist Ben.

Pictures from the concert. Ladies and geeks, The Nebulas!

Closer up:

This couple below danced through the sets. Sometimes well, sometimes eccentrically, but always entertainingly.
Waiting in the upper floor area for the GHASTLY set to begin.

Here they are!


Some of the free Hallowe'en swag laying around everywhere. (The Mummy on the party hat looks more like the character on the Yummy Mummy cereal General Mills used to make!)

Below are a couple of shots of 1/2 of THE GHASTLY ONES, complete with silly, made-up captions below each picture!

"Come here, girl, and I'll show you my arthritic hands!"

"Now don't cry, my faux geisha cutie-- we'll help you find your 'onnur', whatever that is!"

Goodbye, Thunderbird Cafe! See ya 'round, Forbidden 5! So long, Nebulas! Goodbye, Ghastly Ones! And carpe noctem, everyone!

(Little did The Ghastly Ones know that I'd be sneaking onboard!)

Farewell!