Critic's evaluation
At 6pm, the city of São Paulo felt a sharp drop in temperature and in the sensation of heat. Under a clear night, the urban thermometers marked 17ºC on that October 19th, while the streets around the Barra Funda subway were already forming, from the pedestrians, a prelude to the nightlife of the São Paulo capital.
Nearby, the sidewalk of Francisco Matarazzo, at the back of Espaço Unimed, was filled with crowds of people, which grew louder as Audio Club approached. On the sidewalk, vendors paraded different commercial orations, attracting a considerable number of people to pay for a souvenir of the concert that would take place there in a few hours' time.
Inside Audio, at 7:30 p.m., the sections were filled to capacity with a crowd eager for a taste of Steel Panther's lust. Among the flags stretched out on the mezzanine, the house already had a very busy premium runway at 08:24 p.m.. At this point, the audience leaned on the sound of the playback, full of hard rock classics, as a way of easing the agonizing wait for the show to start.
Mostly made up of people in their 30s, the audience, with their glam look - complete with bandanas, tight pants printed with jaguar stripes, and the classic rock look based on black clothes - got excited every minute of the performance.
A precarious scenario, however, could be seen on the common runway, which was practically empty by 8:46pm. Whether it was the time, the day or the place scheduled to bring the eagerly awaited show to life, the overall picture was discouraging as there were big differences in the volume of the audience between the tracks.
At 9pm and under the reverberating sound of a crowd echoing "Steel Panther" in slogans, the stage was filled with reddish lighting and Steel Panther finally took the stage and introduced Eyes Of A Panther. Sexy, explosive and contagious, the song made the crowd, screaming and whistling, flash electric smiles as they sang the chorus in chorus, as well as responding to the interaction of Michael Starr, who chanted firm 'heys' with his arms out in a commanding pose.
Urging the audience to jump up and down, which they promptly did, the group launched into Let Me Cum In, a track full of sexual teasing between Starr, Sacthel and Spyder, who even positioned themselves in the center of the stage in a comical and debauched scene of collective ogling.
In this respect, Satchel was a true caricature of a real high school class speaker, full of accumulated testosterone and an uncontrollable sense of excitement. "This is amazing! We're finally in Brazil, in my favorite city called São Paulo!" he celebrates. "Nós amamos peitos!" he ventures in his stiff Portuguese.
Taking the stage for himself, the guitarist even took the opportunity to make fun of the lead singer himself. With a serious but animated face, in a true state of debauchery, he takes the microphone for himself and announces: "I'd introduce you to the best singer in the world. But, sorry, here's not here tonight", he said, laughing as he looked at Starr.
After an interaction full of laughter and jokes, Steel Panther resumed their band form and started Asian Hooker. During the track, Starr performed his first great feat: he looked out into the audience, in his own words 'looking for the most Asian girl in town. It was then that, at his command, the security guards pulled onto the stage a girl with the qualities they were looking for: slanted eyes and, therefore, an Asian appearance. In the form of a lost extra, the girl ended up wandering around and dancing alongside the members throughout the song.
After performing a powerful and devastating sequence of songs, such as The Burden Of Being Wonderful, Friends With Benefits and a quick guitar solo, the big moment arrived. At the age of 14, but with a youthfulness that is enviable for its provocative and belittling nature, Death To All But Metal was introduced. Sung at the top of his lungs by a raucous crowd, the track was followed, at Starr's command, by shouts of the word 'metal', organized by sectors of the audience.
After 1987 and Ain't Dead Yet, a ballad in which some of the members changed positions, with Starr on guitar and Stix Zadinia on keyboard, another memorable moment was announced. And it was another moment of interaction that was impossible to keep serious.
It was then that the band pulled another girl on stage, put her on a stool at the front of the stage and made her the absolute protagonist of the moment. Named Kin, the girl was the inspiration for Satchel, Zadinia and Starr to make their respective love serenades, declarations directed entirely at her. This scenario ended up being a hilarious interlude for Girl From Oklahoma.
Then the bizarre occurred in its most denotative form. A lascivious riot. A spree so absurd it was insane. To introduce Community Property, at Starr's behest, any girl who wanted to come on stage was welcome. As a result, the stage was filled with girls of all different personalities, turning into a real harem.
With the girls still on stage, the band launched into Party All Day (Fuck All Night). This track was very well received by the audience, who jumped hysterically at the beginning and sang the chorus "Whoa, hey, hey, hey! Fuck all night and party all day!".
The curious thing was that, even after the band left the stage, the audience continued, of their own free will, to proclaim the chorus while asking, in slogans, for the group to return for the encore.
After a short while, Zadinia, Satchel, Starr and Spyder returned to their positions and pulled out Gloryhole, a song that had the audience jumping up and down and making their arms an extension of the horned hand in a unique design that dominated the audio.
Party Like Tomorrow Is The End Of The World was introduced as the song that would bring the performance to its ultimate end. The song was also responsible for having an audience in an insane state, jumping and singing all the time, as well as doing rigid waltzes with horned hands. As a grand finale, Starr took the microphone for himself and asked the audience: "If we come back, will you see us win?", which was answered by a resounding 'yeah', leaving him with a visible look of satisfaction and job done as, at 10.41pm, he left the stage with his bandmates.
As expected, the show was full of excess. Excessive comicality, punctuality, synchronicity, pressure, sound quality and, why not, verbality. A real scene of relaxation, to the point where it seemed that those on stage were definitely not at work, but simply having the purest, most honest, lascivious, immature and pubescent fun.
It's no wonder that during the show, Steel Panther, starting with spokespeople Satchel and Starr, proved to be an excellent master of ceremonies. With their long speeches, mostly given by the guitarist, the band not only managed to dominate the audience with their charisma, but they also managed to make the audience itself part of the party as protagonists and not just spectators.
In this sense, between the simple act of inviting the audience to sing along, clapping their hands or chanting slogans, the group dared, on several occasions, to make the audience an extension of the stage. Not by chance, there were moments when the stage was completely taken over.
Examples of this are the tracks Asian Hooker, Girl From Oklahoma and the chaotic Community Property. After all, during the songs, not only Steel Panther was the protagonist, but also the guests. Full of lasciviousness, especially when Kin took to the stage, the group were never shy about their insistent requests for the girl to show her breasts, which she did, but only her bra, especially discouraging Satchel and Starr.
Of the songs themselves, the show had six high points. And the tracks responsible for them were Eyes Of A Panther, Let Me Cum In, Death To All But Metal, Party All Night (Fuck All Day), Gloryhole and Party Like Tomorrow Is The End Of The World. During the songs, the audience responded well to Starr's encouragement, jumping, singing and turning the atmosphere into a real horn-hand festival.
All in all, Steel Panther proved to have dynamism, chemistry and an enviable control of the audience, with their speeches full of silliness and lascivious comic attitudes. Producing a strong and powerful sound, as well as being embraced by mostly pink pastel lighting, the group made their second visit to Brazil, and their first as a solo act, a real party.
Personified as court jesters, the group, who made Spyder experience the country for the first time, made crying forbidden, but laughter released, without exception, throughout the entire 1h41 long of the purest comic-musical interaction.
