THOR

Live @ The Sunset Tavern

Seattle, WA

December 14, 2005

By Cheryl (Sugarbuzz Seattle Correspondent)

Photos by Cheryl
The term “heavy metal god” is often bandied about, typically used to describe prominent or memorable metal musicians. But no one possesses the combination of head-banging heavy metal with mythology and heroic strength like that of gladiator-rock founder and deity, THOR.

Jon Mikl Thor launched his metal career with his 1973 performance on the Merv Griffin show (way before KISS). There’s a good chance that I watched that particular show with my Mom way back when. Numerous heavy metal albums, movies, and Mr. USA and Mr. Canada titles later, THOR, paved the way for the likes of other metal theater acts such as Manowar, Mercyful Fate and Gwar, and has been pumping out music ever since.

We (relatively) innocent Seattle rockers converged at the Sunset Tavern on this dark and cold hump-day in December to see the original metal god himself declare war with his pounding fusillade of rock.

I was at a truffle-making party earlier in the evening, licked my fingers clean then hucked-butt over to the show. My sense of the lineup was apparently way off since I completely missed the opening act, Midnight Idols, and dammit, I really wanted to catch their set. Zero Down, served as the savory and heavy-hitting rock appetizer just before THOR, finishing their set with a storming cover of Grim Reaper’s “See You in Hell”.
Ominous music rumbled in anticipation as the pagans tightened near the stage. Like a clap of thunder, from behind a curtain emerged our metal warrior, THOR! We all cheered and someone yelled, “Hail THOR” as he took the stage, wearing a long black cape, chest armor, Lucha mask beneath a horned Viking helmet, football shoulder pads, studded groin shield, rubber skull kneepads and giant boots. The music built up into powerful, skull-crushing metal while everyone’s fists pumped triumphantly in the air.

On lead guitar was Canadian rock legend and Thor’s original guitarist, Frank Soda (Frank Soda and the Imps). Keeping things steady on bass was Frank’s 18 year old son, Umberto, and two other youngins on rhythm guitar and drums, rounding out the renegades.

During muscle-rocking “Intercessor” from THOR’s recently released B-movie of the same title (a sequel to cult-classic “Rock N’ Roll Nightmare”), Frank is wearing a TV-set over his head. “BOOM” there is an explosion behind a stack and THOR goes down on the ground before me and Frank’s still playing. With no doubt unbeatable, THOR rises back up for more metal war, because he eats rock for breakfast and rock for lunch.

“Anger” starts up, while lurking in the crowd is a skeletal, black-clad monster. THOR seeks the monster out of the audience and slays him with a (rubber) axe to the head in a (semi) epic battle. THOR is actually very well-accessorized for a mask and rubber weapon change with every song. This is when I wish he was at all the shows I attend to lay waste those scary rock demons I typically encounter in the crowd.
More hard-driving, tongue-in-cheek metal tunes were hurled our way such as “HighTimes”, “Rock n Roll”, “Thunderhawk” and a great cover of Sweet’s “Action. During a sweeping solo by Frank, THOR swilled from a bottle of Rainier beer belonging to a now very proud, bearded fellah who stood nearby.

The strength show is on! The band jammed-out in the background as THOR bent a mic stand around his shoulder, then handed a broken half of it over to a gal in the audience, who ended up carrying it around the rest of the night as her personal weapon.

After encore #1, THOR makes his re-entrance to a jam of “Tusk”, wearing a Silence of the Lambs type mask and giant orange cape. With great ceremony, he then raises a steel bar and bends it in his teeth!! He further bends it around his arms, starts throwing stuff around. Next up, “Coming of THOR”

At the end of encore #2, THOR brings up three ladies from the front to boogie with him on stage. He stirs around down in center of the fired-up crowd, and ends with famed, “Thunder on the Tundra.”

Rocking for over 30 years now, THOR puts on an extremely high-energy, heavy, power-metal show delivered with all the campy theatrics I expected. After the show, I asked THOR how much he benches these days. He replied, “I used to bench 600 pounds, but now I’m lifting sets of 200 pounds for endurance.” Make no mistake - at 52 years old, this mighty rock warrior is still a bad-ass!

THOR Rules All!!!
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