W.A.S.P. @ Élysée-Montmartre, Paris

Five years ago, W.A.S.P. marked its thirtieth anniversary with a tour consisting of a greatest-hits set followed by an abridged performance of The Crimson Idol. Now the album itself is turning twenty-five, and Blackie Lawless is giving his magnum opus the full treatment: the entire record, performed in sequence and synchronized to the film originally shot to accompany it.

The concept and accompanying visuals haven't necessarily aged with the same grace as the music. At times the melodrama borders on the ridiculous, but the songs remain remarkably sturdy. W.A.S.P. never toured The Crimson Idolwhen it was released, so this anniversary run allows Lawless to finally stage the record as a complete work rather than merely revisit a handful of songs from it.

The synchronization comes at a cost. With every musical cue tied to the screen, the performance can feel rigid, and much of the band plays in near-darkness while the film takes visual precedence. Musically, though, the execution is excellent. Aquiles Priester is particularly impressive behind the drums, reproducing Frankie Banali's thunderous original parts with both precision and force.

The Crimson Idol may not belong in the same conceptual league as Quadrophenia or The Wall, but within heavy metal it remains one of the form's strongest attempts at a sustained narrative, alongside Queensrÿche's Operation: Mindcrime. More importantly, it contains some of Lawless's most ambitious and enduring writing.

Once the album is complete, W.A.S.P. returns for a short encore of older material, including The Who's “The Real Me.” That final section could easily have run longer. If The Crimson Idol is Lawless's strongest album as a complete statement, many of his best individual songs are scattered across the records that preceded it.

Still, the evening belongs to The Crimson Idol. Lawless is in strong voice, the band is formidable, and twenty-five years after its release the record finally gets the full stage treatment it was denied the first time around.

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