In Da Club: Gay Beast at the Vampyre Ball

"Are you ready for a gay utopia?" shrieked the undead baby-man to a crowd of plastic-fanged youths at Stevens Square Center for the Arts. Gay Beast started their Friday night set at the Vampyre Ball early, following an announcement that Haunted House had to cancel, due to the drummer's girlfriend going into labor. Coincidentally, Gay Beast's lead singer was dressed in a diaper, bib, and bonnet, albeit with cheap, ghoulish makeup smeared across his face. In an austere room normally reserved for art exhibits, the trio played spastic dance music for Halloween revelers who didn't mind beats that changed direction without warning. All that start-and-stop spazzing left their guitarist with his pants around his ankles, but even that couldn't steal the show from former Eufio drummer Angela Gerend. She kept the rhythms astonishingly precise, as if the herky-jerky chaos she conducted were the simple ticking of a clock.