Powerman 5000 at the House of Blues San Diego

Photos and words by Alex Matthews

Powerman 5000 or “PM5K” played the 1st night of their 2023 US “The Devil In The Dark Tour” at San Diego’s House of Blues on Friday July 7th.  This veteran band celebrating over thirty years of performing live is still rocking hard and banging out electronic metal grooves for tons of adoring rock fans across the globe.  The House of Blues in San Diego was packed on this warm Friday evening for this heavy themed concert with a fantastic lineup also featuring Julien K (featuring former members of Orgy) and Priest (featuring former members of Ghost.) 

Frontman and vocalist Spider One (Michael David Cummings), the brother of legendary hard rock musician Rob Zombie, has been Powerman 5000’s only consistent member across its existence.  At this San Diego show he seemed pleased by the crowd’s energetic response, and made several remarks about his happiness at the longevity of his band’s music and its ability to still connect with fans all these years after is formation.

The band’s current lineup also consists of  Murv3 (Murv Douglas) on bass, DJ Rattan (Rattan Cayabyab) on Drums, Taylor Haycraft on Guitar, and Dan Schiz also on guitar.  All the members seemed to enjoy playing live and the chance to perform on this headline tour for their fans.  The band did an admirable job of balancing playing live while also performing along to computer backing tracks that round out the band’s famous samples and sound effects.  The whole live package was impressive, with drummer DJ Rattan confidently sailing between electronic tracks and several fun songs with only the live band performing.  Guitarists Haycraft and Schiz traded rad shredding solos, while bassist Murv3 is a ball of energy onstage and a standout live performer.

Powerman 5000 clearly had its biggest radio and music video airplay with the 1999 album “Tonight The Stars Revolt.”  At this San Diego show the album was extremely well represented with songs like “When World’s Collide” and “Supernova Goes Pop” really hyping up the crowd and causing everyone in the San Diego club to bounce in unison.  The band also played newer material like “Black Lipstick” and “Play God or Play Dead” from their 80’s tinged album 2022’s “The Noble Rot” that seemed to blend well live with their older material. 

This concert was a fun time machine back to the late 90’s and early 2000’s when electronic  and industrial music was being forged together with hard rock to form parts of the so called nu metal genre.  Powerman 5000 is clearly still innovating and blending their heavy metal sound in new ways to this day with new ideas and with new band members, hopefully for a long time to come.