John 5 gets Freaky in Ottawa.

If you’ve ever seen David Lee Roth, Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie, chances are you’ve seen John 5. Born John Lowery, and nicknamed by Manson, he is still currently a member of Zombie’s ensemble.

Ottawa’s Brass Monkey had the pleasure of being host the guitar virtuoso’s solo tour with The Creatures on a Friday night. If you missed the show you most certainly missed an epic guitar shredding clinic.

John 5 came out and fired up the crowd with his signature white face paint, dressed like the resident of a circus side show or a long lost member of KISS. Busting into the 2017 hit Season of the Witch, a combination of heavy metal riffage and out of this world leads followed by the more industrial riff based tune This is My Rifle. If you are thinking Full Metal Jacket you thought right.

The band’s set was a non-stop calvacade of eye-popping, face-melting guitar work. As expected with a guitar based band, there were no vocals. John 5 thanked the crowd for coming out and mentioned being just a big nerd who sits at home in his underwear pooping and peeing himself watching horror movies writing these monstrous riffs. Realistically vocals would take away from what you are there to see, being his never ending solos and the ability to switch mid song from one of his custom guitars to a mini guitar to a banjo and back again, which was truly astonishing.

If you missed out seeing John 5 and The Creatures and the opportunity arises again, make sure to go see him and get your face melted off.  Totally worth the experience.

Another must see band was Wisconsin’s Jared James Nichols, who warmed up the crowd prior to John 5. If you love good ole fashioned bluesy rock, Nichols is exactly what the doctor ordered. At 30 years old you would think Nichols has been playing since the day he was born.