The Murderdolls disgraced the Opera House last Friday when they brought their horror movie mayhem of blood, guts, and gore to Toronto.

First up on the three band bill was Toronto's ladies in waiting to the trash rock throne, Cheerleader. Opening an impressive set with the classic Ramones tune "I Just Wanna Have Something To Do", Cheerleader bounded with an energy that surpassed the shaky sound of the Opera House.

Both guitarist Cobra and bassist Ethan Cawke handled the lead vocals deftly, switching between spotlight roles. Cheerleader is a dirty band and they looked like the scum of the earth in their tattered shirts and faded jeans. A good thing in my book, the crowd dug it too as evidenced by the number of fists in the air that shook along with "Don't Call Me Baby, Baby" and the fervent "I Want Action". Cheerleader lived up to all the hype surrounding them and gave a performance worthy of a slot higher than opener.

Next up was Man Made God with a non-descript set of bland pearl jam-y, nickelback-y slow groove rock music. There's not too much to say about Man Made God, other than that I am truly sorry that they realized their dream 5 years too late to make any lasting impression on the music industry, or on their audience for that matter.

After what seemed like the intermission from eternity, the Murderdolls emerged from back stage with a thundering ruckus. Wednesday 13 and company incited the crowd to a riot with a 'motherfucker' laden first tune. Mirroring the chaos offstage, the Murderdolls were a melange of whirling dervishes thrashing about the stage and jumping into the crowd.

Jumping, thrusting, and spitting blood, the Murderdolls moved amorphously swapping mics and stage positions. A sea of spinning dreadlocks created further aerodynamics when they banged their heads in unison to Ben Graves' double bass drum. The crowd was wild and rabid and so were the Murderdolls.

Speaking of rabid, if you don't want to get gooped on, it's best to avoid the front row. Mr. 13 dined on a baby's head (disclaimer-not a real baby's head), the guitarist is fond of some pink colored foam that he spits out of his mouth, and at least a couple pseudo-guts food fights broke out during the coarse of their set. But that's the least of it. The toothbrush antic definitely took the award for most disgusting stage gimmick.

Let's just stay, you know how when you brush your teeth, it's get nice and frothy? Well, it got nice and frothy on the front row, baby. The Dolls also debuted a new song called "I Love To Say Fuck".

Now, Wednesday 13, the lead singer of the Murderdolls, used to be in a little band called the Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13. And while this song may be new to Murderdolls fans, this song is far from being new.

In fact it's on the FDQ album Songs From the Recently Deceased. And so is another supposedly new tune, "Dead in Hollywood" (Formerly "Hooray for Horrorwood'). It seemed there was some big scam going on here. Like the Old Drag Queens got traded up for some big name musicians and a nice record deal. Not that I blame Wednesday 13 for that, mind you.

Because I wasn't complaining. For those of us secretly hoping to hear some of the old tunes, we got the goods. And from the looks of these new spooks, they delivered better than the old scare crew. This show was professional mayhem at it's finest. The music was loud and fast and the Dolls showed that while their choices of musical topics may be in jest, the band surely isn't to be taken as such.

The Murderdolls set may have been all to short (with only one encore), but it was still fulfilling. This show was a gratuitous display of silliness concentrated in to a short burst of stage time. It was definitely a guilty pleasure and well worth the price of admission.