“It felt like every night at Limelight — industrial, metal, dance, drag, chaos, and pure NYC club energy — all thrown together into one loud, sweaty room.”
On May 12, 2026, Racket NYC turned into a time machine back to the early 1990s New York club scene. The lineup headlined by Lords of Acid wasn’t just a concert — it felt like an amalgamation of every strange and unforgettable night that once lived inside clubs like Limelight and Pyramid Club. Industrial music, dance beats, heavy guitars, drag energy, goth aesthetics, techno grooves, and hard rock all collided into one sensory overload of a show.
For me personally, it hit especially hard. Back in the early ’90s, I was a part of the promotion teams on the alternative rock and heavy metal nights at Limelight. I also spent plenty of time there the rest of the week as I had a 400 person guest list on dance nights. This show felt like all of those worlds smashed together under one roof again.
The room itself helped create the vibe. Racket is small, intimate, and loud — exactly the kind of venue this package needed. It wasn’t sold out, but it was packed enough to keep the energy high all night. The crowd matched the performers perfectly: gay, lesbian, straight, trans — everybody together for one night built around music, performance, and total freedom of expression.
The night opened with Mz Neon, performing alongside a guitarist in a set that immediately blurred lines between industrial performance art, glam attitude, and raw club energy. Mz Neon’s stage presence was impossible to ignore. The performance was provocative, chaotic, funny, and fully engaging, with the audience completely locked in from the start. As the set progressed, the outfit became more and more stripped down, fitting the unapologetic atmosphere of the evening without ever losing control of the room. It was fearless performance art wrapped inside hard electronic music.
Next came Tony & The Kiki, though “the band” onstage was really just Tony and guitarist Rodney. At one point Tony laughed and told the crowd, “I’m Tony, that’s Rodney, and we are all The Kiki,” which perfectly summed up the set’s inclusive party atmosphere. Hailing from Queens, Tony delivered a glam-disco performance that felt like a downtown dance party with punk attitude. One of the standout moments came during a “rock ‘n roll” singalong where Tony bounced between male and female vocal styles while the crowd shouted along. It was campy, self-aware, and completely entertaining.
Princess Superstar took the stage solo with backing tracks but had complete command of the room immediately. Her set leaned heavily into dance-floor energy, with the crowd erupting for her signature hits “Bad Babysitter” and “Perfect.” The lighting inside Racket was brutal for photography — dark, constantly shifting, and filled with heavy color washes — but perfect for what the room had become: a full-on dance club. The audience screamed with excitement throughout her set, especially when she introduced a brand-new song, “Tuff Titties,” before its official release. She also reflected on New York club history, mentioning that her very first live performance happened at the legendary Pyramid Club back in 1994, another reminder that this entire night felt deeply tied to NYC nightlife history.
Then came one of the sharpest musical turns of the evening with Dead on a Sunday. The set shifted hard away from dance-pop into darker industrial rock and techno territory. Frontman Ross Ryan, joined only by a live drummer, brought a much heavier energy to the room. Songs like “Bury Us,” “Anyone,” “Slasher,” “Dance Like Hell,” “I Give You My Love,” “Goodbye Horses,” and “Carolyne” landed with a thick industrial pulse that felt equally influenced by goth rock, synthwave, and alternative metal. Having a live drummer added real weight to the set, pushing the songs harder than they would have hit over programmed tracks alone. Ross Ryan also came across as a genuinely cool and confident frontman — calm, stylish, and completely in command of the stage.
By the time Lords of Acid hit the stage, the room was fully primed for chaos.
Originally formed in the late 1980s by Praga Khan and known for mixing industrial beats, rave culture, heavy guitars, and sexually charged lyrics, Lords of Acid became one of the defining underground club acts of the ’90s. Songs like “Pussy,” “I Sit On Acid,” and “The Crabhouse” became staples in alternative clubs and goth-industrial scenes around the world. Over the years the band went through several lineup changes, with longtime vocalist Ruth McArdle helping define much of the classic era identity of the group before eventually departing.
Now the band has entered a new chapter with former Butcher Babies vocalist Carla Harvey fronting the group — and she absolutely owned this performance. She also hinted that a new album is in the works.
Carla Harvey proved herself to be an ideal live frontwoman for Lords of Acid – as if she was born to play this part. She never stopped moving. She danced across the stage, whipped her long hair around, interacted constantly with the band members, leaned into the crowd, and kept talking directly to the audience between songs. During “Pussy,” women from the crowd were invited onto the stage, turning the song into a full participatory event rather than just another performance. Harvey also spent time inside the crowd itself, breaking down the separation between performer and audience in a way that fit the spirit of the night perfectly.
The setlist pulled heavily from the band’s classic catalog, including “Scrood Bi U,” “Do What You Wanna Do,” “Lover,” “Dream Boy,” “Drink My Honey,” “Mister Machoman,” “El Mundo Established Loco,” “The Most Wonderful Girl,” “Pussy,” “The Crabhouse,” “Rough Sex / Take Control,” “Rubber Doll,” “Out Comes the Evil,” and of course “I Sit On Acid,” which turned the entire room into a sweaty industrial dance floor by the end of the night.
There were also fun crossover moments throughout the set. Tony from Tony & The Kiki joined the band for one song, while Princess Superstar later came out for “Karaoke Superstar,” pushing the whole evening even further into beautiful chaos.
It was loud, over-the-top, weird, funny, sexual, theatrical, heavy, danceable, and impossible to categorize cleanly — which is exactly why it worked. For a few hours inside Racket NYC, it genuinely felt like old New York club culture came roaring back to life.
