Hello music friends, here comes my concert report covering more than 2 years!
I hope this report will be complete; over 2 years is a long time, precisely 26 months or almost 800 days, and during that time, one or another gig might have already vanished into the collective nirvana of my hippocampus.
I will keep it brief and first refer you to YouTube
there you will find corresponding video recordings of most of the concerts mentioned here, just enter “http://www.youtube.com/user/KarstenConform?feature=watch” and let yourself be surprised J.
If you prefer to look at pictures, I recommend:
https://picasaweb.google.com/109994034920158032774 where I am currently uploading hundreds, no thousands of photos from the concerts of the last 2 years.
Now let's get started with the Umsonst & Draußen Festival 2010 in Porta – Veltheim. On Friday, July 30, 2010, Therapy? played there; I remember it as if it were the day before yesterday. You can check them out, but you don't have to... I didn't have that choice with Dritte Wahl on Saturday; you must (!) see them. So off I went, and I can still remember (as if it were yesterday) that the gig on the smaller embankment stage was pretty awesome. Pure party atmosphere.
Jingo de Lunch, the main act on Saturday night on the big Weser stage, couldn't keep up. There were more people in front of the stage, but I had the feeling that most of them didn't know Yvonne Ducksworth and her crew. A real atmosphere only slowly developed after the audience got used to the frickly melodic hardcore and Yvonne's expressive voice.
A year later at the Umsonst & Draußen Festival 2011 in Stemwede, where both bands also played, things looked a bit different. Dritte Wahl was back on the small stage and Jingo de Lunch on the big one. Overall, the atmosphere in Stemwede was even better! Dritte Wahl was celebrated like crazy... If only that keyboard player hadn't been there; I really thought the Rostockers had brought Rainer Langhans, the old hippie, along; the guy at the organ looked so much like him. So the old hippie-keyboard thing could have been spared by the guys from Dritte Wahl, but otherwise it was top-notch (if you ignore the many cans and bottles that were scattered in front of the stage). Jingo de Lunch was also celebrated more in Stemwede than in Porta, but even at that gig, it wasn't really full in front of the main stage, even at prime performance time. When I think of the Slime gig in 2010 at the U&D in Stemwede, which was 2 weeks after the U&D in Porta...
I can't remember being pushed back from 20 meters in front of the stage to double that distance in 5 seconds... Yes, that was Slime 2010 in Stemwede. Wow... As the main act on the big stage, it was packed for punk band number 1, and that was at around 11 PM until well after midnight. Even the biggest drinkers held back on drinking on August 14, 2010, to see Slime live! And how awesome it was to not only hear the old great punk rock hits but also to visually admire the band.
AND I WAS THERE!
Show? Not really... At least not on stage; if there was a show, it was in the audience, 2000 wild punks in mass pogo! HOW AWESOME!!!
Wow, even today, 1.5 years later, I can't stop raving about it.
That was the best gig of 2010, along with the 100 Jahre St. Pauli festival, which I reported on in the last issue of Früchtchen.
Before Slime, Skafield played, whose name was programmatic and brought lively ska music to the stage, as well as Livingston from the island. They sounded quite interesting in the program booklet, but live it was terrible.
Let me jump back 2 weeks to the U&D in Porta. Besides Dritte Wahl and Jingo de Lunch, there were other groups to see on Saturday. However, since I don't remember who else performed there, these bands will probably only be found under the category "quite nice"; usually, you only remember the killer bands and the really terrible combos...
And now I jump exactly between the two U&D festivals to the Mera Luna 2010 in Hildesheim. Even though many will now think, ahhh these black gothic people are just snobbish and uptight. I must tell you, yes, you are right!!! At least most of the black disciples are like that, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the good music. And I must also say, they can drink too! Not all day long, but in the evening they try to make up for it. And so, on August 7th and 8th, 2010, I had to climb over some alcohol corpses; the black-clad crowd just can't handle it... No comparison to good punk festivals, but I wanted to mention it anyway J
So Saturday afternoon, I headed to Hildesheim Airport where the Mera Luna took place for the twelfth time. The bands had been going since 11 AM, but the first band that interested me was Samsas Traum, who I only knew from internet radio until then. I liked them there, but not live.... I don't remember why...
Accordingly, I could exchange some coins at the sales stands for small and large accessories and watch the charming ladies at the fashion show J.
After that, it was into the hangar where the old NDT band Das Ich was supposed to perform. At first, I was a bit shocked; my god (oops!) how sick did singer Ackermann look... But really sick... And thin, really thin... To top it off, he had broken a rib shortly before the gig. He really struggled through the short hour of playtime and wheezed through his lungs (which the broken rib was probably pressing on) like a steam locomotive going up a steep hill... But my respect, he pulled it off with squinted eyes, and afterward, he probably lay under the oxygen tent for an hour. The gig couldn't fully convince me, but considering the situation, I have to tip my hat. And Ackermann isn't getting any younger either... The Das Ich Everblack hits "Gottes Tod" and "Kain und Abel" have almost 20 years behind them now. So thumbs wavering between middle and up.
Next, it was straight back to the main stage for Laibach, who couldn't convince me. Thumbs down. I know quite a few great Post-Punk-Industrial songs from the Slovenian band. But somehow Laibach didn't really resonate with me that late afternoon. A similar sound is also made by Nitzer Ebb from England, but they replace the post-punk sound with electronic beats. Not without reason, Nitzer Ebb is one of the most well-known EBM bands and has been for almost 20 years. And I can only confirm it, they are incredibly awesome, and every minute of their gig flowed through my body, beat beat beat... More More More!!! My thumb went way up ;-)
As the penultimate band, Unheilig took the stage; in 2006 + 2008, der Graf was still in the afternoon program with his combo, and now they stood in the spotlight in front of 25,000 people. And if you ask me, they deserve it! At least I think the old albums are great... Well, the last album, which was released in early 2010 and with the song "Geboren um zu Leben" is still played very often on the radio even 1.5 years later, is a bit too mainstream for me. That also scared away many black people, and the Graf was labeled with the nasty word "commercial" and a "sale to the black scene" pinned to his lapel. Nevertheless, the old songs are great, the show was great, the atmosphere was great, the gig was simply awesome. You just had to get used to the fact that some kids, namely flower-carrying 18-year-old virgins (and rightly so), were standing around in droves. The groupies of tomorrow... Just kidding, the groupies of today, of course... Regardless, some girls weren't used to standing for so long, or it was too cramped for them; in any case, they found themselves on the ground... fainting away. PP, I say...
The headliners on that Saturday were The Sisters Of Mercy, and I actually only went to Mera Luna because of the old gothic rock band. Most of the other bands I had already seen in recent years, some even more than once, but I wanted to see the Brits, who were celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2010, for the second time after 1992. After 1992/93, it went quiet around Andrew Eldritch and his crew, so I was surprised beforehand that the old dark band was still performing at all. And I must admit... it wasn't that great L I had expected much more L
The music was okay, but the rest was crap. Just fog, just blinding light, and no Andrew to be seen on stage... L At least not for most of the audience; since I was standing very far forward, I could see him a few times in the fog. But how bad did Andrew look??? If I were on stage, I would make myself look good... Andrew only showed up in baggy pants and a light gray hoodie... Maybe that was the reason he didn't come out of the fog ;-)
I was definitely disappointed L And a guy next to me was completely beside himself... He said Sisters had played in Leipzig (or was it Dresden?) a year earlier, and they were really bad, and you couldn't see anything at all; you could have played music from a tape, and no one would have noticed. And here, at least the band was recognizable at times... Well, for me, thumbs slightly down L
Sunday was the surprise day. While I had mostly seen the bands from Saturday before, I only knew my personal headliner from the Sunday program. At first, I wanted to see Zeraphine and Saltatio Mortis in the afternoon program, but I couldn't get out of bed, so I only caught half of the latter medieval rock band's gig. But it convinced me, and at the same time, I was annoyed that I hadn't been on the festival grounds earlier. I certainly won't miss Saltatio Mortis halfway again; they had really great music; I love medieval music when it's played with a good beat. And the singer must have broken quite a few hearts of the ladies present ;-)
After that, it was into the hangar for Agonoize. I knew quite a few songs from the German brutal electro band, and the Berliners didn't disappoint me. Musically, the beats went straight to the legs... People danced, pogoed, and sweated freely... And visually, there was also something to see; in the best Gwar manner, they brought out dicks to spray and then chopped them off and splattered the blood around. And that to hits like: Blutverlust, Koprolalie (Fick mich)