DRESDEN DOLLS ::

DRESDEN DOLLS
flex / vienna, austria
28th feb. 2005

another day, another gig. ahh, sweet music! :)
anyways, this was one gig to remember. the DRESDEN DOLLS describe themselves as brechtian punk cabaret - and sure enough that is pretty fitting. what made me take notice of this neat boston band was their constellation before i knew their music: piano and drums + vocals. that sounded intriguing and as i listened to their album i also found out that it was very much to my liking.

this night held a couple of surprises. first of all the fact that the show was SOLD OUT! which means that about 1000 people had shown up to see DRESDEN DOLLS on stage. which, i think, is pretty amazing, as they are not at all well known in austria. even the booker and promoter who put the show together were quite baffled at their success. of course, a lot of kids just showed up because they thought that the band looked "cool" and "gothy" - but, hey, as long as they DO show up, what do i care? and to be fair: the crowd was rather well mixed, from young teens to elderly music and theatre enthusiasts. actually, this was one of the concerts you could go to and namedrop because virtually everybody from alternative press and media and arts was there. well not EVERYBODY, but, you know, you get the gist.

also quite surprising was the rather unspectacular stage performance. i had expected more antics going on and perhaps some theatrical lighting (spotlights, color casts and the like), but none of that. yet, also very surprisingly, that didn't lessen the experience at all. very good show, excellent sound engineering and outright charming performers.

another surprising (also in a good way) thing happened on my way home. i took off right after the show. tired as i was i decided to take a cab home and this turned out to be a good decision. not only did i get to be driven around in a pt cruiser, a car that i particularly like, but also i did have the chance to talk to a rather interesting person. my cab driver was from nigeria and somehow (i can't really recall how) a conversation about politics, money and power started. he had many fascinating and shocking things to tell from the suppressive nigerian military regime, under buhari, babangida and especially under abacha. we discussed censorship, communication control, government power and many other things and i learnt a great deal of things about nigerian history and politics that weren't know to me.

to sum it up: great concert, great night, alright!