ROOTS MANUVA ::

ROOTS MANUVA
flex / vienna, austria
21th mar. 2005

witness the fitness! yes! ROOTS MANUVA is just brilliant! unfortunately i did not get to see much of the concert, which was mostly due to the very sudden and drastic decline of my mood which was caused by the people attending the concert. you see, i don't really care about "scenes" or what-have-you, i get along with pretty much everyone just fine. but there are "scenes" that make it pretty hard. one of these "scenes" is the hip hop scene or parts of it. i really don't know what their problem is but everything has to be a competition with them, even finding a place to stand and watch the concert in a crowded venue. everybody has to push and shove and be aggressive all the time. and not in the way you find it usually at other concerts. it is different: it seems as though all that pushing and shoving is not for getting a bette place actually but just to prove to everyone who's being pushed and shoved your presence and, in terms of competition, your dominance. that get very tedious very soon, so we decided to leave after about the 5th or 6th track.

but those few tracks where excellent. for everybody who's into british high quality hip hop without all the image and bad-ass attitude but with an mc with something to say and some dope beat go check out the first album "run come save me".

KISSOGRAM ::

KISSOGRAM
b72 / vienna, austria
03rd mar. 2005

those of you who understand german can check out this review that i have written about KISSOGRAM. for those that don't, let me summarize: if there ever was an intersection between post-punk and indie rock and electro and club-music, then KISSOGRAM has found it. best to visit their homepage and listen to what they do.

let's talk about the concert. or rather, let's talk about the day before the concert first. it had been an expecially long and tiresome day at the office and i felt very exhausted. venue homepage and flyer said that the whole she-bang should start at 21:00, stage-time band probably about 22:00. that meant not enough time to go home and relax, but too much time head straight to the venue. what to do? right. have a nice beer and some chips at my favorite pub. so, by the time i was through with that and arrived at b72 it was about 20:30, which was ok with me. another beer, reading some comic books i had brought along. i reckoned that i wouldn't have to worry about what to do 'til showtime. how wrong i was. because (sadly) only very few people showed up. b72 has a capacity of about 150 people. my estimate: 40 people showed up. not good. and of those, only 20 really watched the show. even worse. and because of that the band, of course, waited until they were sure that no more people would arrive, before they hit the stage. which was at 23:00.

their performance itself was pretty satisfying. it started of as a very clean electronic pop, clubby dance-pop show, with bits and pieces of indie flair thrown in between, but as they progressed through their tracks they got louder, raunchier and ended up slamming some rocky electroclash through our ears, much to my pleasant surprise. another bonus: their super-nerdy electronic-geek behaviour paired with their showman's attitude. say what you will, but i bet those two know how to rock a crowd... if it isn't 20 viennese people who just stand around nodding with their heads, tapping their feet. oh well... vienna is a tough audience.

on a side note: obnoxious dancers. who rub up against you even though there are about a gazillion square meters of empty dancefloor to better dance on. and even though they aren't even that bad looking (she DID indeed possess a virtuous booty and pretty eyes), if there's no interest it doesn't help. and i wasn't interested. and she didn't care. i wonder if she even realized that she was rubbing up against me or if she mistook me for a pillar or something... who knows...

ZEKE ::

ZEKE
shelter / vienna, austria
28th feb. 2005

"areyouready?youready?ready?huh?ready?ready?go!1234!" - imagine that said within about 2 seconds. that's how ZEKE chimed in every block of songs. i say block, because they never played just a single song, but about 5 to 10 in one go, without interruption.

for those that don't know ZEKE - the show lasted about 35 or maybe 40 minutes and they played about 30 songs in that time. :)

ZEKE - that's all out punk rock. and when i say punk rock i mean motherfuckin' PUNK ROCK! punk, like in fast, abbrasive, who gives a shit, simple, go! rock like in bluesy, rebellious, groovy, straight riffs. imagine AC/DC played at about 5, hell, 10 times their original speed. welcome to the world of ZEKE!

it was a nice concert and i've got some souvenirs: bruises! it's been years (!) since the last time i had to defend myself against kids going crazy in mosh pit. well, not really crazy. it might be me, but somehow kids these days don't know how to mosh anymore. they were just jumping around cluelessly and bouncing off each other. and when they tried to do a circle pit it was all but a circle. but, hey, they had fun! that's cool with me!

only downside to the whole concert: of course it's only perception, but the members of ZEKE seem to be real assholes. the vibes coming off the stage at least made me want to punch their faces. well, the drummer and singer for starters.