KAIZERS ORCHESTRA ::

KAIZERS ORCHESTRA
szene / vienna, austria
28th september 2005

there is no sure-fire way of testint whether a patricular concert was good or not. of course, there are the main 'ingredients' (if you will) like good sound, good crowd and things like that. but that's about it. you can't compare a concert of, say, THE BOSTON POPS with that of J.G. THIRLWELL or LOOPTROOP. totally different things. but if you want to measure a concert by how much the audience can and does tap into the performances, makes it an interactive experience, then KAIZERS ORCHESTRA make it to the top 5 of the list easily.

this was the third time i had the opportunity to see them live. first time around was when they were touring with their first album, 'ompa til du dor', sometime in 2001. that was also at szene. it was a tremendous show. about half a year later i saw them at an open air festival. and although it was early afternoon, there weren't many people in front of the stage and that whole club atmosphere, that you'd expect is necessary for that kind of music to work, wasn't there at all - depsite all of that, KAIZERS ORCHESTRA blew me away. and they did so third time round.

the szene was packed. that means almost 600 people. 600 sweating, drinking, pushing, clapping, dancing people. and i usually hate that. but i didn't mind at all yesterday. brilliant sound. brilliant band. they dug into all the good songs, playing lots off 'ompa til du dor' and some from the new record 'maestro'. when KAIZERS ORCHESTRA are on stage it's a mix between cabaret, pub at the docks feeling and entertainment revue. other people say do announcements inbetween songs. KAIZERS talk to the people inbetween sonsg, during songs, all the time. it was just as enjoyable as can be to clap along with the songs, sing the hooklines (even though they are in norwegian and we don't understand a bloody word of it) and just go along with the whole show. the humppa drums, the bashing of steel gallons, the silly jokes.

there were parts in the show were the singer didn't even have to say anything and they crowd clapped loudly and sang at the right times, the right lyrics. at one point the band even stopped playing and the crowd took the rythm and some "oooh-oooh"-ing on themselves for a couple of minutes! during another song they let a guy from the audience on the stage to play a short solo on the guitar. they got off the stage and mingled with the crowd. all of it. and it never seemed rehearsed or planned. it just ran so smoothly. a big jam between the KAIZERS ORCHESTRA and the people at the szene that night.

there's no way i can describe this concert. i can only say time and time again: go, go and see the KAIZERS ORCHESTRA as soon as you can. you won't regret it. trust me.

THE ROBOCOP KRAUS ::

THE ROBOCOP KRAUS
b72 / vienna, austria
25th september 2005

after the CAESARS had finished - see previous post - we moved to the B72, a very cool and small club in the city. THE ROBOCOP KRAUS were playing.

we got there long before their stage time, which left me some time to socialize and talk with a couple of friends and business partners. i should've done more of that and not even cared about the band, because during the third song it became clear: THE ROBOCOP KRAUS are pretty decent on record, but tonight they just sucked. really. it didn't help that the singer climbed on the bar and dangled on the ceiling.

their music just seemed so flat and dull. it might have been the sound, it might have been the venue, it might have been my mood. ultimately i just didn't enjoy the show and left pretty soon (during song number 5, i think). no big loss. i do still have the records that i enjoy listening to.

CAESARS ::

CAESARS
flex / vienna, austria
25th september 2005

most people will know the song "jerk it out" by the CAESARS. but only few know that the song is called "jerk it out". and even less know that it is by the CAESARS. sad but true, but due to change (hopefully). they'd deserve some more recognition at least.

playing their 60ies inspired, farfisa organ adorned, glam version of garage punk, the CAESARS are definitely hitting the zeitgeist, even thought they were doing it long before it became so well-received. their records are full with a certain type of vibrating energy, perhaps a bit melancholy but overall uplifting. unfortunately that energy translates only half as good live.

they played for a good hour's worth and that hour was really rocking. out there all the way. it was a poor decision to continue after this hour, as the quality of the performance drastically decreased with each passing minute. and they played two encores. not that the audience didn't appreciate it: the well-filled flex clapped an hooted and screamed for the CAESARS. but, you know, it just wasn't as good as it might have been.

it was better then the performance to follow on that night, but read more about that in the next post.

FUOCO ::

FUOCO / MINZE
sargfabrik / vienna, austria
23rd september 2005

FUOCO is the band of florian baum, a young man i met and befriended when he was working for the local emi music company. a very talented fellow: played all the instruments on his demo himself and, believe me, it sounds like a fullfledged band. something you need to know about him: he's a huge THE DOORS fan.

together with his brother and some friends he put a band together that would go with the studio version of FUOCO. it's a hard to describe mixturen between prog-rock, space-rock, a bit of classic rock and some folksy passages. sort of like early HAWKWIND, THE DOORS, a dash of ALEX HARVEY and CURVED AIR blended together and then fast-forwarded to 2005. in other words: i like it, a lot. add to that the great musicianship of the people involved and, presto, you get a great rock band.

their gig was great. they really made an effort to make a seemless experience out of it and almost succeeded... were it not for some broken strings. first the guitarist's string was gone, then the bassist lost a string and then the guitarist killed another one. talk about intense playing, eh? but that again gave them the opportunity to show how good they are as musicians. while the bassist was trying to replace the broken string as fast as humanly possible (yeah, they don't have roadies yet, what were you thinking?) the keyboarder and the drummer started a funky jam. soon flo, who plays guitar and sings, and the other guitarist joined in. flo did some ad-lib vocals singing how much love there is at the sargfabrik tonight. they jammed on for a bit until the bassist (flo's brother) was done and then managed to let the jam flow into the next track. no break. now that was nice!

anyway, FUOCO's gig was great and i'm looking forward to the 8th of october when i get to see them again. right after them was MINZE, another austrian act, akin to DIE STERNE and SPORTFREUNDE STILLER. the brother of a good friend of mine plays in that band. it all started pleasingly enough. not really my cup of coffee music-wise, but very well played with a pretty good singer. she had a very distinctive style of her own, which i think is worth millions, compared to all the german-singing copy-cat acts out there at the moment.

but the concert turned sour pretty soon. actually during the second song. there were two elder guys, i guess 40-ish, standing behind us. suddenly they started throwing leaflets or something like that at the stage. as if that wasn't annoying and disrespectful enough, they managed to hit my elbow each time they throw something. after a while i had enough and turned around and asked them what that was all about. they muttered something about if i don't like it i can go someplace else. that went a bit back and forth but when i turned back to the stage again, they weren't thowing anything anymore and didn't say anything. to me, that was that. turned out it wasn't. a friend of mine and i had to leave pretty soon, because we had some other places to be, so during the fourth or fifth song we left. we were on the stairs, almost out of the venue when i heard someone call my name from below and some shouting going on. turning around i saw the nuisances from before making a racket and calling me names. i am a peaceful person but i don't like to get barked at for no reason. so i went down the stairs again, asking them what the matter was. they got even more agitated and one of them eventually pushed me. that was it. getting angry i got right into their faces and provoked them, hoping for one of them to hit me, giving me a good excuse to rip them apart right there and then. well, that blow never came and some people from the venue stepped in. after a couple of minutes i calmed down and decided that it wasn't worth the effort anyway and we left. the rest of the evening was fortunately very pleasant.

HELLACOPTERS ::

HELLACOPTERS
flex / vienna, austria
21st september 2005

ok. so i am not a big HELLACOPTERS fan. heck, sure i like them! they are very good musicians, they're doing some great rock 'n' roll. i definitely like the HELLACOPTERS, but it's not like i care as much about them as many of my friends do.
and to me they will always stay 'the band that used to be roadies of ENTOMBED'. but, hey, let me tell you something: they play a mean concert!
holy crap on a pogostick! that was a brilliant show right there.

i was in a terrible mood all day long, which wasn't much improved by the fact, that i was in office until 19:45. anyway, when i got to the venue you couldn't - and preferably shouldn't - talk to me. since a lot of my friends and people that i know better and people that i just know were also in attendance, i had to be as polite as i managed to be... which resulted in me looking blankly into the distance and not saying anything at all. some minutes before the band got on stage i met a very dear friend of mine who managed to make me stop staring at least.
and all the time i was thinking: "man, this is going to be so disappointing. they just can't be as cool on stage as i envision them to be. especially not in a sold out flex. jesus... i give them one song. if the botch the first song, i'm outta here."
i was still around for the last song of the encore. these guys really know where to go and how to get there. fortunately for them the p.a. of flex is really good and made the band sound excellent. let me try to describe that sound without sounding like some hack from a music magazine, who knows everything better than you do.
ok. so imagine the bass. imagine a heavy, thumping bass, a bit groovy. a rock bass. now imagine that bass going in with 2 guitars and a drum. what's your usual experience? right. you don't hear the bass anymore. you just feel something thumping in your belly, which is parts bass and parts bass drum. or you can actually hear the bass, which usually means that the overall sound is so quiet and scattered that energy is lost somewhere between the edge of the stage and the first row of people. but not in this case: the bass was thumping and you could hear every stroke, every twang. or the vocals? usually too loud, or not loud enough, or too distorted or something. nikke was right in there, comfortably nestled between the other instruments. another fine example: the drums. there was a part where the drums played a short mid-tempo fill alone and they sounded kind of weird. but in the mix... perfect fit!

so, what is there left to say? HELLACOPTERS are an amazing live band and they write very good songs. although they still haven't managed to write a better song than their own 'toys and flavor'. :)

DE LA SOUL ::

DE LA SOUL
arena / vienna, austria
12th september 2005

'hey, how you doin'? sorry you can't get through. why don't you leave your name and your number and i'll get back to you.'

or maybe this one

'when we talkin' 'bout the vibes... vibrations... stakes is high! higher than high! you know them stakes is high!'

or this one here

'mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me mirror, what is wrong? can it be my de la clothes or is it just my de la soul? what i do ain't make-believe. people say i sit and try but when it comes to being de la it's just me, myself and i. it's just me, myself and i'

or how about this

'it ain't all good and that's the truth. things ain't goin' like you think they should. it's all on you.'

and a final one

'put your hands opposite to the ground if you're lovin' our sound. go oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh! and to my broke niggas on the corner holdin' me down. go oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh!' (as rapped by REDMAN).

who doesn't know some or maybe all of these lines? eh? right. thought so. EVERYBODY knows DE LA SOUL. and i finally got to see them live! wooooooooooot!

what can i tell ya? party all around! maseo (a.k.a. pasemaster mase) warmed up the crowd with some A TRIBE CALLED QUEST tunes and then posdnuos and dove (a.k.a. trugoy the dove) joined in and let it rip. i usually avoid hip hop concerts, because in general the people going to the regular hip hop concerts just aren't my cup of coffee. too much competitiveness, too much on display all the time. but with DE LA SOUL it was all real. no hype, no boasting, no nothing. a mixed crowd of people that just loved to go down to hip hop music. lovely. it's really hard to describe what was going on at the gig, because it was all spontanous, with some good laughs and a great overall feeling. DE LA SOUL were enjoying themselves and the people were enjoying themselves. it's been a long time that i kept on smiling throughout an entire concert and even danced a little bit. there you go. DE LA SOUL made me dance. if that isn't proof of quality, then i don't know what is. at one point dove started with some strange 'fellas go 'ugh!' and ladies go 'eaoow!'' shit and then he asked the women to get up on the stage. he asked more and more of them on stage, until the filled it up. and then he got us by the balls (or ovaries). he asked the women who wouldn't come up on stage why they're scared and if they think that getting on stage with a hip hop band meant that they are hos or groupies? and of course he said that it didn't mean either. you're not a ho if you don't want to be and you're not a groupie if you don't want to be. two very smart things he said: 'hip hop has fucked up your mind!' and 'you are trapping yourself.' and he is right on both accounts. mainstream hip hop is always going about with that sexist crap, stigmatizing the entire genre. and us boys and girls start to associate these things and turn out to be scared to go on stage with DE LA SOUL and party. so, it might've been a bit lukewarm preaching, but in general his points are obvious and definitely worth thinking about.
anyway, the show was great. i already miss it. looking forward to the next DE LA SOUL gig. oh, by the way, if you want to read up on DE LA SOUL you can do so on the spitkickers site for DE LA SOUL or at the respective allmusic.com DE LA SOUL pages. couldn't find an official homepage.

PERE UBU ::

PERE UBU / BULBUL
szene / vienna, austria
11th september 2005

who doesn't know PERE UBU? what? you? you don't know PERE UBU? good grief, person, go and read up about this band! very few other bands have been as influential in the post-rock and art-punk scene as PERE UBU were and probably still are. i remember my first contact with a PERE UBU record cleary. it was 1992 and we were hanging around a friend's house. we were rummaging through his records looking for things to hear when one of the older guys fished out 'new picnic time' with the words: 'hey, i haven't heard that one in quite some time!' - and mere seconds later 'the fabulous sequel' (first track of that record) started warbling around my head. it was strange. a bit uncomfortable even. but oddly fascinating and hypnotic. i craved more of that! well, i got more of it eventually, but i never got the chance to see them live... until now.

opening up for PERE UBU were austrian noise-sludge-art-rockers BULBUL. as always, great show, great music, great threads (woman's sommer dresses this time, which looks hilarious on a tall anorexic-looking guy, a shortish, stout guy and an average-built, maniac guy). it's been 5 years now that i can't make up my mind whether or not i should buy a BULBUL record or not... so hard to make up my mind.

what BULBUL had smashed with their brilliant rawness, PERE UBU further devastated with their sublime finesse. mostly they performed songs from their latest record with a few songs from recent outings (mostly from 'pennsylvania' or 'st. arkansas') which are not amongst my favorites, but alone the fact of seeing david thomas on stage, drinkin from his hip flask, smoking one cigarette after the other and directing the band like a depressive maestro... well, that alone was worth it all along. and there were quite a lot of people at the show. i was expecting 200 maybe. there were about 500 people. which was the reason, ultimately, why i left halfway through the show. too hot, too much smoke and too humid. but, no regrets. i have seen PERE UBU live, which makes my life so much richer.

TWOdaysAweek FESTIVAL ::

TWOdaysAweek FESTIVAL 2005
wiesen / wiesen, austria
31st august - 2nd september 2005

there really isn't that much i can say about this festival, having missed the first 2 days of it. yeah, the name is misleading. it's actually 3 days. but since it started out as a 2-day-festival and over the years it evolved into a 2-day-plus festival, they (wisely) decided to keep the name and just don't take the 'TWOdays' bit too seriously.

the best bit about this year's TWOdaysAweek (or 2daw) was that is proved without a doubt wiesen, as a festival venue, is here to stay. wiesen has a longstanding tradition of concerts and festivals at their site and it was only recently - due to some shifts in booking and the arrival of new super-sized event-companies - that they ran into trouble. their future wasn't too sure and 2005 was their make or break year. depending on this year's success they were either going to drop out of the festival racket or continue. wiesen is a pretty small venue, about 8000 people max. so they can't compete against bigger festivals like FREQUENCY (40.000 daily) or NOVA ROCK (also appr. 40.000 people daily). the only way they can make up for their lack of size is quality. fortunately quality proved to be good enough this year and wiesen will be with us for the years to come.

talking about quality. the first day of the festival offered a great deal of quality. NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS, THE WALKABOUTS and ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN. but i can't tell you anything about their shows. because i wasn't there. and i wasn't there on the second day either. i missed NOFX, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, KETTCAR, JULIETTE & THE LICKS and ME FIRST & THE GIMME GIMMES. but i was there on the third day. reason: i had to take care of FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND. we had some interviews to do. i arrived on the venue just in time to say hi to the band and then go and watch the BLOOD BROTHERS perform. love than band. FFAF were up right after them (as a matter of fact, they were also sharing dressing rooms). also, great show. wouldn't expect welsh people to rock like that. my work started shortly before the ALL AMERICAN REJECTS went on stage. we got the odd interviews sorted out, meanwhile COHEED AND CAMBRIA (which i really would've like to see, but unfortunately couldn't) had started their show.
on a side note: while i was standing backstage and watching over the interviews i noticed this woman. she wasn't particularly beautiful or anything. sure, pretty, but average. but what really caught my eye were her clothes and her hair. she was dressed in a white, billowing, semi-transparent, long dress with white scarfs and cloth draped around her neck and arms. and her hair was blond and thin, flowing behind her when she rushed through the backstage area. it was a very strange sight to behold, like something cut and pasted from a j.r.r. tolkien novel and a cheesy fairy-tale. turned out she was the girlfriend of COHEED AND CAMBRIA's singer. perfect fit to the music, i'd say.
i saw a bit of the performance of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, watched CLAWFINGER for nostalgia's sake and had my very first BAD RELIGION concert. (it was good.)
we were gone before KORN had even gotten ready for stage.
looking forward to next year's 2DAW festival. always good to be there.