CATHEDRAL ::

CATHEDRAL / ELECTRIC WIZARD / GRAND MAGUS
arena / vienna, austria
15th february 2006

DOOM ASSAULT! oh, baby, yeah! what a great line-up! i was drooling over this concert for months. finally, the day arrived.

let's start with the openers of the gig, GRAND MAGUS. these swedish stoner metalheads just kick ass and fiercly so! seen them once before and they blew me away. this time they rocked solid, no letting down. i might have enjoyed the heavy thundering of their very metal-laden doom rock more the first time around, but that isn't to say that they weren't great this time. because they were!

next up the most "evil" band on this planet: ELECTRIC WIZARD. can' help myselve but to love their ultra-sludgy approach to noised out doom. this foursome just churns out the riffs in mindboggling slow-motion, while a crescendo of feedback and walls of distortion cover every single space, rejecting the concept of silence whatsoever. it's like putting a 45 rpm BLACK SABBATH vinly on, playing it at 33 rpm and gating the signal through an array of amps and distortion effects into a mountain-high stack of speakers and swoofers. almost fell over backwards, that's how fucking brilliant they were!

and what should have been a fantastic conclusion to an amazing show: the one and only CATHEDRAL. i say "should", because CATHEDRAL's performance was marred. while GRAND MAGUS were blessed with crystal clear sound and ELECTRIC WIZARD thumped through without cut-backs, CATHEDRAL were not as lucky and had to fight with their shitty sound. lee's vocals were too much in the front, sometimes even drowning out the guitar; guitar and bass were murky and not in a good, doomy way, but in the infuriating, sound-crippling way; you could only hear the crashes of the drum-kit and sometimes the snare managed to get a shot in between. disappointing, really. knowing many of their songs it was still nice to hear and see them live but i imagine that for people who had no prior experience with CATHEDRAL it must've sounded like a drunken british bloke and a couple of his mates, stoned sky high, prancing about on their instruments and not knowing where to start or where to end. unfortunately.

yet, all in all, a wonderful line up, a great night. more of that, please!

SEEED ::

SEEED
gasometer / vienna, austria
14th february 2006

thumping bass, crispy electronics, dub-heavy samples, soulful background vocals, groovy horn section and energetic lead vocals - bas(s)ed on dancehall, tinged with reggae, a touch of soul and some sprinkles of electro and hip hop.
welcome to the world of SEEED.

third or fourth time i've seen this band now and never disappointed. just check out the glastonbury reviews that are all over the net.

'nuff said.

SASHA ::

SASHA
orpheum / vienna, austria
13th february 2006

the good thing about my line of work is that i get in touch with music that i usually wouldn't take much notice of. for instance SASHA.

this german pop singer is coming back with a new album and i am his austrian product manager. so far, so good. i did know that he personally is a very likeable and charming fellow. also, i was told that he's pretty easy to handle when it comes to business. i had heard his previous releases, thought most of his old stuff to be rather boring. the things he did as "DICK BRAVE & THE BACKBEATS" were funny and enoyable but nothing to write home about. i had also heard his new record and thought it was more mature than any of his previous outings - grown up pop music. what i did NOT know, though, was how he performed live.

in order to get some feedback from his audience, his management had put together a small club tour. smaller venues were selected to creat a more intimate atmosphere.

of course i was there - business as usual - but i wasn't prepared for what hit me there. straight: SASHA is an ace performer and entertainer!
i might not take the record home with me and give it spins there, but the live performance was just plain excellent! even though he had a little cold he sounded very good. would be interesting to hear him sing without a scratchy throat. and his band! tight! unbelievably tight!

just goes to show you (again) that not all mainstream pop can nor should be dismissed as "all show, no content".