The bands are Les Trucs and Gtuk, both from Berlin if I’m not mistaken. They’re playing noisy electronic music. The word Nintendocore appeared somewhere which seemed strangely appropriate.

Now, I do have problems with electronic music. It may be clever, it may be loud and it may pull all the smart tricks you need to make people move. But I usually don’t find it suitable for live performance. With everything being electronic, it seems a bit superfluous to have people to press the play button and perhaps jump around wildly while the hard work is done by some little box full of electronics. There needs to be a bit more for things to be worthwhile. Luckily these bands could provide that, by adding in some live singing and playing as well as their sheer presence.

Les Trucs

Les Trucs came with a huge fold-out table full of cables, keyboards an nifty gadgets to play the right percussion sounds at the right times or when some button is pressed. They also brought along somewhat remarkable devices trucs to enable them wearing microphones right before their mouths without needing to hold them - one of them attached to a hat, the other being a more complicated construction looking like a boxy school-rucksack with some desk lamp parts being used to get the microphone in the right position; Extra metal bars were attached to provide a way to carry a small keyboard along. Rather decisive live playing and singing made this analogue enough to be cool. A cheerful Wal, Gorilla, Elefant to that!

Gtuk

Gtuk was a bit further on the weird side. At least that’s what you may find yourself thinking when you’re watching a young guy dressed mainly in underpants and dragon or frog style cape (I couldn’t quite figure that out, my colleague’s baby daughter has a jacket with similar ears on its hood and it’s quite cute on her…) crawl around the ground and shout into a children’s toy microphone or sit down at a miniature drum set and beat the shit out of it.

Musically this sounded a bit more electronic and automatic (with a hat tip to Alec Empire, perhaps) to me - except for the ‘singing’ which invariably sounded like indiscernible screaming, thanks to the odd toy device use as a microphone I presume, making the whole thing seem more like a performance than a concert at times (admittedly there seem to be a few comprehensible lyrics in the tracks available at last.fm), with Gtuk’s dancing and physical presence taking centre stage.

But sheer luck and discussing the virtues of the mighty Стерео Тотал after dinner recently, gave a spontaneous trip to Hannover to see them play at the Theaterformen festival. Amazingly the gig was free to watch and located a nice backyard in an area of Hannover which hides the city’s proverbial ugliness well.

They played plenty of songs for us, alternatingly using a guitar, drum set, some electro toys and an acoustic bass when a bassist joined them for a few songs. With their big ‘hits’, some old songs and quite a few of the newer ones, that made a great gig (even though didn’t play the - admittedly not particularly gig-like - Die Wäscheklammern which must be one of the most hilarious songs in existence.

The only thing irritating me was the fact that Françoise Cactus only stopped chewing her chewing gum for one of the very last encore songs - must have been a challenging one. And they had a chandelier on the street outside the venue - way to pimp your town!

Afterwards Knarf Rellöm, who should probably be considered some kind of historical figure in the whole Hamburger Schule set of things, did a weirdo DJ thingy. Let’s just say that I am not a big fan of people playing beats and speaking/singing to them while wearing golden track suits. That said, it was still quite fun and I’m waiting for the Außerplanetarische Opposition now.

Anyway, going to the gig was totally worth it after we survived the doped up hip-hopish support band whose movements looked like they escaped from the Augsburger Puppenkiste. (There are chances that I’ll get used to electronic music or even jazz as I age, but I doubt anything even remotely hip-hop will ever make the cut.)

Dota und die Stadtpiraten played a nice and long set - surprisingly with an interval - full of charming and slightly depressive songs. Dota’s voice reminded me slightly of Wir Sind Helden but the music was totally in Element of Crime territory, though probably not as laconic in places. From modern-time romanticism with a hint of irony (Containerhafen) to whole hearted pessimism (Der kleine Beobachter) most dark shades of grey are covered in the songs.

First playing were local band The Blue Screen of Death who were actually quite enjoyable. Amusingly their bassist played wearing a helmet. Whether he needs that to operate properly or it was just a precaution for a tall person meeting really low ceiling situation remains a mystery.

Then Juri Gagarin played. Probably to honour the association of their name with the great days of the Soviet Union they opened with that country’s national anthem. And went to to play somewhat boring electronic songs. Once again I am also baffled why people need to jump around so much when their idea of ‘making music’ is pressing plastic buttons on electronic devices. The motionless Kraftwerk approach to making music is much nearer to my heart.

The evenings headliner Bratze came on last. And I managed to take the shittest photo ever of them. While they certainly had a bunch of enthusiastic fans in the crowd there and weren’t bad, their mix of beats and singing isn’t really my thing. A bit repetitive at times as well.

Morgens aufstehen, wenn die Sonne scheint, was man durch die kleinen Risse im Rollo erkennen kann, springe ich aus dem Bett, geräkelt, gestreckt, ahhh! und dann unter die Dusche. Das prasselt auf einen nieder, massiert die erschlaffte Haut. Abtrocknen, rubbelen, mit der Bürste einmal durch die Haare und darein ein Tropfen Gel, damit sie einem nicht die Sicht auf diesen wunderbar klaren Tag verhängen. Ich habe nie diese Langhaarigen verstanden, die ihr Leben in einem steten Zustand geistiger Umnachtung verbringen müssen, weil sie einfach nichts mitbekommen von ihrer Umwelt. Freiwillige Autisten sind das, wenn man mich fragt. Zähne putzen, Borsten extrastark, das widerlich grüne Pfefferminzzeugs in den Abfluß gespuckt, frische Klamotten, die Pixies auf den Plattenteller…

Which is a line that stuck with me. I don’t want to know what kind of non-conscious role it played in making me want to get a turntable and doing my best to find a Pixies LP that I didn’t own as a CD already.

… 25 Liegestütz, raus auf den Balkon, einatmen, hmm, kaum Ozon in der Luft, tut gut, macht frei, frisch und fickerig, egal, wieder rein, ist inzwischen fast schon wieder Mittag. Wo ist eigentlich der Kater von letzter Nacht geblieben? Futschikado! Noch mal raus, vor die Tür, schauen ob er dort ist. Nein nein nein nein nein, nicht mal im Briefkasten, nichts da. Dafür tänzelt man selbst ballerinengleich durchs Treppenhaus, vor der Tür paffen Dir lustigen Wölkchen aus dem Mund - Vorsicht Glatteisgefahr! - und wenn schon, dann schnallt man sich halt ein paar Kufen unter und kurvt durch die Kurven mit den Kufen, ratsch, ritsch, rutsch, dann aber wieder rein, bloß nicht übertreiben. Man friert sich noch den Arsch ab, keine gute Sache, drinnen wartet das Bett. Genau: Frühstück im Bett. Großartige Idee. An der Tür vorbei, bevor sie im Luftzug zuschlägt, geschafft, 1. Platz von allen. Drinnen ists inzwischen auch ganz luftig, der Muff einfach weggeblasen, jetzt kann man anfangen zu genießen. Die Sonnenstrahlen knallen einem immer noch um ein Haar die Augäpfel aus den Höhlen, alles explodiert, die Konturen messerscharf. A propos Messer: da liegts, und dazu noch gut in der Hand, braucht man fürs Frühstück - aber nicht so ein lächerliches Butterbrotmesser, neee, 18 Zentimeter Klinge; mindestens!

Let’s just say I have a soft spot for oversized knives as well. While I don’t use them for breakfast, I use them for pretty much everything else. Perhaps I should work on my breakfasting technique…

Und dann reiße ich den Kühlschrank, dessen Temperatur immer nur haarscharf über dem Gefrierpunkt liegt, auf, und die Milchtüte raus, schmecke, fuchs, der Tetrapakquader - natürlich einer von den hohen schlanken, die breiten niedrigen vermitteln ein depressives Lebensgefühl, am schlimmsten ist H-Milch, bäh! - eist mir fast an der Hand fest, macht aber nichts, im Gegenteil, das stimuliert nur noch meine Kampfeslust. Lasche hoch und dann säbere ich voll in den Karton, daß mir das ganze Zeug über die Hose pladdert. Ui, da glitzern noch Eiskristalle drin, ich setze die Tüte an und gieße mir das Zeug in den Rachen und schlucke und schlucke und schlucke, fühlt sich an, als würde die Kehle einfrieren. Reine Milch ohne Zusätze, leider auch ohne Frostschutzmittel, da hat mans damals beim Wein besser gehabt: glykolversetzt, den konnte man sich gleich auch noch in den Kühler kippen, der Nachteil war, daß man elendig verreckt ist an dem Zeugs. Nichts für mich. Dann doch lieber den Weißen Riesen, der in meinem Magen inzwischen Eisklumpen bildet, schnell zurück unter die Bettdecke, zuerst aber stopfe ich noch den Schmeckefitzel in den Papierkorb, rülpse und lasse mich zurück in die Kissen fallen. Keine Frage: Jeder braucht mal ne Pause.

And to finish things off, the guy gives a perfect classification of milk packs. The tall 1 litre tetra packs are the ‘good’ ones while the wider and smaller ones are bad and usually contain disgusting UHT milk. After another fun detour to the glycol wine ‘scandal, the singer deserves a break.

The big day! Somehow the festival organisers decided to cram all the good bands into the Saturday. Which made the day very exhausting. But – first things first – we had to drink instant coffee because my friend had brought the cooker and the filter but had managed to forget the filter coffee (among other things) that goes with it. Another omission was the pan and the eggs, both of which make getting up in the unpleasant situation that is a campground a lot more tolerable. To start this day off extra miserably, it was quite chilly. And it was raining. Which is where the party tent came in handy as we could at least be in there rather than crammed into tiny tents.

As noon came near – and damn me do these hours of discomfort last long with the only pleasure being an iPod with speakers that had made it to the campground somehow and prepared us for the day – the weather improved and there were even a few minutes of sun. Finally we moved out of the safe tent and first had to grab some food. I picked a Chinese stall and the food was easily the worst Chinese food I ever had. Yucky, greasy, disgusting and making me feel sick. But at the same time good at fighting a hangover which was a main objective of that plan.

And then the music started for us. First with The Bravery playing, whose music always seems a bit too poppy to me but is charming enough to make you smile and cheesy enough to put on at any party. And I guess their gig was enjoyable. I still have to make up my mind whether the ‘real’ setup on stage which made them sound less slick and synthetic is a good or a bad thing. While that slickness is a big part of their music, I still lean towards the former.

Next on were Virginia Jetzt. I always thought their music was quite charming – particularly their first EP – but also a bit too nice to be great. They played a number of their charming songs and a few of the duller ones and their singer really liked talking. Very few singers are good at that. Very few. Still sort of enjoyable and with a nice logo behind the stage.

Next on were The Sounds. I sort of enjoyed their music at Hurricane last year but found it a bit disappointing on CD afterwards. And they didn’t disappoint, the music was enjoyable again when coming from a stage. Even more enjoyble even while sitting down. But hey – look at the screen in the back!

Slowly things were starting be more serious and Mogwai came on next. I like Mogwai and their music is great. So dedicated to noise. And in a very serious and unironic way (give or take a knitted woolen hat). Not many people make this kind of effort. And go on stage without silly jumping around or at least having some lead singer type of person. And make people like them! Seriously cool, coolly serious music. Best enjoyed loud and close to the stage. Which I made an attempt to do, thus noting that the volume levels were very reasonable at the festival – loud but not painful.

Once Mogwai got going I saw that there was a queue to get into the area right in front of the stage for the next gig. And that the queue was quite short. With Arcade Fire being the next band to come up, I did a bit of queueing (in their somewhat random/idiotic system) and watched Mogwai more from the side for a while. Because, uh, Arcade Fire were the main reason for me to come. After seeing them in Köln two years ago I just needed to see them again. After standing through a bit of rain there next to a bunch of very vivid tiny Italian girls and after (this really sucked!) the set up for the band needing 15 minutes longer than it should have, the band came on.

When seeing them in Köln I had fears that their music wouldn’t translate to an open air stage. A fear which turned out to be completely unwarranted. So this time I wondered how they’ll do on a huge open air stage. I actually was quite optimistic about that. And even that didn’t do them justice. And nor could any description of mine. Their music and their gig were just fantastic beyond words.

I’ll leave it at that. The problem was that they really ruined (well not quite ruined) the rest of the day for me because any other band just seemed old-fashioned, boring, dull and lifeless in comparison. For example Modest Mouse whom I saw afterwards (after just missing Tokyo Police Club, unfortunately) and who weren’t at all bad, just seemed dull to me. Even the crappy photo I took of them didn’t want to be in focus.

With things overlapping a bit, I still managed to see a few songs at the Bloc Party gig. I think they’re an OK band and certainly did well and a good show. But that’s about it. One thing to learn from the kids there: If you are standing way bac and don’t really see the band, look at the huge screens. If you want to take a photo of the band, just take a photo of the screens. That doesn’t make terribly much sense to me. But it works.

Next on at the second stage were the Manic Street Preachers. I never really got into their music but I know a few people who are absolutely crazy about it. I also figured that getting in at the front would ensure me having a good place for seeing Bright Eyes afterwards. Afterwards I have to tell that the Manics surely have dedicated fans. But that I’ll not be one of them. And their bassist has a bit of a problem with thinking he doesn’t get enough attention it seems. It seems mostly unnecessary to jump around like hell when playing bass – which is four strings, pretty much one at a time, the last time I checked. On the other hand, their keyboard and second guitar player were hidden somewhere at the back of the stage. Uh? At least I took what is pretty much the only decent photo of the weekend during the gig:

Bright Eyes came on afterwards with a whole orchestra and all of them were dressed totally in white. I was a bit disappointed by that. And I think it was overdoing it and killing the ‘whiney boy with guitar’ charme you usually associate with Bright Eyes. Things became a bit better when the orchestra left, but I still wasn’t persuaded to stay all the way to the end – I was supposed to meet my friends anyway.

Somehow we didn’t manage to meet, but I got to see a bit of Marilyn Manson instead. While the guy seems to be funny and all, I’m just not a friend of his music. And the whole thing seems to be about the persona anyway. More an ‘act’ than a band or so. The show looked quite elaborate but it definitely isn’t my cup of tea.

I was keener on seeing Aerogramme anyway. Their ‘The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it’ shirts at the merch stall amused me when I saw them (but weren’t pretty enough to actually get one) and I enjoyed their Story in White album. I was shocked to see how old the band are – having thought they’d be much younger. The music was all right, although I thought it lacked some of the lightness I had perceived in their album.

The final gig of the night were Interpol. I have a bit of a mixed relationship to their music because I always think I like it but I’m sometimes disappointed when I actually hear it. Still, their gig was solid and if I hadn’t seen Arcade Fire before, I may have even though it was great.

After that gig it was two o’clock. I had been running around in rubber boots which are two sizes too large all day and because of the mud everywhere I pretty much stood all the time. My feet were aching like hell and all I wanted was to lie down and get some rest. Which I almost got but I made the mistake of drinking a lot of water before going to sleep and not having had enough alcohol to be able to just ignore the noises from the rest of the campground.

Next: Hurricane Sunday

The Haldern Pop festival finally took place this weekend. We got tickets quite early this year because it was dramatically difficult to get tickets for everyone at a later stage last year. As things go, two people who were supposed to come with us, didn’t come along in the end and there was a bit of drama about selling the two spare tickets in the end, as either many people had the same problem as we did or the hawkers had just bought loads in the hope to sell them at a profit. As the line-up was much more obscure and less teenager friendly this year than it was last year, all those plans probably didn’t work out and we could consider ourselves lucky to find buyers for the tickets a bit below their actual price.

After us leaving Göttingen on Friday morning we drove across the country to pick up Steffen and then go to the festival. With the route being printed from some old version of Route 66, I learned the hard way that not only those printouts contain loads of unnecessary information but also that it’s not compatible with social scientists who prefer reading out all the crap information given on the paper to telling you whether or not to take some exit. Strangely, we still managed to arrive… and meet Dan and Richard at the festival grounds where we quickly put up the tents next to Richard’s group pretty much in the same place where we’ve been in the past two years. I guess by now we can start claiming it’s our place on the camp ground.

Bands we saw

• Morning Runner
• The Zutons
• We are Scientists
• Element of Crime
• Mogwai
• The Revs
• Final Fantasy

And that’s just for Friday, check the next page for those we saw on Saturday.

Morning Runner (UK, 17:00)

The first band we saw were Morning Runner. I didn’t really know them before but quite enjoyed their music. Not revolutionary but nice and energetic music and a good way to feel at home at the festival again.

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

The Zutons (UK, 18:00)

After a refreshingly short time of rearranging the stage, The Zutons played. Everybody had heard of them before and was keen to see them. And they played all right. I think their songs can be a bit long and slow at stages, though. Bonus points for the saxophone and wearing a skirt (which sadly isn’t all that popular in Germany)!

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

We are Scientists (US, 19:10)

The next break was quite unfortunate. Because it brought dark clouds and rain. A lot of it. We felt cheated then. After having stayed through a whole weekend of rain at last year’s festival in good humour, we definitely felt we deserved better weather this time. But it was a massive downpour that managed to turn all the areas where many people walked into a mud field with little lakes very quickly. My friends were soaked as well (and I only escaped that fate by hiding behind them unter the little roof of a pizza stall). Perhaps this photo of the Rockpalast sign (they’ll broadcast four hours of Haldern later this month), illustrates the rain problem.

And then We are Scientists came on. Having seen them before from just a few metres away, I wasn’t too bothered by just seeing them from the bad angle that standing at the pizza stall gave us. Their gig was all right, but I have to admit that the whole crap, not the whole rain thing again! thought spoiled it a bit. [Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

After the gig we went back to the tents for dry clothes, saying to ourselves that we should have bought rubber boots ‘just in case’ or being more pessimistic and going in with raincoats ‘just in case’ as well. While enjoying some drinks and snacks in the tent, the rain stopped luckily. It was a one hour and very intense period of rain only. And luckily it was the last one. Clothes could be put to dry, shoes could be replaced by muddy ones and we ended up being reasonably immune against the mud that still remained everywhere and went back to see…

Element of Crime (D, 23:15)

This was my third opportunity to see Element of Crime this year. And yet again they were wonderful, with their songs wiping away the bad weather fear. I keep being amazed how well their mostly quiet and clever music works for open air festivals as well. I’d usually expect this to be something that benefits from being indoors at a small location.

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

Mogwai (UK, 00:55)

After a bit of a wait, the stage was set up for Mogwai. While I always find it hard to actually recognise and name their songs (because of the lack of lyrics?), I still enjoy their music a lot. Its quiet power that isn’t all that quiet is just fantastic and blows you away. Not all that surprisingly, this was one of the best gigs of the festival.

Mogwai were the last band to play on the main stage. But as in the previous years there were two more gigs coming up in the Spiegelzelt. And we were keen to go there, as the tent is quite cool and gigs there were quite cool in the past.

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

The Revs (IRL, 1:45)

The first band to play in the tent that night were The Revs. Unfortunately, seeing Mogwai all the way to the end meant we were quite late in arriving there and had to wait in the queue while receiving text messages from Daniel on the inside telling us that it’s great – and it did sound quite good from out there in the queue as well. They had a screen outside the tent this year which was a great idea as it made the wait much less frustrating. When we finally got in, we just got to see the last two songs. But I got myself their record in the end, so I can double check…

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

Final Fantasy (CAN, 03:00)

I heard a number of people say that Final Fantasy will be a secret gem of the festival. The ‘band’, consisting of Owen Pallett who plays a violin for Arcade fire, was to play the violin with a dash of electronic weirdness. Where ‘electronic weirdness’ mostly refers to looping being used in addition to the live playing.

Just by the first look this reminded me of Patrick Wolf whom I got to know at Haldern in 2004… and playing for Arcade Fire isn’t the worst thing that people can do either. So I was curious to see what happens.

It turned out that the music was indeed quite different from Patrick Wolf and Owen made heave use of loops indeed – which I found rather irritating at first as you see him play something on the violin which doesn’t match part of what you’re hearing. A situation that I had to adjust to. I also found his singing a bit feeble and unenthusiastic.

In total I was really unsure what to make of it. While sounding irritating at first, the music sounded interesting to me in principle. But I kept thinking that it was a bit weak and needs some more work to be really convincing. Something to keep an ear on, but nothing that can be enthusiastic about now. [Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

And after this gig, around four, we returned to our tents for whatever was left of a good night’s sleep.

Read about the second day…

After stopping at Susanne’s place in Hannover and dropping my stuff there I went on to the club where quite a queue was in place already. From where I stood it didn’t look too bad but word spread that there wasn’t a proper queue at the front and people were just standing there in a massive bulk. But I’m not good at guessing the number of people in a group when seeing them and neither at estimating how many people you can fit in a room (four per square metre? six?), so I didn’t worry too much. What did worry me more at the time is the typically German lack of civilisation in queueing. Jumping the queue for whatever reason is done all the time and we saw plenty of people just walk past us. I really preferred the proper first come first served scheme in the UK where people are actually sent back – or just beaten up – when jumping the queue. None of that happens in Germany of course and the lesson to learn is that you really should skip the ‘queue’ bit of queueing and just join everybody as far in the front as you can. So in the end I didn’t get in. It looked like they could’ve easily filled the venue twice with the people who turned up.

A shame for sure but luckily there was another event on just down the road where Björn and Susanne were going anyway: Element of Crime were playing. As I may have pointed out before they are great. Not rock’n’roll, but quiet music with brilliant lyrics. The place was packed, but I still managed to get a ticket at the door. Luckily having to stand rather far back doesn’t spoil things too much for their kind of music. Which was still brilliant there. While it’s likely that you won’t be able to fully appreciate their music if you don’t know German and all the subtleties in their lyrics – which could merit the use of the word poetry – I still recommend checking out some of their songs.

As their music is rather quiet, doesn’t exhaust you when listening to it and as they have many albums to play great songs from, this is the kind of gig which you really want to go on an on. And it did. Enthusiastic noisemaking managed to get us four encores. Which I’d usually consider too many but which were just right in this case. Fantastic!

Siehst Du wie sich die Wolken zusammen drängen
Als ob es sie da oben alleine friert?
Ich hab nicht darum gebeten Dich wiederzusehen
Wer als erster von weinenden Wolken spricht verliert.

Frag mich nicht wie ich ohne Dich lebe
Den ganzen Tag unter Wasser und Spaß dabei;
Und alles geht immer irgendwie weiter
Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei.

Siehst Du dort den orangenen Held der Entsorgung,
Der die schweren Container vom Hof an den Straßenrand schiebt?
Der ist heute da und übermorgen schon wieder,
Weil es immer wieder was wegzuschmeißen gibt.

Frag mich nicht ob ich noch bei Trost bin
Den ganzen Tag untröstlich und Spaß dabei;
Und alles geht immer irgendwie weiter
Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei.

Siehst du den alten Mann mit der E-Gitarre,
Die er jeden Abend in höchster Erregung zerschlägt,
Die er jeden Morgen wieder mit Alleskleber
Zur Erregungsrequisite zusammenklebt.

Frag mich nicht ob ich dich noch liebe
Das Herz endlich gebrochen und Spaß dabei
Und alles geht immer irgendwie weiter
Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei.

Element of Crime – Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei

So let me try to translate this – at the cost of some of the beauty, I fear. The title of this one is There’s no more space in heaven for the two of us or perhaps There’s no room in heaven for the two of us or possibly the same with the sky instead of heaven.

Do you see how the clouds crowd together
as if on their own they’re freezing up there?
I didn’t ask to see you again,
whoever starts referring to crying clouds will lose.

Don’t ask how I live without you
under water all day and enjoying it.
And everything goes on anyhow
there’s no room in heaven for the two of us.

Do you see the orange hero of disposal
moving the heavy bins from the yard to the curbside?
He’s here today and the day after tomorrow again
because there’s always something to throw away.

Don’t ask whether I still am sane [bei Trost]
inconsolable [untröstlich] all day and enjoying it.
And everything goes on anyhow
there’s no room in heaven for the two of us.

Do you see the old man with the electric guitar,
which every night he breaks with the greatest passion,
which every morning with super glue
he reassembles to be the passion requisite.

Don’t ask whether I still love you
the heart finally broken and enjoying it
And everything goes on anyhow
there’s no room in heaven for the two of us.

Ah, great.

Try using last.fm for samples of some of the tracks. They have a little player for that right on the page.

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]

But eventually sitting through this was worth it. I had assumed the band to not be exactly young as Jörg first introduced me to their music when we were freshers. And they are even a little bit older more mature than that. Eventually they had a singer/guitarist, a drummer, a bassist, a keyboarder and a trombonist on stage but they started off in a very slow and cool way, starting out with some electronic percussion and then very slowly and carefully, the drums, bass and guitar joining in before everything started off a few minutes later. At these slow speeds, it’s not rock’n’roll, of course, but it was never expected to be.

They played a good show to not that many of us who still made the club look reasonably full because it’s very small and the band needing a lot of the space there. It was fascinating to see the bassist play his instrument enthusiastically and carefully, to hear the singer’s typical voice and have a trombone on stage. The drummer was operating equally carefully which I tend to be sceptical about. Not that the sound was bad, but when thinking about drumming, severe physical activity comes to my mind, and a lot of force – which were both missing here. And I’m not entirely sure whether the keyboarder did all that much in the course of the show. In part because I couldn’t really see him, but mostly because they oddly had quite a few piano (and other) snippets coming out of little electronic machines, thus making the real player seem kind of superfluous when he did the playing for a change. I fact, I was surprised by the amount of electronic help they used – with the drummer having some electronica there as well and the bassist having a little device as well which he used quite spectacularly towards the end.

And if you’re into German, you might appreciate their lyrics as well. They’re quite cool and unusual in their subtlety. Check out Nah bei dir, their cover version of Burt Bacharach’s Close To You or the wonderful In den Schuhen von Audrey Hepburn with its nice bass line or Dawai Dawai which I think is the first song of them I knew but which I can only find on a relatively recent album.

[Buy at amazon .com, .uk, .de]