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Chikinki Live¶
698 words on Live
Friday night I went to Hannover with Björn to see a gig. Hannover isn’t terribly far, getting there is slow but free with our university card and staying over there isn’t a problem either. So this should be done more frequently. In addition, Hannover is a real city (they had the Expo in 2000 and have many big trade shows like the Cebit there every year). And while it’s not terribly pretty or exciting it is more exciting than Göttingen… which is easy to beat.
We went to Cafe Glocksee to see Chikinki which Björn found out about and considered worth seeing. I hadn’t been at the place before and found it to be a nice little club. The right size, enough people, a few comfy sofas to lounge on before the bands started and even cider on sale.
First off was the support band: thehighqueens, an unkown local band. While I won’t be enthusiastic about them, I thought they were actually quite good. Their set, particularly its first half, was quite enjoyable. Exactly the kind of music you like to have for a support band. Not too original but solid. Their singer was also playing bass and having two guitarists at his side. A nice idea. It also seemed that the band really enjoyed playing and were happy that people were enjoying their music. Which is good.
After an extensive break for rearranging the stage Chikinki from the nice town of Bristol came on. I hadn’t really heard of them before but then I haven’t followed the music magazines in the past months and seeing that they’re playing three times in Berlin this months suggests that music ‘journalists’ will consider them relevant or important or something and they might be known.
Anyway, you can get their album Lick your ticket on iTMS as well. And while the odd typeface they use for their band name looks a bit metalish to me, the music isn’t. It’s keyboards and guitar with singing. A mix of the electronic and normal worlds. Possibly something that the Dans and Daves might enjoy. While the music isn’t bad and not overdoing the electronics, I still find it hard to accept that it makes sense to have something like three keyboards and two synthesizer things on stage. And those are operated by two people – ecstatically operated, in fact. I still fail to see how pressing buttons can spark people enough to make them jump around…
The singer has quite a recognisable voice and his way of moving kept reminding me of Adam Green. And he was wearing a polo shirt that was slightly too short for the jumping around he did… but in the end the music was still enjoyable. Nice track for checking out: Like it or leave it.
After the gigs there was a club night starting. Although it claimed to be both guitar and electronic music it started with nice indie tunes and I was quite optimistic about what would follow – having heard them play Patrick Wolf or Art Brut between the two gigs. Unfortunately the music soon changed to an electronic mess so we left – giving us enough time for having some fried eggs before sleeping.
When trying to get back to Göttingen on Saturday the town was full of football fans. In my book, football fans are the proof that football itself isn’t the worst thing on earth. Loads of them were heading for the station and I wasn’t willing to spend the next 90 minutes standing in a crowded train between drunk football fans. So I was happy to learn that my friend Martin had returned in the meantime and I could drop by his place for some music, tea and food before catching one of the following trains.
Which was still not football free but at least had seats for everyone… though I ended up sitting next to a group of guys who had just bought a big rubber penis with a straw sticking out at the top which they were about to bring along to a party. And they were asking everyone around about how brilliant this would be. Brilliant indeed.
