Stereo Total Live¶
250 words on German Music , Live
I have this long-standing history with Stereo Total which ranges from wanting to ignore their ill-sounding CD on my shelves, to starting to appreciate it, to completely clearing an Offbeat dancefloor (yeah those thankless indie-snobs) with one of their not-so-strange songs, to repeatedly missing opportunities to seem them play live (the most painful being a gig where they were opening for The Strokes ca. 2002 which was sold out before I could get tickets).
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!
