Last night Smith and I went to the Angel and our favourite little music venue in Torrens Street. I drove into the big smoke and parked in some driveway using the Just Park app. Now, let’s be clear, the app doesn’t park the car but it allows you to find a space that is convenient and, normally, quite local to your destination. It was a much nicer drive than on Wednesday when I met up with the Fulham Five for a leaving party – one of our number is heading to the US to live. There are now three of us in the USA and three and a half in the UK. Back to the gig.
First band on were Machine Vein. I spent most of the gig thinking they were j:dead because I wasn’t aware there were three bands on. While driving in to the gig I thought it would be funny to see Biomechanimal again as they have been support for many bands I have seen. It turns out that Machine Vein have some of the same members of Biomechanical. I quite enjoyed their set. It was heavy bass with tiddly sounds over the top. I had a good time.
Second band were j:dead and I thought I had seen them before somewhere, sometime, but now, having seen them I suspect not. I also thought I had some of their music on my phone but that was also not a correct thought. I think they pop up in a lot of the social media I have because of their close links to the EBM – Aggrotech genres. I didn’t find their set as much fun as Mechanical Vein but they were definitely a more polished live band to see, you could tell there was plenty of experience. I was also surprised they were British. Not sure why that surprised me but it did.
j:dead at Electrowerkz
Then we were on to Faderhead, a singer I had seen before twice at a music festival and one whose shows were great. I’ve even helped fund their albums at times and there are communications somewhere in this site. I’m quite happy to pay for things that make me happy, hence I even pay for free podcasts, I will recognise that being able to do that is from a position of privilege. So, Faderhead. I really enjoyed the show. It was great to see him in London and the crowd was pretty darn good. He has a load of songs that are really good for singing along with. Some of my favourites are “No gods, no flags, no bullshit”, “Destroy, improve, rebuild”, “Fistful of fuck you”, and “Swedish models and cocaine”.
Faderhead @ Electrowerkz
Earlier in the day Faderhead had said that he wasn’t feeling well and that his voice was struggling. I think this showed in the early songs and he clearly didn’t feel healthy-well. He sounded better about halfway through the gig and then his voice declined more towards then end. They had decided to put some extra ballads into the set to ease his voice and I didn’t mind this. Overall I really enjoyed the show. It was great to see them play a smaller venue and I look forward to seeing them again sometime.
Smith and I went to see perennial favourites Combichrist play at The Garage in Highbury last night. I’ve seen this band loads and really enjoy their gigs. The last one was in the Assembly Rooms in Islington and I wasn’t in the right place to enjoy the gig [and there was an annoying person in the pit]. It does feel like I see Combi about once a year which is nice. I drove and parked on someone’s drive near the venue while Smith got the trains [there’s an overtime strike on at the moment. I believe that if your system requires people to work beyond their standard contract hours to be efficient then your system has a problem]. After applying makeup we had a drink in a pub and then went to the venue.
The first band/artist on was Janosch Moldau. They were a singer/songwriter who played guitar while singing along to electronic music. It was ok as a starting act but I don’t really feel the need to see them again.
Janosch Moldau
The next band were Megaherz. This is a German band who I’ve seen a few times at M’era Luna in the past. In this August I saw their entire set and my comments were:
Megaherz – main stage – good German rock. Enjoyed it. Proper rain shower. Heavy rain.
Parish – this website
Their gig at The Garage was good fun. They put on the best show they could on the tiny stage. Having seen them play to 20,000 on a massive stage made the small stage seem really incongruous. They wore Kiss type make-up which meant they had black crosses of various types on their faces and white all around that. I’d made myself up with a “joker” type smile but in black.
Megaherz at The Garage
The headliners were amazing. I stood a couple of rows back in the middle at the front. I knew that at some point there would be a pit and I wanted to be on the edge of it. I wasn’t in the mood for full pitness but the odd bounce here and there I knew would be fun. Combichrist played well and they sang a number of crowd pleasers and I think there were two new songs, at least I didn’t recognise them. I’m still not sure about the whole move into a metal sound but it works and adds a little to some of the songs. Their Old School gig was the best I’ve been to.
Combichrist at The Garage
According to a website somewhere this was their setlist:
Blut Royale
Maggots at the Party
Modern Demon
Scarred
Get Your Body Beat
Can’t Control
Denial
Compliance
Heads Off
Fuck That Shit
Hate Like Me
Not My Enemy
Never Surrender
Encore – My Life My Rules
So, I had good fun and enjoyed the music. Somehow, a few days after now, I think I preferred the Megaherz set but that may be because I’ve seen Combichrist so many times. I think it’s nine times now. To give you some context there are bands I’ve seen once and am not that fussed about seeing again because, I’ve seen them, they don’t offer anything new.
Because I’ve seen Aesthetic Perfection a lot and also I’ve seen Combichrist a lot it turns out that members of those bands I have seen more than any other. Especially when the drummer from Combi moves to AP and the keyboardist for AP moves to Combi. I don’t know who I’ve seen most and to figure it out would require some hardcore research so I won’t really bother. I nice part of the gig was Elliot Berlin [formerly of AP] being carried by the audience to the bar at the back of the venue.
So, I went to see Combichrist. Originally the tickets were for 2020 but we all know the heap of shit that this world turned into in late 2019. It has taken two years and finally I got the chance to see this amazing band (again). Luckily for me I did see them at M’era Luna two weekends ago as they replaced a band who had pulled out. This was my first time at a venue called the Islington Assembly Room – it was easy to get to and seemed very nice inside. The floor was wood and bouncy – I suspect it has been used as a ballroom in the past. The floor got slippery as soon as there was some beer on it.
First band up was a French (?) female rapper called Mimi Barks. I really enjoy her show. I liked the music and her anger. She seemed fierce. Not only that but she was in the pit for Combichrist and also sang a song with Priest and the Combichrist finale.
Mimi Barks – Islington Assembly Hall
Next up were Priest who, as soon as they appeared on stage, I was convinced I had seen before. Smith couldn’t remember seeing them so I searched this website and found them! I had seem them with my niece one time when we watched Aesthetic Perfection. I will say that this time I thought the singing was better but overall I wasn’t that bothered by their show or music. Just not up to my incredibly high level of tastes!
Priest – Islington Assembly Hall
Then we get Combichrist. I did not recognise any of their first three songs, but then Throat Full Of Glass came on and I was happy. I was on the edge of the pit, I wasn’t quite feeling it as much as at M’era Luna. I think I would say that the pit was more violent and a harsher environment than in Germany and so I wasn’t comfortable getting in. Also, a big part of me just wanted to watch the show. There was a fat twat in the pit who was out of control – I had to move away from the edge of the pit because I was likely to sharply elbow him if he bounced into me. He was a grade A twat.
Combichrist – Islington Assembly Hall
Part of me finds it quite fascinating to watch bands up close because you start to see just how much of a job it is. You can see the musicians “acting” on stage, creating a show. I think I had always thought that they got excited for the music they were creating and lost control but that is the job for the audience. The band is there to create that atmosphere. Occasionally I see this in performers, there’s an almost dead look in their eyes, there’s only so much you can do night after night. At this gig I only really noticed this in one of the band members, I guess there’s only so much adoration you can cope with?
Anyway, Elliot Berlin was in the band and I’m a fan. He did two things I thought were amazing. During the very last song he crowd surfed while playing a big fat tom-tom. Earlier in the gig he had jumped off the stage and got into the circle-pit and played guitar while people moshed around him and that for me is the highlight of the show!
Elliot Berlin – Combichrist – Islington Assembly Hall
Last night Smith and I went out! Out! To see a band! Well, two bands really but it was out and my first time in London since February 2020 when we saw Aesthetic Perfection. We got the train in and booked into our hotel room – proper full on night out! After getting changed we headed to Electrowerkz, which was quite close to the hotel and entered. I had forgotten my photo ID and the security people were very good at sorting that out as I had photos of all my ID on my phone, they accepted me fortunately.
Electrowerkz Welcome
I loved this touch of some old CRT showing a logo as we walked up the steps. It added to the feel of the place. We didn’t see the first two bands as we were drinking and chatting to the merchandise people. I think I bought some dog tags, but I have no idea where I put them, I’ll have to have a look shortly. I liked the few changes that had been made to the building and ambiance, the main floor looked really good.
Before The Crowds – Electrowerkz
Reaper is a band/person we had wanted to see for a long time as a couple of his albums are really good. A nice split between industrial and EBM. I enjoyed his set although I think there could have been some other songs added to make it greater but I guess you have to trust the artist and the things they want to play might not be what I want to hear.
Reaper – X-Junkie
I really enjoyed the Reaper set. It was about this time that I started to appreciate the new sound system in the room. I could hear all the nuance in the songs, which I knew quite well anyway, and this was a surprise as normally my hearing dies quite quickly into a gig and I can’t tell what’s going on apart from noise.
Nachtmahr – Electrowerkz
Nachtmahr were brilliant. They played a great set and the crowd really liked it. I don’t think this makes a top ten of gigs, but it’s definitely in the top half. I had a great time and danced quite a bit – I think the alcohol helped a lot with that. Overall this was a good gig. A couple of great bands and really good fun. Brilliant!
This is communication number 1977 and so in keeping with recent tradition I list below some events of that year:
Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam draft dodgers.
The rings of Uranus are discovered.
Optical Fibre is used to transmit phone calls for the first time.
165 Killed in a fire in Kentucky.
Never Mind The Bollocks is released by the Sex Pistols.
Took my lovely niece and Smith to see Aesthetic Perfection last night at The Lounge 666 or whatever it’s called near Archway tube in London. Before the show we were just about to go to get food when I checked where the venue was and spotted Daniel Graves on his way out of the venue. I, very politely, asked if he would meet my niece because she loves him. I think I even used the phrase “I don’t mean to impose but would you mind . . . .”, jesus, what a british twat I can be. Anyway, he came over and met my niece and they had a photo taken. She was very happy.
The first band we saw, but second on the bill, was Jadu. Biomechanimal were on first but we missed them. That’s not a bad thing, we’ve seen them before a few times. Jadu are a German band who I quite enjoyed. There were four of them, a female singer and a drummer, guitarist and keyboard person. It was quite slow stuff but perfectly good. I quite enjoyed it. I did note that the sound of the kick drum was pretty good and didn’t over power the rest of the sound. I’m probably going to get a Jadu album, it was good enough for that.
Jadu – Archway
Shortly after that Aesthetic Perfection came on stage and this is now the about 9th time I have seen Joe Letz. This makes him the artist I have seen most. I don’t mind. His on stage persona is brilliant and I enjoy his antics.
Joe Letz banging the fuck out of a drum
Aesthetic Perfection put on an amazing show. It was probably the best I have seen them and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The crowd was nice and pleasant. Even the six foot six female pair allowed those of us shorted than them in front. I spent the whole gig about three rows back from the front, which didn’t even have a barrier.
Daniel Graves and Elliot Berlin
The band played for a decent length of time and I have to say I enjoyed it all. There was a moment when Joe Letz tapped Daniel in the penis and it was pretty funny. There’s a good camaraderie between them all. It’s nice to see a theremin being used at a concert, they’ve probably used them before I just didn’t notice it.
Aesthetic Perfection
This was a bloody good gig. Probably the best I have seen them and I really enjoyed it. My niece managed to sweet talk one of the roadies and got a Joe Letz drum stick at the end of the gig. This will now go with her stick from a Combichrist gig a few years back. I am a little jealous.
Joe Letz’s Knackered Drumstick
Well done AP and I look forward to seeing you again sometime soon.
Given how close The O2 is to where I live this was the first time I had been there to see a concert. I went there a long time ago to see some tennis but this was the first music event. The “Millennium Dome” as it was known a long time ago was considered a GBP1 Billion white elephant in the early days of the Blair government. The display area was shit. I know, I went there. I never saw the “show” in the arena it was meant to be a bit like a circus – I guess there’s video of it but I care not. I’d also been a couple of other times most notably to see a Star Wars exhibition.
Anyway. Dave from work drove and we met up with Smith and Son. We ate. I drank. We entered the arena just after Behemoth had started.
Behemoth
I didn’t find them particularly good. They were quite boring. There wasn’t much dynamic shift to their songs and it was rather – meh. But still it was an opportunity to study the stage construction and layout of the arena. I noticed plenty of structural high beams, they were interesting, and the cable work holding up the PA system was impressive. Yep, that’s the sort of stuff I find interesting. I think it comes from having and engineering degree and thinking about how stuff works a lot.
The headliners were Slipknot. I was quite excited as I’d been listening to their stuff all week and I have to admit it’s pretty good stuff. It had also been quite a while since we had seen a metal headline act in an arena. Smith and I normally see either small bands in small venues or the classic M’era Luna festival in Germany.
The Stage and Slipknot
Slipknot were pretty darn good. They kept the crowd going and all their songs were great. I really enjoyed it. At some points the mosh pit extended two thirds of the way back on the standing area and I don’t think I’ve ever really seen that before.
It was curious to see adverts for Slipknot stuff on the large screens before the band. They were advertising Knotfest which is an open air concert to take place at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes. Then, there was Slipknot whiskey made in Iowa. I mean, sure, you can buy it if you want but are you into a band that much that you want all your kit branded that way? In my experience it’s best to like the music, enjoy the shows and then not worry too much about the other stuff. Buying into a band completely always leaves you exposed to being failed when they turn out to be cunts. Not saying Slipknot are, just saying some bands are.
The Crowd and Slipknot
There was also an advert for some cruise thing from Barcelona to Naples with Slipknot appearing on board playing two shows. You can pay to be stuck on a cruise [honestly sounds quite nice] and then in the evening there will be some gigs. That’s not so bad I reckon. The Norwegian Jade will be a floating music festival and decked out like a museum to this Iowan band.
Slipknot Cruise Price List
I don’t have this sort of money. The largest venue holds 2500 which is a reasonable size. It would be a pretty special time, but it is an outdoor venue and if the weather is shit you are screwed. Maybe the other bands would make it worthwhile? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll do this kind of thing once I’m retired.
Slipknot were pretty good on stage. There was the expected crowd interaction and I enjoyed it all. I don’t think I’m that fussed about seeing them again though. I think I am slowly seeking new things, new sounds or shows. My limit seems to be two times for seeing bands at the moment. I say this when I’m soon to see Aesthetic Perfection for the seventh time!
Good show. Good time. Enjoyed it. What more do you want?
Smith and I travelled to attend the Beat Cancer 2.0 festival last night. Last year we saw Freakangel play somewhere in east London and now the fund raising jaunt returned in a bigger venue and with eight bands. The gig was based in the large room downstairs at Electrowerkz and there was a small bar set up but there wasn’t really a lot of space. It looked like there was a wedding going on in the Tube Train room – you’ll know what I mean if you’ve been there.
So the music started about ninety minutes late. The organiser blamed Lufthansa as the headline band, iVardensphere, were in Germany at the beginning of the day and without planes had to get to London. They managed this and set up but the running order was late by a long way. I had an important event to attend the next morning and so while the event was scheduled to finish at midnight I didn’t mind that once the delay was announced it made seeing all the bands rather problematic. I guess most people attending didn’t have to march through a town in a Remembrance Parade eight hours later.
First band up were Drakenwerks who I had missed by turning up late to another gig when they supported Nachtmahr. My notes say that the band was made of a man and woman, they were OK and played upbeat electronics with a hint of EBM.
Drakenwerks – Electrowerkz
The lighting rig seemed to consist of single colour washes for each song. In the above I caught a “green” song.
Then there was Vain Machine. Two chaps from the USA and it was their first time in London. It was a bit too goth for me. They even played a terrible cover version of “I was made for loving you” by Kiss.
Vain Machine – Electrowerkz
Then there was the band of the organisers. The people who run this charity gig had a band and they played. It was experimental bullshit. A wall of noise. It was terrible. They were called Bein-E. Their full name was a massive German word but I only saw it on one piece of literature and didn’t make a note of it.
Bein-E – Electrowerkz
Then there was Cygnosic. This band was much more upbeat. The vocals were “growly” and while I didn’t understand what they were saying it was an improvement on most of the previous bands. The only problem was that their songs had no variation within. The structure was a single unit and lasted three minutes and stopped. I needed some form of difference as the song progressed. Judging by the accent of the singer when he spoke the band were from Spain or maybe Italy or similar [if they are Portuguese then I’ve probably offended a whole country!].
Cygnosic – Electrowerkz
It was now 23:00 and there were three bands to go. iVardensphere wouldn’t finish until around 01:30 and I had stuff I was required to do the next morning. I had to call it a day and drive home. I’m gutted, but at least I have seen the Sphere before. They were really good both previous times but I can’t change my schedule. I’ll see them again one day soon I expect.
I missed:
Nature Of Wires
C-Lekktor
iVardensphere
So, after all that I saw five bands of varying degrees of not-good and the one band I really wanted to see I couldn’t as I had to get home to parade the next morning in Maidstone. I was gutted but also aware of my commitments and limitations. It was good to see the Smith.
Last Saturday I went to see Rammstein play their current set at the MK Stadium in Milton Keynes. It was bloody amazeballs.
Early Fire
I had spent the previous week at RAF Shawbury with a cadet camp which was already a brilliant week and I then topped it off with this brilliant show. I drove down from the West Midlands to Milton Keynes and met with Smith in a supermarket car park. This gig is an important one because he had brought his kids along, their first major gig. You could tell that there was a slight trepidation from the eldest [around 14] but the youngest displayed nothing but sheer excitement [around 12].
The support band were two women who played pianos on a stage just in front of our seats. It was nice but I didn’t really pay attention. I was suffering with the effects of being tired and so I read a book on the development of the pressure suit for high altitude flying published by Nasa. It wasn’t bad but I needed to rest!
Extinguishers?
Rammstein themselves were amazing. Absolutely amazing. The show they put on is remarkable and worth every penny of the 7500 for the cost of a ticket. There were the normal theatrics with lots of fire. And I mean lots of fire. There were black clouds bellowing over the stadium at certain points during the show and I wondered what it must look like to someone outside the stadium.
Angel Of Fire
There were many highlights. Every song had its own act. The keyboardist being burnt in a massive cauldron, the burning to death of a giant baby, the massive riding cock for the song “Pussy”, and flames shooting from guitars.
This might seem odd but the dance track halfway through made my night. That was the moment I thought “this is the best show ever”. One of the guitarists DJd while being lifted high above the stage and the other members of the band came on with suits that lit up along the limbs. They then performed a dance routine to an electronic version of thier own song. What balls, to make 30,000 metal fans listen and dance to electronic music. This band have it all.
This was the best show I have ever seen and is the third best gig I have been to. The Prodigy last year at M’era Luna may have been an excellent show, I don’t know I can’t remember any of it. This concert would have been top of the list had I been in the pit. You have to take whatever you can from a gig and I loved this but part of me hankered to be in the mild violence of the circle. I still had a great time. My top three gigs are: Combichrist Old School, The Prodigy and Rammstien – this one.
This Was Warm
This is the thrid time I have seen Rammstein and it was bloody brilliant.
“Did I mention? I’m seeing Rammstein in Milton Keynes this weekend.”
Last night I went to the O2 Academy in Islington with my niece to see Aesthetic Perfection. We drove into town as it just makes it easier to get home and not worry about running to get the last train. After arriving we had burritos for dinner and then headed to the venue.
Machine Rox were playing, this was a slight surprise as they weren’t on the bill as far as I knew but we watched them anyway.
Machine Rox
I didn’t mind them. The singer owned the dress she was wearing and that was excellent. I couldn’t understand what she was singing though and that seems to be a bit of a flaw. The drummer doesn’t really do much and the guitarist is pretty cool in his silver outfit and lights on his head. They were OK.
Next up was Amelia Arsenic. I hadn’t heard of her before this series of concerts and so was curious. She came on stage and explained that her band were stuck in Cincinnati and she’d been hit by a car the day before. She had a computer set up to play the music and her performance was really good. I could understand what she was singing and really enjoyed the show.
Amelia Arsenic
I can’t remember how many tracks she sang but I was impressed. On my next pay day I think I’ll be buying some of her work. I don’t think there are enough female artists in this genre and it’s good to see more. She had a wonderful confidence and even came and sang the last verse in the crowd.
Priest were up next. I’m still not sure what to make of this band. I enjoyed it for a while and his signing impressed me but the songs didn’t vary much and were built around his seemingly classically trained voice. I thought I detected a slight French accent but I may have been wrong there. Apart from the outfits there didn’t seem to be much going on stage.
Priest
I’ve just checked and the band are from Sweden, so that explains why I thought they were French. I did like that the singer called themselves:
The Cybernetic Trinity known as Priest
It was a nice touch. I don’t think I’d need to see more of them though.
The headliners were Aesthetic Perfection. I’ve seen this band a few times and have always enjoyed the show. They were the second EBM type band that I started listening to and so are one of my original favourites along with Combichrist. Also, now that Joe Letz plays with AP I think that means I have seen him perform more times than any other musician.
Aesthetic Perfection
I was curious to see how the band handled the new guitar influences on the new album but the keyboardist played the guitar on two songs and I think it worked. I like the new album a lot and so to hear the songs live was very exciting.
The band played a solid set and it was very enjoyable. It’s nice to be part of a crowd that really sings along and joins in. These guys are excellent showmen and the addition of Joe Letz brings the album sounds to life. I always think that live drummers add more to the sound than they cost. I really like it when electronic bands do that.
Classic Guitar Pose
This gig was good fun and I enjoyed it immensely. AP are still one of my favourite bands and I will continue to see them when they come over. A good solid evening of music.
Last night was a chance to listen to some classic Austrian Industrial music at Electrowerkz. It’s in Torrens Street, Angel, which is a tiny little cul-de-sac with a smart pub at its entrance and an Alien-themed industrial-alternative club for other people at the other end.
I think last night was the forth time I’ve got clothes on and ready in another person’s driveway. I park in spaces that people don’t use, but I’m not a thief, I pay for the privilege to keep my car there.
First band on at Electrowerkz was Dunkelsucht. This probably translates to either dark thoughts or depression. I’m not sure and in this day and age it’s terrible that I haven’t looked up which it is. Maybe I’m too lazy. OK, I just went and did it and it apparently means Dark Investigated. I suspect not!
Dunkelsucht
This band comprised a male singer and a female computer controller type person. They are from Switzerland and I quite enjoyed them. It seemed quite pop-like to me, but I suspect that in reality it’s quite heavy stuff? I’m never sure and I hate the fact that it’s all so subjective. I wrote in my notes that it was OK, they had good beats and I enjoyed it overall. I did find that in the middle of a few songs it suddenly went strange with melodies that seemed out of place.
The next band on were DKAG and I’ve seen them before a number of times. Smith and I stayed in the bar. I spent thirty seconds watching them, just to check they were the same. There’s a limit to how much I can take. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that I really enjoy about forty five minutes of any band and show but after that I start to get bored because all the songs sound the same. I think that’s either because I enjoy M’era Luna and the shorter sets that I generally see there or the causation is the other way around and I just find shorter sets more interesting.
The headliners were Nachtmahr. As with the last time I saw them here there were only two of them. The singer, Thomas Rainer, and the computer controller were all by themselves. I know there were about five people on stage at M’era Luna although two of those were female stage show actors.
Nachtmahr – March 19
Nachtmahr played for a solid ninety minutes and if I’m honest I only started to struggle in the last fifteen or so, even given my rant a couple of paragraphs ago. They were pretty good, but I don’t think Rainer is a natural frontman. To me he looks like he’s playing an act, which all singers are to an extent, but he seems uncomfortable with it. I don’t mind that though. I’ve paid to see a show and I don’t want my musicians to look like they aren’t enjoying it.
Hello Crowd
This set had a load of classic songs you would expect to hear. I enjoyed it a lot.
What I found most interesting at the venue was that I would say it was easily a 50-50 split in the sexes of those attending. There was also a wide age spread from around 18 to around 65 from the looks of the people I saw. It was quite probably the most diverse audience I have seen yet for a gig. It was such a nice atmosphere, really enjoyable. A good night.
Fleisch were the main band in the venue Fire last night. They are an industrial metal band from somewhere up north. The first band though were called AlterRed.
I honestly can’t remember a huge deal about AlterRed! I don’t remember hating it but I don’t remember being incredibly impressed. It was watchable. I think Smith and I gave it about a 3/10 score, although the grading system for watching bands isn’t as rigorous as the cinema review section of this site.
I didn’t take any photos during the gig, it wasn’t that sort of place so I have found a music video and you can judge for yourself:
The only other band playing that night were Fleisch. There were better and rated at about a 5/10 by Smith and me. I’m not sure the sound was super brilliant and I certainly didn’t get a Rammstein feel, which they claim but it was a good performance. What I don’t understand is the need for separate bass tracks in the backing track and also a bass player, one or the other folks. Your sound doesn’t need two lots of deep sounds, one will do.
Smith and I traveled to the lofty intellectual heights of Islington last night to visit the Garage venue just outside Highbury station. On the bill were Lord Of The Lost, a German rock band, the venue was meant to be Electrowerkz but I think they sold more tickets than expected and they moved the gig to the Garage.
This was my third time at the Garage and again I was impressed. It’s smaller than I remembered, a nice, cosy (but not squashed) venue. I will say now that the sound in the place was pretty impressive and worked well. Probably better than Electrowerkz but I think this is largely to there being a little more space. Possible improvements would be a light beam a little further out from the stage to light up the bands a little more from the front rather than from a 3/4 position.
The second band were just finishing as we entered and they weren’t that impressive.
One of my favourites on as last support act were Unzucht. I’d seen them before at two M’era Luna festivals and I was looking forward to this.
Unzucht
They were good fun and played a decent set. They play a good hard riffage and then go and mess it up with an almost-ballad in the middle but I enjoy their style and it was good fun.
The headliners came on and I wasn’t really aware of the time but when I did look at my watch it was only 21:30 so for some reason there was an early curfew. It looked like they were setting up an urban-disco type thing.
Lord Of The Lost were good. It was a solid fun set and they seemed genuinely happy to be playing to a large-ish crowd.
Lord Of The Lost
I don’t really remember what songs they played but they started with “On This Rock” and ended with “La Bomba” which is always good for fun. Somewhere in the middle they played “Drag Me To Hell”.
It was a good evening and one that I ended too early really because I needed to be up early the next day [boo!]. Normally there would be more written here but I’m tired.
I spent a lovely amount of time with Smith at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town on Sunday. The event was the Black Celebration music festival of all types of dark music. Of most interest was the band Suicide Commando. The event was promoted by the Flag Promotions company who run so very many of the gigs and concerts I go to. Obviously my music tastes are aligned with some of theirs.
Black Celebration 2018
Here are my reviews of each band in order of viewing. As is my usual behaviour I write notes on my phone during or after each act to help me remember what I’ve seen. That is why the comments may be pithy or short.
Machine Rox – were first up. We arrived towards the end of their set as Smith and I were having make-up issues. But they were ok. My notes indicate the following: female singer, there was a guitarist but I couldn’t hear him.
Machine Rox
I liked the dancers who came on for the last song wearing outfits similar to the lead singer. It was a nice touch.
Next up were DKAG who are quickly becoming my most-seen band. They are supporting many bands over the next year. While the music is good there are no vocals and so unless I am wasted on alcohol I’m not that interested. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I like crowd interaction from the band, I want to know that they are enjoying it. Two guys with their keyboards doesn’t quite hit the mark.
There was now a short dinner break for me. The local cafe was very welcoming and the food was nice. Recommended. It was Mem’s Cafe on Kentish Town Road.
The return to the Forum meant the last few songs from Sulpher. This band sounded good and heavy with a decent industrial feel.
Sulpher
My notes are: guitars and heavy stuff. A little bit of samples mixed in. We saw about 4 songs and it was alright.
Let me explain the “alright” comment. This means I enjoyed it more than a lot of others. While “alright” might not seem a glowing review it means that the music was OK, suitable etc. [I’m trying to renormalise the term AVERAGE and OK to mean what they really mean].
Empathy Test came up next. I have seen this band before although I couldn’t remember exactly where or when. Smith and I had a discussion about who the lead singer was. Once they were on stage I figured out that they had played Infest last year and I saw them there. Here’s what I noted at the time: only 20 seconds in and I was done. Remember them from Infest. Boring vocals and drone-like. Slow. Female drummer who looks like she’s concentrating too much. Well constructed songs but boring.
Suicide Commando rocked the venue. I don’t mind the graphic visuals of people with holes in their bodies where holes shouldn’t be. This band was really good. A real uplift from the previous band.
Suicide Commando
I still maintain that a live drummer rather than a machine or dead person makes such a difference to a gig. I really enjoyed Mr Commando!
My notes say only the following:
heavy, fast and dirty. Great.
More Suicide Commando
And then we get to Mesh. This might be the third time I’ve seen Mesh and they seem almost bored to be on stage. There’s not a lot of interaction. My only notes were:
Kinda boring
The Young Gods came on stage next. I knew nothing about them but I could see three white lights thinly blazing over the positions of the band on stage and I liked that set up. It worked really well. The first song was very Pink Floyd with a slow build up to not-a-lot and then a slow wind down. It felt like the crowd didn’t really know when the song finished. But, this band were older and clearly excellent musicians with that easy style of people who have worked together for so long.
The Young Gods
My scrawled notes say:
Interesting but not really my stuff. turning into experimental upbeat music. Still quite psychedelic. Good beat to some songs. Enjoyable.
Finally we had DAF. A band I had seen at M’era Luna and a band that didn’t impress hugely. I get it that without DAF and other older bands that my style of preferred music wouldn’t exist but I’m also allowed to find their stuff a little boring. I think I would be the same with Nitzer Ebb and other bands from the 80s and 90s. Smith and I stayed for a while but in reality we both had work the next day and long-ish journeys home. Maybe I’ll see a complete Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft set one day.
Last night was one of those events I had been looking forward to for quite a while. Nachtmahr were playing a gig to celebrate 10 years in business and it was happening at Electrowerkz. I really like Electrowerkz, it’s a dingy little club in Angel with a small venue for concerts. I’ve been here before. This time I travelled with my niece and met Smith there.
Outside the door is a sign saying Hadley’s Hope. Inside it’s black and reminiscent of the landing site in the film Aliens, called Hadley’s Hope. There’s a bar decorated in a very Giger way.
Bands playing were:
Drakenwerkz
Biomechanimal
DKAG
Nachtmahr
We arrived near the end of the set for the first band so I shan’t comment. The Biomechanimal set was . . . not marvellous. They had a keyboardist pressing buttons on a bass guitar looking device, the bassist was busy but I couldn’t hear what she was playing and the singer was screaming so I couldn’t really hear what he was saying. I would say they were an industrial dance band with heavy overtones but I’m not sure they were any good. Fair enough if some people like their music but it didn’t really do a great deal for me.
Biomechanimal
Third band on the bill were DKAG, who I’ve seen before a couple of times. It’s very dance. Well constructed but a little boring with no lead singer to interact with. We went to the bar.
DKAG
Finally, Nachmahr were on. I saw them at M’era Luna a few years ago and was slightly underwhelmed. This time though they were great. One “programmer” and the lead singer is all it took. The music was hard fast beat Austrian industrial and it was great fun. Really enjoyed it.
Nachtmahr
Some songs are in German, some in English. Rainer spoke in both. This was well worth missing a multitude of fireworks and bonfires celebrating the state sponsored death of a Spanish Catholic. Over all this rated about an 8 on the official scale of 0-10. I thin kthe Combichrist gig a few years ago got a 9.9 from me and so using that scale gives this gig an 8.
After the final song the venue was shifted around a little to be turned into the Slimelight club. The bar downstairs was opened and the BBQ started. I took a picture of the full moon glowing through the roof:
Moon Glow
Finally, here’s a picture of three people at a bar:
I’ve seen KMFDM twice before although by the date of this gig I should have seen them thrice! They were due to tour in June or July but postponed until Sept. They were playing at the O2 Academy in Islington. I saw them here once before and also at M’era Luna this year.
The O2 Islington is a twenty minute walk from Kings Cross, which is handy as that’s where my train gets to after leaving Kent. Yep, that is the wrong side of London for most of Kent, but it’s perfect for me. Most of the venues I go to are up in the NE of the city. After a drink at The Angel Wetherspoons with #3 and we went to the venue to find Lord Of The Lost playing.
Lord Of The Lost
To me, this almost felt like being at home. They are a very “German” rock band. I say that as someone who has experienced a lot of German rock over the last three years with time at the M’era Luna festival. I had seen them before although I wrote very little about them in this communication. They were very good. They looked like they were having fun and the music was crafted well along with sounding good. I particularly liked two songs: La Bomba, which I’m pretty sure was a samba, and I.D.G.A.F. which is obvious. Their interaction with the crowd was very good.
Both of those songs are on the above EP. Next band up were Inertia, whom I don’t think I’ve seen before.
I’ve just searched my website and I saw them play when they supported Ayria. It turns out I didn’t much like them then and I wasn’t impressed last night. My notes for this time say: slow plodding songs and few audience interactions, odd. I did take a photograph but a picture here isn’t warranted.
Headliners were KMFDM. They started with D.I.Y. and continued with ninety minutes of excellent heavy music. It was a really good set and thoroughly enjoyable.
KMFDM
Their guitarists were the chaps from Lord Of The Lost, which makes sense really. If your normal pickers aren’t around use those travelling with you. There wasn’t a huge amount of crowd interaction by the main two but the guitarists made up for that. Having seen them at M’era Luna this year it was clear that all the chatting to the audience back then was them try to cover the technical issues that surrounded that gig.
After the first song the main man actually smiled and showed emotion. This was a little surprise! It was nice to see that one of the guitarists [the main singer from Lord Of The Lost] was wearing a Combichrist t-shirt, a good endorsement.
It was really enjoyable and a solid professional set, as you’d expect.
KMFDM
AS a side note I’ve decided I might start wearing some ear defence to gigs. It’s just a thought at the moment. I’ll have to ponder it over the next year or so.
This is now an annual event. Travelling 1000 miles in a weekend to see a bunch of bands and spend time chilling out at a great music festival. Curiously we haven’t really watch any of the headline acts over the three years that we have attended but there are enough excellent bands elsewhere on the bill to make it worthwhile. I would argue that some of the bands I enjoyed should be higher in the playing order but I guess the bosses organise things to fit the mostly German audience.
We chose to try and spread the journey out a little this year. We left the UK on Thursday and drove to Dortmund to stay in a (very) cheap hotel, the bon marché hôtel, Bochum. We arrived there around 2 in the morning but checked in and got our room. It was clean and good value. 336 miles completed so far. When I woke up I was somewhat surprised to see hospital rooms right outside of my window!
Friday morning meant a short trip to Hildesheim Airport to hopefully arrive early and get our choice of camping spot. 166 miles (ish). There were Facebook updates and app updates along the way asking people to hold off arriving because the rain was and had been very bad and the organisers wanted the ground to drain a little before 20,000 campers turned up. We detoured through Hildesheim itself, because in three attendances we haven’t been in to the town centre yet and it is designated a World Heritage Site and looks gorgeous on websites. We decided quite quickly that we would head to the campsite and see what happened. It was raining and we wanted to get our tents set up.
Arrival
The weather was mostly light rain, the sort that really gets you wet. The forecast at this point was pretty shit with rain all night and also Saturday. We walked around and checked out the rest of the festival area. Picking out the most convenient [but quiet] toilets. There were some new additions along the runway, a food place, “posh” toilets and a small coffee place that was very stuck in the mud. The campsite was very busy when we arrived so our earlier than normal for us arrival didn’t really help, but with two tents this year we found somewhere suitable.
EDVM Runway
We looked around the medieval village and tried to pick out a festival t-shirt before really wanting to call it quits. The rain had got to us along with parking issues [covered elsewhere] and I was fed up and wanted to sleep. The tent beckoned and I pondered which outfit to where in the expected rain on Saturday.
Saturday morning meant finding somewhere for the daily routine. The “posh” loos mentioned already were spacious and didn’t smell. Wood chippings had to be thrown over the waste to stop the smell. These were also clean, but to be honest the receptacle was just a wheelie bin.
Time to get dressed and head to the festival. We had standard photos taken this year next to the M’era Luna sign and the overall joint aim of the weekend was to get our photograph taken and then on websites and in magazines. The costumes were designed to shock and be colourful, anything other than black stands out very well among the 25,000 attendees.
We got a neighbour to take a photo at our campsite area.
Then we had photographs taken at the entrance sign by the pond. You can’t see the mud here but there was tons of the fucking stuff. The rain had ruined the entire area of the festival.
Entrance Photo
I guess I out to talk about the music. That is why we were there. It was the music that had attracted us originally to a goth festival in the middle of Germany and the dressing up is just a little bit extra. As I have done in previous years I noted which bands I watched and what I thought on my phone. The following is pretty much what I noted down.
Saturday
Circus of Fools. Main stage. Metal. Black and white outfits. Female singer with male. Circus act. Girls on a ring.
Circus Of Fools
During this act I had a hayfever attack. I last had one of these in Cyprus and it lasted a few hours. I had a few episodes over the weekend, I think it was mostly to do with the air in the gas mask directed straight at my eyes. I even had an attack in my tent one morning so who knows what caused it. At times I could only wear the gas mask for a few minutes before I couldn’t see anything!
Eden Weint Im Grab. Main stage. Metal with violin and cello.
Ambassador 21. Hangar stage. Fast hardcore industrial. Female singer. Good.
Ambassador 21
Left to Unzucht. Main stage. I really enjoyed this band previously and once again they entertained. I really enjoyed their set.
Ost +Front. Main stage. Dita von Teese rip off with red liquid in the champagne glass. German industrial metal. Risqué show. Guitars dirty thrash sound.
We ate lunch at this point. The vegan Indian food stall was very good and most of the people working there remembered us from last year. We had a nice chat with them.
.com/kill on the hangar stage. Good electronic industrial. Could do with being heavier in places?? Less impressive than expected. The front man wasn’t that great and the lyrics were mostly repetitive which meant the singer didn’t do a great deal.
Feuerschwanz main stage from the side. Medieval German rock with violins. I don’t really need to add anything to this description.
Mesh. Main stage watched while getting a drink. Plodding electronica.
Faderhead. Hangar stage. Brilliant. Best act so far. I really enjoyed this set.
Faderhead
Ashbury Heights. Hangar stage. Female singer pretty much had her boobs out. Songs ok but too long and boring. It didn’t really work for me. Lacklustre front man/woman. I need band members to at least look as though they are enjoying themselves, which kinda goes against the Goth image!
Project Pitchfork. Main stage. 3 drummers, why? All seemed to be playing the same thing. Plodding but very well done. Not quite my stuff but glad to have seen them.
Solar Fake. Hangar stage. I put no notes here so I have no idea what I thought about them!
My Favourite Photo
At this point I went to take my Camelbak off. I had filled it with Pimms but I wasn’t really drinking it much and it was annoying me at this point.
Subway To Sally main stage. while waking through. I don’t like this band.
KMFDM hangar stage. Pretty much as excellent as expected. Very guitar orientated sound and almost thrash at times. Played a few songs from the new album. Technical issues.
Food (stuffed bread) while ASP (main stage) technical difficulties meant he was delayed and that also meant that Korn were going to start late. The Saturday entertainment finished around 01:00 on Sunday. I had already left and was asleep. I couldn’t care for Korn and it had been a long day with plenty of rain. The whole site was a mud bath and I wasn’t feeling the happiest.
Sunday
This morning we had to get costumes from the car, which fortunately was “parked” reasonably close. We could also try and take back stuff we wouldn’t need anymore to reduce the load we would carry Monday morning. My inspiration for this costume was a banana republic dictator although it has been pointed out to me that I need some medals. This photo of me captures me unaware, which normally gives good results.
Sunday Uniform
Over the last two days the campsite had been turned into an excellent mud wrestling venue:
Muddy Mess
I guess this is the accepted standard of things once it rains a lot. Who would have expected this in August in the centre of Germany though? I’m glad my boots help up to the challenge of keeping my feet warm and dry.
Here’s the run down of the bands seen:
Johnny Deathshadow. Main stage. Metal. Actually good. Good crowd interaction. Good metal.
Give Me Food
Then I had a vegan breakfast and whiskey with ginger, Of course!
SchwarzerEngel. Main stage. Ok-ish. Metal. Not ok-ish. A bit shit really. Boring plodding metal.
What’s Going On?
Darkhaus. Main stage. Dies in middle of song. Quite well done Rock-pop. Songs start well but die. This band could have been really good but their musical style just angered me. The songs started really well but then during the bridge they utterly lost all beat and sound. Not good.
Absurd Minds. Hangar stage. Electronica. Upbeat but not quite feeling it.
Versen gold. Main stage. Irish medieval rock. Makes me want to dance. This is really a ceilidh. Couple of songs.
Tyske Ludder. Hangar stage. Good dance industrial with German language. Good. Russian flag waving. Good front man. Really good set.
Outside for a drink. Megahertz on main stage. A fucking ballad!!
Left to: Leather Strip in the hangar. Very good EBM. What it’s all about. Still very good today. Really impressive and great fun.
Leather Strip
Haujobb in the hangar.Moody electronica. Artistic and very well done music but not really for dancing or watching? A little bit of politics!
Caught a little bit of Mono Inc. on the main stage and fuck me they sang a terrible cover of “After the war”.
Front Line Assembly. Hangar. Somewhat lacklustre. Left for a meal at the vegan store.
Went to have some mead. Saw the fish kebab, possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever seen, it looked puke-worthy.
DAF. Hangar stage. Early electronic. Basic like Nitzer Ebb. Probably something really special and transformative but not quite my stuff.
EDVM Tower
Came out for Blutengel on the main stage. Witches with fire. Started with “Black” first. Lesbian nuns and a female devil stage show. Girls stripping down to underwear. Is this 2017?? Rock Pop goth. The dancing girls were needed because the front man and woman are really boring.
The Results Of Rain
To medieval village for Rhambrot and an orange flavoured cookie.
De/vision in the hangar, we lasted one third of a song.
Outside to And One headlining the main stage. Clean pop-type electronic. Nothing special really.
And that was it. Favourite bands were Faderhead, KMFDM, Leather Strip and Tyske Ludder. The weather on the Sunday was much better and the general mood was great. Monday morning we woke early [ish] and packed up, got the car loaded and headed home. It was a foggy start in central Germany! This is a last photo of our camping area:
Misty Monday Morning
Sunrise Over Bora Horza Gobuchul
There are reasons the car looks quite lonely in the parking field and these will be covered in another communication. I had some parking issues over the summer and as the summer isn’t currently over I expect a few more to come!
The return journey included a poorly sign-posted diversion around Duisberg and we ended up relying on Apple Maps as Google was failing us at this point! We returned to Calais via the Brussels ring road and Lille. This route has a few more corners and hills along the way! 525 miles.
We got to the tunnel check-in two hours and 2 minutes before our train was due to depart and the woman working there delayed our check in by two minutes so we wouldn’t have to exit and go through the queuing system again. We met up with some friends for a chat at the Eurotunnel terminal and during the return train journey I cleaned my nails. What else are you going to do?
Did my nails the best I’ve done them for this years M’era Luna. Andy agreed. #mera17
I don’t understand the Sunday night gig thing. I do know that the law changed a while back to allow dancing and music for public entertainment on Sundays but I don’t understand why so many gigs are now on Sundays, in London. Can’t the cities in the rest of the country have the Sunday gig? Sunday nights out are a big inconvenience.
First band up were already playing when Smith and I got into the venue. They were called Car Bomb and they were shit. Some of the crowd really liked them, but I couldn’t get on with their music. There didn’t seem to be any method or pattern to it at all, there wasn’t really any good riffing or beat.
Car Bomb @ O2 Forum
There’s a possibility I’m too old for the newer styles of metal like core-metal and nu-metal. Code Orange were the next band. They had a drummer singer and a bassist who ran around and got the crowd going but who didn’t sing. There was also a female guitarist but I’m not sure if mentioning that is sexist or not. They were much better than the first band and they actually had some songs that had a good rhythm. I’ve got written down that they were core-metal with some good riffage. I don’t think this is my thing.
Code Orange @ O2 Forum
And we come to the finale. Gojira are a French metal band along the lines of Mastodon but less pretentious? I have listened to some of their stuff and think it’s better than Mastodon.
Gojira @ O2 Forum
The sound was BIG. The light show was excellent. There was a video backdrop and it fitted very well with the songs and general atmosphere. The crowd was heaving and packed.
More Gojira @ O2 Forum
This was a good gig and it was nice to get back to the heavy metal sound.
Unfortunately I felt incredibly rough during the show and I left early. It had been a long weekend with lots of travelling. I feel bad for leaving Smith there, but I needed to get into fresh air and home. At least I saw the first half of the show. Gojira seemed overwhelmed at the support they had in London.
A weekend during August meant it was time to travel to Germany again and the beautiful town of Hildesheim. In 2015 Smith and I went to the M’era Luna festival. This year we had tickets earlier, the tunnel booked earlier and also a plan! Except the plan had to be adjusted as Smith was flying into Brussels on the Friday morning. I spent the Thursday evening packing the car ready for the weekend and got up early on the Friday to head down the M20 to the Channel Tunnel. Last year there were problems with Operation Stack and this year the M20 was fine although the scene of a fallen pedestrian bridge a few weeks later.
I don’t care how old you are if you wear a baseball cap while driving you are a knob.
After the tunnel I headed to Brussels, which wasn’t that far off the route we needed to get to Hildesheim. There are two main motorway routes that head to the industrial heartland of Germany’s Ruhr Valley and one goes via Brussels, the other via Antwerp. So the first three hours of the journey were completed on my own, with podcasts and talking books for company [I don’t do music on long journeys].
Smith sent a message saying he’d meet me in P1 level 3. Well, I wondered while traversing the Ring if that is what the signs on approach to the airport would say or would they be in another language or missing entirely. Fortunately they did and we found each other easily. A quick adjustment on the iPhone Googlemaps app and we were heading to Hildesheim past Leuven.
Not a great deal of note happened along the way until we got close to Bad Oeynhausen when the app was telling us that there was a 90 minute delay and would we like to go a different route? Well, yes please. So we left the A2 motorway, where speeds reach in excess of 110mph, and headed cross country to Hamelin and then Hildesheim. I think that all in all the journey was about eight hours, which isn’t that bad for five hundred miles. All we now had to do was load up the trolley and walk about a mile from the car to the festival entrance, find a spot to camp, put up the tent, eat food and drink. We camped almost exactly as we did last year, about as far from the main festival as possible. This meant it was reasonably quiet and the toilets weren’t over run.
Runway 07
Friday evening meant wine, Jägermeister and Absinthe. This was possibly a little silly as Saturday was quite hard work for me. Although there is no live music on the Friday evening there is a disco in one of the hangers and plenty of stalls open along with the Medieval Village where you can practise your ax throwing, should you want to.
The weather wasn’t as hot this year compared with 2015. The forecast had 25C or so which suited me fine, the 33C of last year was too much. The night was good and Saturday morning meant a walk along the runway to showers and coffee. Not at the same time but I needed both. The shower marquee was pretty good and had lovely hot water to clean away the hours of travel yesterday. The queues for coffee were pretty long and I wondered whether it was worth bringing a stove to make a coffee each morning but it feels quite sophisticated drinking coffee in the morning sun on the taxiway of an airfield waiting for the outfits and music.
M’era Luna is cheap enough that if you just come along to display your costume and make up abilities then you don’t have to worry about the music. With Download coming in at about GBP200 the GBP80 for M’era Luna seems a bargain. It’s also small enough to feel cosy and pleasant. Getting ready for the day’s activities this year was a little more time consuming this year as Smith and I had plans for costumes, also it appeared there was a naked selfie competition on WhatsApp with a group of friends started by Walshe! These photos still exist in the ether but they are not going to be published anywhere public.
I should probably get on to the music with that being the reason for driving five hundred miles an’ all. But first there was getting an outfit on! Because Suicide Commando wasn’t playing on the Saturday it meant we dressed in white shirts [shock horror!] and Ayria ties bought when we saw her play at Electrowerkz.
And so on to the music. I seem to recall saying last year that the little details disappear from my mind and so what follows is mostly just a list with my thoughts at the time. Some of my favourite bands will appear with more details. There are two stages at M’Era Luna, the main stage and the hanger stage.
Saturday
Shaargot [main stage] – good industrial metal.
Vlad In Tears [hanger stage] – shit.
Erdling [main stage] – goth. shit.
Time for lunch.
Gothminster [main stage] – killing a zombie on stage during the first song. Bat ventriloquism in the second. What the fuck is going on? Left to the hanger stage.
Gothminister
A Life Divided [hanger stage] – caught the last song. pop metal.
Chrom [hanger stage] – the first band I was really looking forward to. I liked the music but they were boring. A shame.
Chrom
Stahlmann [main stage] – dressed in silver. female guitarist. slow goth rock. couple of faster ones, ok.
Noisuf X [hanger stage] – three blokes. White shirts. Two drumming. Heavy EBM. Good.
Cassandra Complex [hanger stage] – listened to this stuff before we went. Sounded ok. Turns out that live it’s just goth shit.
Oomph!
Oomph! [main stage] – Good German pop rock. 2 guitars, keyboards, percussion, drummer. Bass and singer.
Hamatom [hanger stage] – from outside hangar. Faster metal. Masks. Ok. A little derivative! Should be more dangerous given masks.
Apocalyptica [main stage] – Pretty good given it’s men with cellos. Too many Metallica covers.
[:SITD:] [hanger stage] – Solid good set. This was actually a pretty good set and they played well. Very good to finally see this band.
[:SITD:]Die Krupps [hangar stage] – Fuck yes! Playing metal pipes. Breaking guitars. Industrial well done.
Die Krupps
VNV nation [Main stage] – 1 song. Boring. I’ve listened to a lot of this at home and I like it. But only at certain times. It’s gentle music. The sort to put on when having dinner.
Hocico [Hanger stage] – Actually pretty good. Big sound. Two percussionists with black Angel wings!
Sisters of Mercy [main stage] – Bad. Dull.
And there ends the first day at M’Era Luna festival 2016. It was a good day. Plenty to see and the surprises of the day were Hamatom and Oomph! for me. I enjoyed both. Not to say I hated all the others, I just liked these two more. Oh, and Die Krupps were pretty awesome along with [:SITD:]. Hocico made a better impression that when I saw them previously at Electrowerkz, but still didn’t quite manage brilliant.
Morning time means the usual hunt for coffee. Showers and packing up the tent. Sunday’s plan was to pack up camp and then drive a couple of hundred miles after the last band. We had a date with Eurotunnel at about midday on Monday and we definitely wouldn’t make it if we left Monday morning. We walked the mile or so to the car and then got dressed in the costumes. Again we were dressed in white.
Me The Tiger [hanger stage] – Pretty good. One song. Good.
Aeverium [main stage] – Female main singer, sexy. Heavy. Male singer. Good contrast.
Rabia Sorda [hanger stage] – Rock, a bit pop? Guitar with keyboard sounds over top. Ok. Nothing special.
Rabia Sorda
Heldmaschine [hanger stage] – Ok. Industrial. Correction very good.
Centhron [hangar stage] – Live bassist. Good. Shame we left early.
Combichrist [main stage] – Darn good. Pit. I’ve seen this band many times and they haven’t failed to impress although I do prefer their earlier electronic work! [go to 3:24 in the video and there I am!]
Zeromancer [hangar stage] – Sat at back. Sounds ok.
Eisbrecher [main stage] – Drunk girl talk, orange hair. Late on stage. Very good. Speaks too much. Liked the set and the black suits. Left early to see:
Suicide Commando [Hangar stage] – Live drummer. Excellent. Including song: Die Motherfucker Die.
Suicide Commando
In Extremo [Main stage] – 1 song. Fucking medieval rock.
Had cup of tea. Listened to Within Temptation. Went and got some food. Left.
We travelled just inside Belgium and parked the car up and slept for a few hours before waking, driving to a service station for coffee and then getting to Calais for the Eurotunnel and home. We chatted about music and costumes for next year. I’ve got some ideas but I need to learn about mammal skulls first.
It’s hard to sum up the entire weekend. Almost every aspect of it was brilliant. The journey, the chatting, the alcohol, the food, the vegan food server with her lovely freckles, the coffee, the costumes, the music, just being away and feeling like I was at home.
There may be more to add to this but it has taken a long time for me to get around to writing this so I will publish this communication. Changes and added bits will be noted as such.
Popped over to Electrowerkz last night to see 3Teeth play. There were support bands but I didn’t watch them due to spending time in the bar chatting to people. The support were:
Stereo Juggernaut
Deadfilmstar
Ventenner
3Teeth were on from 22:00 hours and I was quite impressed. They played a solid set. The first three songs were probably the best and I am sure that once they have created more music the rest will be as strong.
3 Teeth
Oddly I got admonished by a man for talking too loudly in the main performance room! Very strange, the sound of the band was perfectly loud enough!
There’s a couple of gigs coming up soon so look to see what I think of them.
Smith and I went to see Ayria play at Electrowerkz in The Angel last night. The standard room was used for the bands and the bar at the back was open but only with one person serving which seems about two too few! We had actually caught a train from Purley to St Pancras and so the venue was only about a fifteen minute walk from the terminus.
When we arrived a KLOQ were already playing.
Kloq
This band were pretty good. The singer could sing, which is not necessary in this genre, more of an advantage. They had a live drummer and bassist. All other noises were produced by a computer. They were a bit dancy but very enjoyable. Andy and I both liked them a lot. I’d happily see them again.
Next up were a band called Inertia. They were a project of the drummer from Killing Joke. Now, I have seen Killing Joke and they were pretty good. However this side project were not good. They weren’t terrible but the style of music mostly left me cold. There was a guitarist, the drummer, a singer and the programmer. The guitars were too much and there was too much noise and sound. The first two songs had a slow walking keyboard riff that irritated me a lot.
Inertia
I thought the singer was a bit weak and needed to be much more powerful to compliment the sound of the rest of the band. We left them playing. It was that boring.
The headline act was a Canadian female singer called Ayria. I would describe her stuff as quite pop-like but with the slight edge that means she plays places like Electrowerkz and not the Smash Hits Pop Party [possibly showing my age there].
She was much better than the other two bands. She had two musicians with her who both seemed to be really enjoying themselves. It’s odd but watching musicians enjoy themselves makes the whole thing much more enjoyable for me.
Ayria
All her songs were great and she didn’t talk a great deal, if at all, in between the songs. She did a great job and it was very enjoyable.
After the gig all the bands were hanging around and I accidentally hip-bumped Ayria later on in the evening. Electrowerkz turns into Slimelight club at 23:00 and so Smith and I hung around for a while. We sampled some lovely cocktails and chatted to some of the bods who attend these events.
Fortunately for us there are trains from Victoria to home once an hour through the night. This means it’s possible to get back without having to use stupidly expensive taxis. All in all it was a very good night out.
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