Sam (Hard & Smart Booking) seems to never stop his good services in ensuring good music is played in a good setting. This time round it was the equivalent to a little tournament (Berlin vs. Hamburg, Scotland vs. France or any mix that pleases yer footie mind mate) and sure the Indra was too small for this, so the train did stop at the Knust.
I arrived with a shattering 0:6 home loss of the team i am coaching and thus in a wee depressed mood. In addition none of my regular “see you at the next show…” friends where there, many for good reasons (seeing something else somewhere else). Alone and forsaken Mike Ness once did sing. But at least 2 bands waited for me that i had on my list of “must see”: Hateful from Scotland with their Top 10 Hit “Punk Fiction” and Lion’s Law from France, a young and energetic skinhead band.
The hard life of the first band up was for the locals, so Violent Instinct had to go first and had their singer on awol. They kicked off anyway and i guess this way lured her onto the stage. They are young and – from where i come – still have a long way to go. But they sing in german and have a female singer, that’s at least a bonus. But they are not yet together as a band and still need to find their own and fitting sound. I did not dislike them but would not walk an extra mile to see them if you know what i mean.
Next on Hateful and boy did i look forward to see them. They have played in Hamburg years ago but i did not see them. But ever since i found their “Diamonds amongst Coal” record and on there the little bright sparkling gem of “Punk Fiction” (a song i would have loved to throw at so many people so many times, the dirty old sod i am) i was hooked. I was expecting not too much and got a lot: Professional and quick to set up, just the drummer made a wee bit a fuz around setting himself up – for good reasons as i understood later.
From the first chords you could see that they are together, practise a lot and love their music: You can just feel it. They even have consistent stage movement across the 3 on the front (more or less) and they are just non-nonsense in presenting their music. Ok, the drummer not: Within minutes i learned why he labored so long in setting himself up: Whilst the other 3 grace the stage front he does his own little show in the back. The last drummer i have seen sending sticks flying and upon descent grabbing them and hitting the tone and rythm was the drummer of Bracket from the US, ages ago in the 90s at the Logo. But Kev from Hateful does it all: Sticks flying, standup drumming etc – i wonder if anybody in the audience even noticed…good fun though!
Sure they gave me “Punk Fiction” (and it is just a great song, soon to be be presented in this blog under “Loveliest Vinyl”) but also they gave a well toned and bitter sweet ode to the fucking cunt named Maggie T. (in short they’d wished to be her heart attack, quite a neat idea). Great stuff plus a little nod’ to Hamburg about Steves uncle Ringo:
Next on Lion’s Law from France and by now the front of the stage was packed.
And the boys got what they waited for: Hard, Fast and to the point.
OK, not. Little joke played on you friends – if you read here on a regular basis you know how much i like to capture bands like this: Setting up gear, test and trial. Current leaders are Marked Men followed by Chixdiggit but Lion’s Law are currently in the Top 10 with this. Once through this they gave it a go. And that was with a capital “G”:
What can i say? Full paced, hard rocked skinhead hymns presented with the edge it needs. Some people take them as a surprise (given they claimed fame with their first record straight away) but they all come from various other ventures and thus have soaked up various styles and have blended it into something almost unique (and the french accent helps).
I loved them, although i had to have a severe word with the toidi next to me, who spend most of the show taking pictures (and invading my lens) only to post and discuss them on Fuckbook or Whatsapp with his mates – i guess only to show off. I really get more and more annoyed when whilst at a show people spend time on Facebook rather then enjoying and cheering up a live playing band. Stay home rather please!
Wow – that was great stuff and i now severely regret to have been on holidays last year when they played the Indra. They really got the crowd going all over!
Finally and much later than planned Berliner Weisse took the stage as headliner, most likely the most professional band that night and much awaited by large parts of the audience. They did the old “Good evening Bochum” trick but it fell on deaf ears.
They are a tough one for me, i did not like most of their lyrics (though large parts of the audience could sing-a-long), i can not really dig the voice of their singer (not his fault though, he was born that way) but i did like the bass player who gave a flying fuck about hardcorepunkoi and used the long neck of his bass to play on the funky side. But hey, i do not have to love them. They gave a solid show and they are a fun band. On the positive side: They mad a good band effort on the last chord of every song, trying to outsmart each other with the ending – something i do like when bands do that.
What’s all of that in total? Another great effort by Sam and a worthwhile evening that made me forget the home loss earlier that afternoon, just across from the Knust. But once i woke up on Sunday late and had the breakfast with my love i was almost over it…only to see my professional side loosing another game in another poor performance. So i had to turn to spirits on Sunday evening but that is another story.
