That was a perfect setting: A Friday, two bands who are favourites of the Hamburg Blackpool pilgrims and the outlook of a fun evening at one of the fun places in Hamburg.
The Monkeys should have been sold out but wasn’t, but that did not stop the good vibes: everybody had space and everybody had like half of the audience as buddies and knew the rest from sight. It was to be an evening of friends and with friends and and evening of thirst. Thirst for beer, thirst for booze and thirst for good entertainment. And entertainment the lot got, a lot!
First on Wonk Unit, a band that has been the talk of town recently and that people, who saw them live, described as “killer”. So many people where eager and i guess to much surprise of the band (and me) a lot of people where able to sing-a-long to Wonk Unit.
Wonk Unit (Monkeys Music Club, Hamburg, 20.10.2017) (c) gehkacken.de)
From the first chord onward it was pure fun with loads of interaction between band and audience. I would not dare to push a singular label on them – they are very versatile and they do so much more than just clean cut fun punk fucking rock. In essence i think they distilled a very tight UK “we are the lads” sound that branches out into other spaces too (for the sake of having a laugh and having a say).
Here is on of their beauties, their ode to Lewisham:
Wok Unit took the lot by storm and the lot was dancing, singing and smiling. A lot of smiling actually. The moments i liked best where when the singer moved left and pushed the rather shy guitar player into the middle and to the front. First he did not like it but later he started to smile too.
Sold, and i am god damn sold on Wonk Unit too. And a band that sells T-Shirts with “I love my vagina” for sure needs all the love (’cause they won’t sell a lot of T-Shirts). I’d say they can come back whenever they want, Hamburg will have the red carpet rolled out for them. And some more.
More beer, more chats and bang the first chords from the stage – Dirt Box Disco took the brand new stage of the Monkeys with only a short changeover and they knew they where up to even more love and appreciation by the lot.
Dirt Box Disco (Monkeys Music Club, Hamburg, 20.10.2017) (c) gehkacken.de)
For me it was a wee bit special, the last time they graced the Monkeys i was only a couple of miles away but in hospital, due to an emergency gall bladder removal. And thus missed them, dearly actually, though i was flying high on heavy painkillers and thus only had little bad feelings about missing them. But those who came by the hospital later told of a raunchy show and great fun.
Whilst back then my life was shit (for a split second) theirs forever is … fun:
And that fun down from the stage was echoed as every single song was a sing-a-long for the Hamburg lot, most of them Blackpool Pilgrim and thus Dirt Box connoisseurs for quite some time.
And in every single break it was the Hamburg lot who gave a loud and cheerful hooray to this Dirt Box Day until finally the band gave in and recorded it, so that they could wank to it back home. And in return gave the thirsty lot the final steer of the evening – to get fuckin’ wasted:
And boy, i live to tell you, the lot got wasted later on!
But for now the lot stayed in front of the stage, fists in the air, dancing, singing and having a fun time. When it comes to good clean fun then Dirt Box Disco are right there, fuelling your energy and bringing on that one smile that cements itself right in yer face.
Finally it was time to end the set and the set was ended with the lot on stage and getting a full return of the appreciation – it was fucking Dirt Box Day:
Great stuff and frank i even liked Wonk Unit better simply because they paired the great British loudmouth attitude with so much more variable sound whereas Dirt Boy Disco, at least to my ears, came across well polished and more on a singular sound. But that is complaining on a very very high level and almost feels like being a stupid bum.
It was fun and it took off into the wee of the morning. I was home at 02:00 and knackered (and hungover next day) but the lot drained all liquid (and everything looking like liquid) from the club. The Monkeys crew had to do a thorough clean up on Saturday and had to replenish all beer stocks.
Legend has it that both band have now been contracted as house bands, so the fun will continue. Thanks to all there – that was a killer night!
