The mu-sick-al year 2023 somehow pushes the envelope (as the marketenders like to brag) and seems to culminate towards year end. Within those many shows to come was this one, mainly of utmost interest because it would expose a band with a selectively different sound to an often single minded audience.
Advance tickets for the show went to so well (~150 sold ahead of the show) that the Hafenklang decided to move it downstairs, into the big room. At the end around 200 folks took the opportunity to see Home Front, door tickets on the rainy and cold Thursday turned out less than hoped for.
Support was local Post Punk band Fun Total. A band i never picked up prior and by the looks on stage all members rather unfamiliar to me. And to be frank, i feared the worst. But once they started it sounded much more acceptable. Actually making sense, somewhat.
Fun Total (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 09.11.2023 (c) gehkacken.de 2023)
A rather bare bone sound with a hammering bass (and a cool Bass in Gold, that already won him the “Strings Of The Day” award), a guitar that flip/flops between distorted/not distorted and almost invisible (as in perfect fitting) drumming. On top a singer that talks in German rather than sings, much in Jens Rachut vein (and he may forgive me to get such a notion).
Songs where more on the complex side and thus tended to be longer but taking all in they worked quite well. I guess i will check them out again, they soon have a record out and a release party in January 2024 at the Komet – if this is 100% up your ears then by all means join them.
Else check them out for yerself:
Quick changeover and on went Home Front – and kicked off like this:
Despite the more melow and maybe even spherical music Graeme jumps around like he is fronting No Problem (and he even sported his standard Gorilla Angreb shirt). Which is a great sign, as it means he is 100% into it. During No Problems initial hey-days he gave a side comment in an interview:
I think the only way you stay around is if you make natural changes, you don’t force anything. I’m not going to try and tell some kid what I think is cool. I hope he’s telling me. I hope he’s doing something that’s just going to blow my mind.
And with Home Front he indeed does – he blows my mind! I believe the whole idea came around during Covid and then quickly was made real. The first 12″ EP in 2021 and now in 2023 followed by a near perfect album:
That beauty is such a genius strike, such a great non-conformity step in a scene that is rather conform to the max. I did read striking reviews that set the scene very well:
This time around they have manifested a collection of Post Punk anthems that act as a sonic looking-glass reflecting all of the textures of this genre. Case in point, not too many bands nowadays remember when Post Punk 12 inches were the go-to dance music for the 80s club kids in the UK. Straight up, their title track “Games of Power” shows us all that Dance Music comes in many forms, and that’s why this is one of my favorite songs of the year. (CVLT Nation) Home Front have managed to fix truth to the beautiful and borderline mythical thread-needle moment in which punk, new wave, pop, indie and rock and roll all descend upon a single source. We may have only dreamed that Tears for Fears might have been going to see GBH at the weekend or that Annie Lennox spent her evening sewing Crass patches to her Wrangler Blue Bell jacket, but Home Front have rang the dinner triangle for us all to feast. (J. Falco)
I got the record earlier the year and liked it but never managed to listen to it in entirety, only by pieces. Because there was something absent, but i could not pin-point exactly what.
Home Front (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 09.11.2023 (c) gehkacken.de 2023)
During the show it made “click”: As a live band the whole delivery was much more lively, much more outgoing. So much more connecting to the listener. And that was not only through Graemes outgoing and active fronting, no – it was the rest of the band too.
I was not the only one with that itch and the click, me mate Frosch had the same feeling:
I have to confess that I’m a great fan of No Problem, Home Front singer Graeme MacKinnon’s hardcore punk band. They released 3 albums and several 7’s between 2010 and 2018 and I’ve seen them 4 times in Hamburg, including a legendary boat trip, where things got so wild and crazy that the captain threatened to stop the boat ride if things won’t calm down… Even though I wasn’t fully convinced of Home Front’s recorded output, I was really looking forward to their show at Hafenklang, expecting Graeme to put on an energetic stage act. And that’s just what he did, he really rocked the place along with his pretty young band mates. Home Front’s songs, sounding a little too sterile on record for my taste, really came to life when performed on stage and I would really look forward to a live record if they were going to release one. Watching a video of their Paris show a couple of days earlier you could see the whole crowd moving and stage diving, something that didn’t happen in Hamburg to Graeme’s regret, but then Paris might be the biggest Joy Division worshipping city in the world. Still one of the best shows in Hamburg this year, and asking Graeme No Problem is still going as a band, more great news on a memorable night!
His account is spot on, that energy flow you can see here too:
Whilst Graeme was roaming the front and using his vocal abilities across the full spectrum there was the stunning bass (#haveyoueverfalleninlovewiththebassplayer) on the right driving it forward, a pair straight out of Manchester mid-80’s (and fed on Factory Records records) on Guitar and Synth on the left plus a hammering drummer.
And all the ingredients where almost perfectly mixed down by the Hafenklang sound man, it is not very often that all feels perfectly fitting together. The longer it went, the more people in the audience smiled. In the stereotypical cool and held back attitude of the North there was only little dancing, i bet you on their return and on a bigger stage with more space in front they will command a full dancing dance floor rather.
Home Front (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 09.11.2023 (c) gehkacken.de 2023)
They played for about 45 minutes and from where i sit they took the lot by storm. Every single person i spoke to after the show was full of appreciation, full of praise. And frank, i’d love to see them grow big, i’d love to see them being given the money to produce ever better quality output and take that on tour that gives them 500 a night rather than 200.
Why?
Because they come from the wide empty of the Canadian plains and their dance music fucking deserves it. And it is a much better time travel than the one that happened in parallel at the Knust, where 999 played (and lured some familiar faces that i would have expected over at the Hafenklang).
As ever i scored vinyl when the band was able to persuade me live, not knowing how much they had on hand i simply grabbed all that was missing in my collection already prior to the show starting.
When i put the beauties into my Nasser Hund tote bag Graeme noted the Chain Whip LP i had in there (for swapping against the new Clowns LP later in the night) and inquired extensively how the show went on Monday. Canadians, always looking out for friends from home.
Get your own copies from Sounds Of Subterrania, the trusted La Vida Es Un Mus dealer in Hamburg!
I took a couple of drinks with me mates, had some fun chats with the bass player about her beautiful equipment bag made from red leather (a bowling ball bag as i now learned, it got her the “Best Gear of the Night” award single-handedly) and then it was time for uphill & home – happy as a fuck.
It wasn’t straight to bed though, a moment of holding back and memorizing names was due at the stumbling blocks in my street. Julius & Betty Levy lived here and where deported in 1941, to be murdered in Riga later. Gertrud Hirsch was deported 1942 and murdered at Theresienstadt 1943.
And whilst i had that little itch already after the show it now comes back even stronger: The Home Front set indeed currently is in the Top 5 for 2023 and thus Show Of The Year Material. Not only for me, i hear!
PS: And the wide plains of Alberta? Shall be kept rats free!
