Jerry only got it by a couple of days off – almost a year ago Poison Idea where in Europe and graced the Hafenklang. This time round they are on a month long trip through out Europe, from Rotterdamn across mainland Europe, Scandinavia and back to Amsterdamned. A tough ride i’d say with plenty of shows.
First on Sort Of Sober who stepped in for Restmensch (and are actually 1/5th Restmensch, nevermind). Female fronted punk rock with some subtle elements of … all sort of other things. What worked well was when the singer and the guitar player traded vocals back/forth and when the other guitar did throw in a tiny scent of surf-style guitar. And when they did sing in spanish, of all languages.
Some other things did not work for me at all, namely their ABBA cover (and some of the bumpier mu-sick). But overall not a bad impression and if they do more of scream, growl and back/forth and pair that with versatile mu-sick they will make my day!
“Hello and good evening ladies and gents…aaahhhh” from Jerry A (slimmed down again), Eric Olson (flying V not polished), Brandon Bentley (hair not spiked), Chris Carey (bass not well connected) and a new kid on the drums: Mickey Widmer (with gloves). And off it went – with Poison Idea’s massive list of songs that actually rarely sucks we thus were on the road to some great entertainment.
There was a wee bit of a slow start, at least in my ears they where not glued together initially and the typical massive PI-Heavydutytruck-blasting-over-you Sound only came through over the course of the set. Did they party too much the day before in Berlin? Tired? Under the influence? Cold? No clue and it also did not matter much!
What did matter though was the fact that someone actually tried to tell Jerry that Jever was a good beer. Scandal! It might be a good free beer but for me it ain’t the right choice. But hey, they sponsor somehow the Hafenklang and the bands (and put that high quality expensive deluxe sign on the stage,there, back in the right far corner), so let’s be friendly and un-punk … for once.
But it did not stop them to throw more slabs of killer songs onto the well packed Hafenklang (for a rainy Wednesday it was quite some turnout) and get the crowd going. There where some misses though, if i had commandment over the set list i’d love to see some more songs from especially “We must burn” but that again is selfish me. With 11 Albums, 24 EP’s and some contributions to compilations they have a rooster way too big to be condensed into a single set.
And because of that huge rooster the final song was to be … not from Poison Idea. But from history. So with some smoke from the machinery, the standard tour joke (“It’s our drummers birthday, give him some weed“) they kicked into a longtime standard – for the very last time Jerry claimed. We took note of that, mate, we took note!
So was it something special? No. Was it something new? No. Was it something that will stand out? No. It was plain good entertainment and music savored in they way it should be: Live, from a touring band and paying for band and club to keep them going. It’s time for retirement, i may then do that every single day.