8 days later, at Pentecost, there was already a premiere again, my first excursion to Leipzig! To a festival that celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2011 and, unlike usual, started not on Friday but already on Thursday with 7 of the 8 bands that had already played at the first festival weekend in May 1992. Cool thing, right? Oh, by the way, the name of the event is: Wave Gotik Treffen or short: WGT. Have you heard of it before? At this event, not only music of various genres is presented (from A for Aggrotech to EBM to Gothic Rock and Horrorpunk to W for Wave), but also various activities like Viking and knight battles, virgin auctions (men too), belly dances, fakirs, and much more. All of this takes place every year in the Pagan Village and the Medieval Market in the city. There is also something to see or hear in the theater, in the opera, and in the churches of Leipzig, but mainly classical stuff, which I don't really need. Even in front of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, there was something to see as part of the WGT. But all of that was nearly a year ago now, and I must admit, I don't remember that much from the long weekend in Leipzig. Or rather the opposite, because there was so much to see, I can't remember all the details (not even all the major activities). We definitely set off on Thursday afternoon from deep OWL to see the old bands in the Leipzig “Agra” hall. Well, we missed the first two bands, but checking into the private apartment just took a bit longer, especially since we wanted to wait for the three Hamburgers. 6 people in 38m² promised a lot of fun ;-) But at least we were in the hall for the third band, and it was precisely this band, as well as the last band on the opening day, that I wanted to see. In the middle of the gig, we entered the “Agra” hall and the first shock! The stage was not set up at the front but on the long side of the hall. What is this? I've never experienced that before! So only about 1/3 of the audience could actually see anything, the rest only if the musicians made an effort to come to the edge of the stage. And what about the air? A Hamburg forge standing in the hall stank everything up! Bahhh… Later, a stronger smell of sweat added to it, quite a delicious combination… Yuck!!! Okay, now to Goethes Erben or rather to Oswald Henke, the band leader of the band, which is actually on a creative break. The band hasn't disbanded, but I believe no one is doing anything at the moment except for Oswald Henke, who was the only member of Goethes Erben on stage. Supported by his current band Fetisch:Mensch, at least I assume so. I don't know the lineup of his current band. After I pushed my way through so that I could see the whole stage more or less, I was at least very pleased with the stage setup. An estimated 200 large candles on stage, a large screen in the background, and various accessories scattered around the stage. And a Oswald Henke all in white, but where are his long hair??? They were short… But it's about the music, although the lyrics are more spoken than sung, but that makes the songs so interesting. The songs that were still played were okay, but unfortunately, the best Goethes Erben songs had probably already been played L and I don't like all Goethes Erben songs. But a handful are really uniquely great, even if I can't think of a song title right now J. But one: “Nichts bleibt wie es war”. After that came Age Of Heaven, whom I didn't know, and instead, I first looked at the exhibition grounds. I only knew one song by The Eternal Afflict “San Diego”, which is still played today in X and RLS. But that was also the only song that I really liked. The rest, let it go…. And now the last band Love Like Blood, from whom we haven't heard anything for years. I was all the happier to finally see them live. And it was amazing, their powerful Gothic Rock was well received and the audience was thrilled. I was thrilled. The band was thrilled. Everyone was happy…. And weeks later, I found out that the guys from Love Like Blood had probably announced in advance that they would give their concert at the WGT. L Well, I was there, but it's a shame that such a great band is breaking up. L Now it gets a bit tedious, while on the opening day there was only this “revival” concert, in the next 4 days Leipzig was completely in black with events and concerts without end. Over 300 (!) bands played in Leipzig during this long Pentecost weekend, plus the many happenings and performances… I really don't remember where I was everywhere…. So everywhere and nowhere, I definitely didn't see or experience more than 10% of this (Wave-Gotik) meeting. Maybe not even 5%. But there could have been more percentages if the Hamburgers hadn't placed so much value on their appearance. I mean, 1-2-3 and I'm ready to go out. The Hamburgers (2 guys, 1 girl) took significantly longer… But we are nice Westphalians and wait….. And wait…. And wait…. It can't take much longer, they've been styling for an hour now…. And wait…. Well…. Now it's early evening, but the hairstyles of the Hamburgers are set (and the makeup too). In the following days, we then set off in the afternoons without the Hanseatic people, otherwise, we would have only experienced Leipzig at night ;-) I actually only went to Leipzig for 2 bands, and the first one played on Friday in this crappy “Agra” hall. Right before this band (I missed all the other bands for the aforementioned reason) Umbra et Imago played. Mozart and his band have been around for 20 years too, and I had never seen them and was a bit curious about his show, which I had heard so much about (NAKED MEAT)! But there wasn't much to see, not that I was disappointed, but secretly I had imagined a more intense stage show from the Karlsruher. But then there is the unusual music of Umbra et Imago. More electronic in the past, now with more guitars, Neue Deutsche Härte after all. And the music compensated for the not-so-provocative stage show. I don't remember what happened on stage during the song “Gothic Erotic”, my favorite song by Umbra et Imago. Was there naked flesh to see??? Naked female flesh??? I think so… But not as extreme as I had imagined. The last song was a cover version of Falco “Rock me Amadeus”. And no, I didn't like the way this hit was covered. No, the spirit was missing for me.
Now to the first real highlight of the WGT, Covenant came *yay yay*. My first Covenant concert and my (pre-) excitement was really huge, considering that the Swedish electro-future-pop band has been around for 25 years and during that time they have released countless underground hits. And now my first concert… In Leipzig… With thousands of black figures… Okay, the stage was kept quite simple, no fire, no candlesticks, I think they only had an LED wall in the background. And off it went… Hmm…. Something doesn't fit…. It didn't really bang, the voice came across thin… And it didn't really get better throughout the gig…. Stage show nearly 0 L Many new songs, hmmm…. And the mood in the audience wasn't exactly frenetic either. Maybe my expectations were just too high, but I expected much more from the Swedes. A show that one wouldn't forget, but I can remember the Umbra et Imago show better than the gig by Covenant, which was simply played expressionlessly and monotonously. Yes, I was disappointed L. After that, Deine Lakaien played, but I only saw the first few minutes of them, which didn't exactly excite me, instead, we preferred to wander through Leipzig at midnight and ended up in some black “Dumm-Dumm” disco, but it was also a warm Pentecost weekend and my throat was dry ;-) Saturday… Hmmm…. I still remember that we were in the city and at the park stage in the middle of a park. Early in the evening, we went into some basement where one of the two Welle: Erdball band members was DJing, to warm up, so to speak. It was warm in that hole, and even there, familiar faces from Herford and Bielefeld crossed our paths! After that, we went back to the musty “Agra” hall where no one was let in anymore due to overcrowding. That's how it is at the beginning of a gig, but it empties out faster or slower, and so I could at least see a bit of Feindflug. But I was hot for the main act of the evening Front 242. And the ancient electro heroes from Belgium only had problems with the sound. Nothing worked properly. They had to get off the stage after the first or second song again, and the stage crew had to come in to fix the error. That didn't go down well with the audience. And it took a long time, I remember that, but then afterwards it went brutally on. In the strangely built hall (well, it wasn't the hall that was strange, but the stage setup) the sound was deafening, screw it…. “stay in the rhythm”…. dance, jump, go wild… wow… and it was awesome (except for the stench in the hall). Front 242 had no more on stage than Covenant, but everything was better from the sound to the show.
Back in our luxury hotel, freshening up a bit, it was only shortly after midnight, watching the rest of the crew getting ready and making my thoughts. We wanted to go to the old Leipzig People's Palace, which is now probably called Pantheon or Kuppelhalle or something, well, there was supposed to be a dress code on that Saturday…. Bizarre… meaning leather, latex, fetish, BDSM, etc., but anyone who just comes in black clothes won't get in… And I was thinking about whether the Hamburgers would have understood that correctly. And so it was, a long line in front of the old People's Palace and grumpy waves and goths passed by who didn't get in… And then it was our turn, with 3 people (two ladies and me) no problem, but the Hamburgers, no, not bizarre enough. And then the clothing exchange among each other began…. In the end, we did get in, but you have to be able to free yourself (at least the upper body), and since the Hamburger girl was later the only one who walked around the hall topless, she naturally attracted all the attention ;-)
Sunday, Sunday, what was on the agenda???? My personal second highlight, once again in the “Agra” hall, starting at 9 PM, but what did I do before??? I think I was out and about, looking at the city and in the park, but to be completely honest, I don't know exactly. But it doesn't matter, the main thing is that I was in the exhibition park on time that evening, the main venue of the WGT with its crappy “Agra” hall. 9 PM, THE highlight of the 20th WGT => Killing Joke…. And it was fantastic! Fascinating! Breathtaking! My expectations for my first Killing Joke concert were not exactly modest. W