Hardcore – Party of the Three Questioning Doctors in Full Playback
(or what did autumn 2012 have to offer)
Three days after the Soulfly gig in Bielefeld, I found myself heading to the next big city on October 13, 2012, to check out international bands. Well, almost… the festival took place almost at home in the beautiful Hanseatic city of Hamburg… uh, Lemgo, it was Lemgo…. Hanseatic city Lemgo on the great Bega, which flows into the Werre after 40 km, which in turn flows into the Weser after another 40 km. So enough geography, and the bands are not international but come from Lemgo and the surrounding area.
I actually came to the Hardcore festival at Kesselhaus mainly because of Distance in Embrace from Minden, as their current album is a blast, see review. I had seen Vandalism before and wasn't impressed back then, but this time the Lagenser were much better and I believe they had a different bassist. In any case, they got the audience in the mood. Speaking of the audience, I didn't expect so many hardcore enthusiasts in Lemgo; already outside the Kesselhaus, I was greeted by an impressive crowd of hardcore fans for this little town. They probably needed fresh air because they had exhausted themselves during the gig of the first band Last Dawn, which I unfortunately missed, while pogoing. The pogo calm before the storm was then with Vandalism, but even without dancing, the audience was in good spirits and very taken with the band.
Third up were Distance in Embrace, and I expected a pogo hurricane, which strangely did not happen. However, the sound was also crap, which I hadn't noticed with Vandalism. You could tell that Distance in Embrace had already played 100 + X gigs, but in a positive way! They were very composed on stage, the jokes landed, the routines were tight, the show was solid. The Mindeners were already playing in another league, but the sound in front of the stage was just garbage, and apparently, they didn't bring many friends along. I was a little disappointed, but the band couldn't do anything about that.
I was surprised by the headliner Jaws from Lemgo, who also organized the concert. I didn't even know there was a hardcore band in this little town and that they had so many friends. Musically and show-wise, they were clearly worse than Distance in Embrace, but the crowd finally started to dance, albeit a bit too hard in my opinion. I thought two fellow enthusiasts were going to fight in front of the stage, but then some people stepped in, and the two pogo friends made up.
A nice evening with a few beers, and I didn't have to drive, which practically calls for a repeat :)
On November 4, I went to see the Ärzte again in Bielefeld. I wondered how many Ärzte gigs this would actually be for me that Sunday. I found 14 tickets, and since I normally don't throw away tickets, this should now be gig number 15, *wow*. The opening band Dampfmaschine was already playing when we went in; they would have been quite nice, but with their "shirtless" posing and the "we'll play one more song... and now another last song... and now the very last song," they didn't make any friends with the Ärzte fans. Not to mention their selling of their CD at the end of the evening when leaving the Seidensticker Halle. Well, after the Rammstein posing band Die Ärzte followed. Even though the gig was already two months ago, I still remember that the first songs were a potpourri of the last 30 years! Starting with "Wir sind die Besten" to "(ich ess) Blumen", "Tamagotchi", and "2000 Mädchen"… always alternating, and the audience went wild. Not like a few months ago in Hannover, where you could push a few rows forward after the first 10 songs. The first 50 rows were packed, and there was no chance to see further up front. However, there was another view in the pit, where more and more wallets appeared. In the crowd and pogo frenzy, someone apparently couldn't keep their long fingers to themselves. Following that, Farin issued a wallet warning, something quite new… But did it have to be in Bielefeld of all places? And then Farin, who hardly moved in Hannover, was no better in Bielefeld; on the contrary, he even messed up more often. That can happen during a concert over 3 hours long (!), but this time it was noticeably frequent. It seemed to me that he was longing for the end of the tour, which was only two concerts away in Düsseldorf. Bela B. and Rod were in top form, which is no decathlon for Rod, but Bela gave it his all… and then some…. What particularly pleased me was "Kamelralley" at the end of the first encore :) I hadn't heard that song in a long time :) After "Junge," there was "Unrockbar" in the second encore, where die Ärzte didn't have to say anything regarding the sitting action. However, there are above-average many refusers of this action in Bielefeld, just to show that these complainers are also present. The third encore ended with "Schrei nach Liebe" and thus the concert. What I noticed was that the three Ärzte didn't talk much with and about each other that evening, and the usual and unusual actions like a wave were in short supply that night. If I ever feel drawn to see the Ärzte again (the year 2013 is still long), it won't be to a gig at the end of the tour. Bela B. has now passed the magical fifth zero in years, a milestone not many rock musicians experience, and even though he is the most mobile of the three at concerts, the air is slowly running out…. And is only estimated at 98.3% now!!!
In contrast, the six actors from the Vollplaybacktheater, who performed the Drei Fragezeichen episode "Der Super – Papagei" on November 27, 2012, in the Bielefeld "Rudolf-Oetker-Halle," are really young. The Vollplaybacktheater has actually been around for 15 years, but this was my first visit to the troupe from Wuppertal, and I was curious about what to expect. More than the fact that the Vollplaybacktheater performed John Sinclair and Drei ??? episodes without saying a word, as everything comes from the tape, I didn't know. I could also imagine that they could interpret something additional, otherwise, the show would have ended after 45 minutes. But what???? You really have to see it for yourself; it's hard to explain, because alongside the regular Drei ??? episode, John Sinclair also appeared in the "Super – Papagei" episode, and overall, the episode was stretched quite a bit. It was more of a comedy show that was timed to the second. But that is probably inevitable in a reenacted audio play. And it was funny, very funny and entertaining. The six guys, who also came on stage as women, turned 45 minutes into 2 x 60 minutes. Just the scene with Morton the chauffeur and the scene where the Drei ??? drive back to the house in the Rolls-Royce (on the screen in front of the car, the road was visible, which had probably been filmed earlier), which ran backward, and after the action of cleaning the Rolls-Royce, where Morton suddenly appeared on the screen and took a swig from the flask, that scene I probably won't forget anytime soon :)
I would love to see another Drei ??? episode from the Vollplaybacktheater; the show was simply divine, but after the mega-applause at the end of the show, they announced that they would only go on tour one more time with a John Sinclair episode :( What a shame.