WGT review

There’s a great review of the Wave Gothic Treff show at Nemesis To Go

There’s one more band to go. The headliners are due on stage any minute. Suddenly, a backdrop of LEDs blazes into life, as if someone’s tapped a vein of raw electricity. Shadowy figures take up instruments. This is Cassandra Complex, a band with a convoluted past that goes back to the 80s in the UK, and a slightly more recent status as alternative rock heroes in Germany. Like many bands with a lengthy history, Cassandra Complex have gone through many line-up changes and periods of not-doing-much, or only-doing-stuff-in-the-Continenal-scene, to the point where the band’s UK profile has in recent years barely risen above earthworm level. Significantly, while several Cassandra Complex pages exist in various international editions of Wikipedia, the English-language entry is brief, basic – and written in the past tense. Here at the WGT, however, the band members – the original line-up, no less – are hailed as conquering heroes as they emerge from the shadows, with main man Rodney Orpheus recieving his own ovation. And it doesn’t let up from that point forward. The band crank it like good ‘uns, kicking up a driving, thunderous, rhythmic onslaught that sweeps all before it. Curiously, given that in certain quarters Cassandra Complex are hailed as pioneers of EBM, it’s unashamedly guitar-driven music (just in case we haven’t twigged, the guitarist demonstrates a fine repertoire of plank-hero postures throughout the set) that tips its hat to ye olde rock ‘n’ roll even as it eats the big dancefloor beat. Rodney Orpheus himself is obviously revelling in the experience – fronting a pounding behemoth of a band, before a crowd of cheering fans – well, it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, innit? Unashamedly milking the adulation, he strikes messiah poses that would seem downright Spinal Tap-ish were it not for the big grin on his face. He even indulges in some quality crowd surfing, trusting the fans to bear him off into the hinterland of the audience and then return him stagewards just in time for the chorus. It all fits, and it all works: the celebratory atmosphere, the ever-shifting LED array strobing over everything, and the beat that just doesn’t quit – if ever there was a situation where all the threads are pulled together into a glorious whole, we’re witnessing it now.

kill your children

wakamiya just posted a video of Kill Your Children from an old gig at Bochum Zeche up to YouTube. Still looks and sounds pretty damn good…

Yeah!

Wave Gothic Treff

I’ve been out of touch for a couple of days while playing the WGT festival in Leipzig, Germany. This is a great festival, but it’s not open-air like most places. Basically for four days they take over every venue in the city and run non-stop concerts and parties. We were headling the Kohlrabizirkus venue on the last day of the festival, in other words, the top spot.

There were around 25,000 – 30,000 people at the festival, but the Kohlrabizirkus only holds around 4,000. That meant that it was filled to capacity several hours before we were due to go on, with hundreds (possibly thousands) of people getting turned away at the door. Even when it was sold out, the line of people outside trying to get in stretched all the way down the street!

I was seriously nervous seeing that as you can imagine, especially since we hadn’t played in five years, apart from the couple of warm-up shows in the past couple of weeks. But once we got on stage it was… incredible. We had a new light show set up for this one, with an 8 metre by 2 metre LED light wall that we had programmed for the songs. It was blindingly bright, but amazing to see. The audience went nuts from the beginning, and by the end the entire place was dancing and screaming for more. I even ended up crowd surfing…

We did a three camera video shoot as well, so you’ll get to see some of it once we get to editing some footage. For now, here’s a pic of Volker during Nightfall…

Rock & roll, eh?

And just look at those LED lights behind us…

cx wgt 2007

backstage @ WGT

Some candid backstage shots from Bob:

Soundcheck in the morning. Those LEDs were HOT. The crew were great, one of the easiest and best soundchecks we’ve ever had.

Outside the venue before the show. It had already been sold out nearly an hour before, but people were still queuing in the vain hope of getting in. Unbelievable.

That red ribbon round my neck holds the key for Cubase, which is the software that runs our drum tracks and some of our synthesiser sounds on stage. Without that key the show grinds to a halt, which is why it’s on a bright red ribbon and never leaves my side.

amsterdam

We just played Amsterdam. We were stunningly good, even if I do say so myself. Twice as good as London, if not more so. We had Slack, and lots of it. The audience loved it too

Now it’s 3.33 am and I’m in my hotel room still buzzing. Paul & Andy are in the bar and Volker & Bob are crashed out – they have to get up at 5 to get planes.

If this keeps going Leipzig should be a hell of a show next week. *Cross fingers*