Wave Gothic Treffen XX, Leipzig, Part II
Sunday started a bit in chaos. I think I had an allergic reaction to one of the make up products I used for my eyes, and after pimping up, I started crying for almost 3 hours, without being able to stop the tears. Once my make up have been ruined, we moved to the Pagan Village....and missed Narsilion's show (I am so ashamed, since they were one of the band I really wanted to see).
So we stepped to Anker to enjoy Andrew King's concert.
Really nice and particular atmosphere (even if some titles can be a bit long).
I'm really admirative of this man who is an authentic artist in his mind. I wish I understand English a bit more to enjoy fully the poetic lyrics, that I think are taken from his work on vernacular and traditional songs.
Speaking of, I've done my little google research and it seems that Andrew King left Sol Invictus on the 23th of June. Such a bad news! Stated here and here. I really love the albums in which he participated! What do you think of the new album?
I did not know he has edited a book with his paintings, but stumb upon it in the market place. You can find it at Timeless Editions (in 15 years living near Toulouse, I never knew there was an interesting editor like that located here): there are some interesting annotations by the author, and introduction by Michael Moynihan, and a complete discography/exhibition list/retrospective of his work.
You can find reproductions of his most famous painting used in some editions of Sol Invictus, Ernte and L'orchestre Noir. And it abled me to discover another part of his work I had no seen before.
His Myspace Page just here.
The concert ended with a beautiful title, where Andrew King showed all his charisma and is inner talent as a storyteller as much as a musician.
After what, we were unsure about what to do: we wanted to see the split Sophia/Karjalan Sissit, but knowing the band, we fear they would be too acoholed to play something correctly, or to stay in the same place to see Larnakh (side-project of Sturmast and Cawatana, in a more folk way). We ended up moving to Schaubühne Lidenfels for Sophie/ Karjalan Sissit (mistake!).
This concert place is really cool! We arrived early and see the end of C.3.3., a side-project of Test Dept, which sounds really good (do someone know if they made a record under this name? I could not find any, and I am not that found of the old Test Dept, from what I heard off). The room is large, with some benches and cinema seats. Two stairs of beautiful columns.
After a beer, outside,
Please excuse the poor posture, only picture of us this day T___T
We could attend the poor performance of the Swedish guyz.
Guy we have seen the day before as the frontman of Vinterland.
They played half titles from Sophia, half titles from Karjalan Sissit: so nothing new at all, not any "song" together. Of course, Make Pesonen was totaly drunk (like 3 years ago in Paris, and like 10 years ago in Lyon...), and could not "play" anything: he was just fooling around, sometimes slapping a drum by passing by (of course, not in the tempo), screaming incoherently in front of the public with an hilarious face, and also trying to maintain his pants that were falling apart. A royal posture....
Of course the Bjärgo couple was less drunk, so they maintained the show, but they did not really played. In fact, the CD were playing loud backside, and they they were just slapping drums upon it (and sometimes they forget one rythme, and you don't see the difference...).
Is it what people call Music? Is it Art?
Really, I don't think so! Of course, my esteem of the two bands is now disastrous. Compared to band like Der Blaue Reiter where the members (which attended the concert two ;-) are real musicians, modeled by Conservatory, playing all themselves (violin, piano, drums, etc...), it is really a bad joke.
You can see two videos from me here and here (if someone know how to insert them in a livejournal post...of course, the HTML code is not working T___T), and note it by yourself. Of course, it was worse in real. Keep in mind that all the music is finaly not played by the band: it is like a cinema movie or a kind of playback. And no, it's not even a performance.
I'm really upset about loosing my time here. Even if I love the CD albums from both bands. I think it is really useless to do live show to do that.
But I know a lot of people in the audience did not heard the difference: perhaps it is the gap between people that really learnt playin an instrument and music and the rest of them?
Anyway, end of this day with Fields of the Nephilim at the Agra.
They played all their good old titles, so it was cool.
We were far away from the scene, but there were less people than for Front 242. An nice concert after Karjalan/Sophia, but not that touching. A bit like if they were only touring for money: absolutely no contact with the audience. Is it because of the cold and mysterious reputation of Carl MacCoy?
My outfit for the day (I know, very interesting for those who read this report for music...)
Now, Monday was here, and the last day of the festival :-( I was even sad before it started!
We started by visiting the market place in the Agra, in hunt of rarities (but did not find any, really!), and sharing some good times with our friends:
Then we moved to Pantheon/Kuppelhalle for In the Nursery, which was really good!
Click to viewThis Video is not from me but gives a good view of the atmosphere.
Beautiful songs, and a handful from the new album that we will certainly buy in the future. Some well know old titles, and even a title that have been annouced like from their debut in 1982!
Much more powerfull than on CD, because of all the drums, charismatic band, warm and not ridiculous at all, beautiful orchestral instant: on of the best concerts of the festival with Empyrium!
After what, we did not stayed for Lustmord, and prefered moving to the Park Bühne to wait for Mephisto Walz and change a bit of atmosphere.
I've never been to this palce before, even if it is really an important stage for goth rock and batcave. It's really nice!
We arrived during Tying Tiffany's show, which sounds great (again, harsher than on CDs). The sound was a bit loud, and we were tired, so we stepped out and had a walk in the park, enjoying a tasty icecream!
Cheesyness:
There were some squirrels running freely in the park, I have never seen one so close in my life! :-)
Mesphisto Walz was really cool!
Despite a really cold public (and I still don't understand why!), they played all their most loved titles from the 80's. Here, with their new singer: I even prefer her voice to the old one, it was nice!
But the public only started moving on the recall when the band started a cover of Iggy Pop/the Stooges "I wanna be your dog" T___T Sutupid people!
When the band asked which title we would like to hear, no one screamed anything T___T
Is it possible that people there don't know about this famous band ?!
Anyway, I hope it is because it was monday.
Rest of the evening fooling around with friends, and ending up at the Abseinterie Sixtina, where we met Rose, a sculptor, and her friend who was definitely more orientated toward classical opera, talking about travelling in New York ;-)
Last day, so I made an effort for my outfit/makeup/hairstyle:
Back (details of the tights)
Details:
Last day, we hang out aroud the railway station to say goodbye to our friends :-( And visited the famous Völkerschlachtdenkmal, built after the Victory on Napeonic french army.
And one from the cemetary next to it:
And a touch of consumerism: all the stuff we brought back from Leipzig:
- 2 Empyrium limited T-shirt
- Haus Arafna TS
- Preussen from Wappenbund
- new Art Abscon CD (surprising and beautiful)
- Solenacae
- Larnakh
-The Joy of Life (Portugese New Folk)
- EP: split Aluk Todolo/Der Blutharsch
- Andrew King Book