Molchat Doma @ Fållan, Stockholm 2024 (report)
So yeah, Molchat Doma played at Fållan, the same venue Einstürzende Neubauten played a month ago, so it was my second visit to this place.
Arrived at half past six, there were like two dozen people in front of me.
The doors opened at seven, and I made it to the front row this time.
At eight a warm up band started their perfomance. The band was called Urban Heat, and they are from Houston, Texas.
So, imagine an American band performing as a warm up act for a band from Belarussia.
I can only remember Rock Nad Volgoy festival in 2012, when Garbage performed before Alisa, and Limp Bizkit performed right after it.
Anyway, this Urban Heat band was OK I guess, their vocalist/guitarist, a pretty tall, athletic and muscular guy, was jumping and dancing around the stage like mad, and was sweating as mad as well. You don't see such energy very often, really.
They play pretty similar to Molchat Doma post punk music, and as Molchat Doma they don't have a live drummer.
They performed for forty five minutes, and then after half an hour of equipment adjustments, Molchat Doma appeared, at about quater past nine.
The concert lasted till ten to eleven, with an encore.
So, it was the second concert of Molchat Doma I attended, the first being in Athens in February 2020, at Temple club, almost five years ago.
And yeah, this second concert was very different from the first one.
They have a ton of equipment now, like the keyboardist/guitarist on the left had two synthesizer stands, plus some other synthesizer looking thing behind him, and a few guitars, and the guy on the right had an electric drum kit he played in a few songs, a few synthesizers and two bass guitars, one of which was five stringed.
In 2020, as far as I remember, they had only one synthesizers the left guy was playing from time to time, and it was a pretty small synthesizer, andit was basically all they had except for guitars.
They also put up a real light show this time, with stroboscopic lights, beamlights etc.
In 2020 it all was much more humble.
And they were dressed very neatly and clean, it seemed as if they put on the clothes they wore for the first time ever, everything looked absolutely new and unworn and impeccable, no signs of wear or wrinkles or whatever. And all three of them wore white socks LOL. Everything else they wore was black, and it was not like simple t-shirts they wore in 2020, but some clothes which looked like designer clothes, pretty loose.
The lead singer looks like Dostoevsky (or Dugin LOL) now, with his beard and mustaches, and long hair, and his visible baldness which started to kick in, and instead of just standing and singing in his microphone like Ian Curtis did, he performs some kind of dances during the parts he does not sing, choreographed to some degree. And I won't call his moves too masculine, they are pretty effeminate so to say, and relaxed, as opposed to their tense music.
So he is like absolutely impeccably dressed (he wore some jacket during the first songs, but took it off afterwards and stayed in a black tanktop with suspenders over it) long-haired Dostoevsky, absolutely pale, like his skin have never experienced the Sun, dancing these strange dances, and singing songs with his monotonous voice.
While performing one of the songs, before Son, he climbed down to the public and went by the front row, and I could touch his relaxed apathetic palm, it was not like he was giving high fives to fans, but just walked by stretching out his palm so that everybody could touch it.
He spoke a bit between the songs, but it was mainly "Thank you" and "Spasibo", he didn't speak Swedish and towards the end of the show he was saying "Spasibo" more often than "Thank you".
All three of them now have impressive beards, and the guitarist got completely bald while the bassist is still sporting a man bun.
So it was like a concert of a different band compared to their 2020 show. They seem much more pretentious and sophisticated now, with their loads of synthesizers and their clothes and looks.
They looked much more simple and democratic in 2020, that's what I mean.
As for their newer songs, I didn't like them as much as old ones. They are slower, less energetic and sound lazier, it seemed to me.
I mean, this concert was like a presentation of their latest album, Belaya Polosa, and half of the songs were from this album, and I prefer their earlier songs, from their first one. These new songs might be more mature and better from the musical point of view, but I guess I like more primitive stuff.
And they didn't perform Kommersanty, which is a real pity because it is one of their best songs.
And they performed Sudno as the last song.
After that they gave away their setlists and threw some guitar picks, but those two their guitarist threw flew right over my head, so they were caught by those standing in the second row.
As for the public, it consisted mainly of teenagers, and namely of Swedish teenagers, but one could hear Russian language here and there, but there were not as many Russian speakers as I was expecting.
So, there was not so much singing along, as not so many people in the audience spoke Russian, but some refrains were sung, of course, like those of Tantsevat' and Sudno LOL.
Something like that.
Arrived at half past six, there were like two dozen people in front of me.
The doors opened at seven, and I made it to the front row this time.
At eight a warm up band started their perfomance. The band was called Urban Heat, and they are from Houston, Texas.
So, imagine an American band performing as a warm up act for a band from Belarussia.
I can only remember Rock Nad Volgoy festival in 2012, when Garbage performed before Alisa, and Limp Bizkit performed right after it.
Anyway, this Urban Heat band was OK I guess, their vocalist/guitarist, a pretty tall, athletic and muscular guy, was jumping and dancing around the stage like mad, and was sweating as mad as well. You don't see such energy very often, really.
They play pretty similar to Molchat Doma post punk music, and as Molchat Doma they don't have a live drummer.
They performed for forty five minutes, and then after half an hour of equipment adjustments, Molchat Doma appeared, at about quater past nine.
The concert lasted till ten to eleven, with an encore.
So, it was the second concert of Molchat Doma I attended, the first being in Athens in February 2020, at Temple club, almost five years ago.
And yeah, this second concert was very different from the first one.
They have a ton of equipment now, like the keyboardist/guitarist on the left had two synthesizer stands, plus some other synthesizer looking thing behind him, and a few guitars, and the guy on the right had an electric drum kit he played in a few songs, a few synthesizers and two bass guitars, one of which was five stringed.
In 2020, as far as I remember, they had only one synthesizers the left guy was playing from time to time, and it was a pretty small synthesizer, andit was basically all they had except for guitars.
They also put up a real light show this time, with stroboscopic lights, beamlights etc.
In 2020 it all was much more humble.
And they were dressed very neatly and clean, it seemed as if they put on the clothes they wore for the first time ever, everything looked absolutely new and unworn and impeccable, no signs of wear or wrinkles or whatever. And all three of them wore white socks LOL. Everything else they wore was black, and it was not like simple t-shirts they wore in 2020, but some clothes which looked like designer clothes, pretty loose.
The lead singer looks like Dostoevsky (or Dugin LOL) now, with his beard and mustaches, and long hair, and his visible baldness which started to kick in, and instead of just standing and singing in his microphone like Ian Curtis did, he performs some kind of dances during the parts he does not sing, choreographed to some degree. And I won't call his moves too masculine, they are pretty effeminate so to say, and relaxed, as opposed to their tense music.
So he is like absolutely impeccably dressed (he wore some jacket during the first songs, but took it off afterwards and stayed in a black tanktop with suspenders over it) long-haired Dostoevsky, absolutely pale, like his skin have never experienced the Sun, dancing these strange dances, and singing songs with his monotonous voice.
While performing one of the songs, before Son, he climbed down to the public and went by the front row, and I could touch his relaxed apathetic palm, it was not like he was giving high fives to fans, but just walked by stretching out his palm so that everybody could touch it.
He spoke a bit between the songs, but it was mainly "Thank you" and "Spasibo", he didn't speak Swedish and towards the end of the show he was saying "Spasibo" more often than "Thank you".
All three of them now have impressive beards, and the guitarist got completely bald while the bassist is still sporting a man bun.
So it was like a concert of a different band compared to their 2020 show. They seem much more pretentious and sophisticated now, with their loads of synthesizers and their clothes and looks.
They looked much more simple and democratic in 2020, that's what I mean.
As for their newer songs, I didn't like them as much as old ones. They are slower, less energetic and sound lazier, it seemed to me.
I mean, this concert was like a presentation of their latest album, Belaya Polosa, and half of the songs were from this album, and I prefer their earlier songs, from their first one. These new songs might be more mature and better from the musical point of view, but I guess I like more primitive stuff.
And they didn't perform Kommersanty, which is a real pity because it is one of their best songs.
And they performed Sudno as the last song.
After that they gave away their setlists and threw some guitar picks, but those two their guitarist threw flew right over my head, so they were caught by those standing in the second row.
As for the public, it consisted mainly of teenagers, and namely of Swedish teenagers, but one could hear Russian language here and there, but there were not as many Russian speakers as I was expecting.
So, there was not so much singing along, as not so many people in the audience spoke Russian, but some refrains were sung, of course, like those of Tantsevat' and Sudno LOL.
Something like that.