Live Review: Bush - Cologne 2017

E-Werk, Cologne, Germany
29th September 2017
Bush, RavenEye

“Chemicals between us” are still working after all these years. On this last Friday night in September one of the few remaining legends from the Grunge era of the 90ies were scheduled to appear in the cosy E-Werk in Cologne: Frontman Gavin Rossdale and his band BUSH.


RavenEye

But before the reunited band took to the stage, it was time for the opening act RAVENEYE. Almost five minutes earlier than scheduled, the three people from Milton Keynes, UK, entered the stage, and immediately started radiating lots of energy by performing a really rough version of Garage rock, seasoned with a decent amount of dirty blues. The band did not let themselves be discouraged by the - at the time of their start - half-empty venue, but offered the audience a good lesson of what three capable musicians can achieve in terms of winning over an audience.



Front man Oli Brown, who reminds of a younger version of the deceased Chris Cornell, at one point climbed on the back of bass guitarist, and they both kept playing, while running back and forth on the stage, a feature unseen yet by the writer of this article. After their gig of 40 minutes, the venue was much more crowded and the room temperature was several degrees higher, so I guess RAVENEYE did a fantastic job as a support band. And people who already have RIVAL SONS or ROYAL BLOOD on their playlist, are well advised to add RAVENEYE to it. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

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Bush

After an extensive break, which was made a little more bearable by the DJ playing a carefully curated selection of MONSTER MAGNET songs, the lights went dark, and BUSH entered the stage with the opener ‘Everything Zen’. Initially, Gavin’s voice seemed a little shaky, but as the band went on to play classics like ‘The Chemicals between us’, ‘Greedy Fly’, or ‘Swallowed’, all the insecurity was gone. The band developed an incredible energy, which was pointedly supported by a well-timed light show, and which did have quite an effect on the audience. The songs from the newer albums, such as ‘The Sound of winter’ or ‘The people that we love’ were also well received.



However, the excitement hit peak level, when Gavin got off the stage into the crowd to the sound of ‘Little things’ and continued to sing, while marching through the crowd - much to the distress of the security people and the sound engineers - joined by his fans singing their hearts off in a truly celebratory moment. People were very surprised to say the least that the band left the stage after this song, but a few minutes of ferocious clapping and cheering brought the band back for the encore. This started with another all-time classic ‘Machinehead’, continued with an enormously rocked up cover of the R.E.M. song ‘The one I love’, and ended with another song from the 90ies ‘Comedown’.



So everyone, who came to see one of the ground-breaking rock bands and celebrate their music, got their fix and had all reasons to go off into the night pleased.

Setlist
01. Everything Zen
02. Nurse
03. The Chemicals Between Us
04. Greedy Fly
05. The Sound of Winter
06. Testosterone
07. This is War
08. Let Yourself Go
09. The People That We Love
10. Swallowed
11. Glycerine
12. Little Things (Gavin in crowd)
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13. Machinehead
14. The One I Love (R.E.M. cover)
15. Comedown

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All pictures by Marc Junge