Trix (Hof Ter Lo), Antwerp, Belgium20th March 2009
Bahntier, Auto-Auto, Aesthetic Perfection, Combichrist
With the latest series of concerts organized by the Vampire Party team going slightly downhill in attendance it was a wise decision to team up with their Antwerp colleagues of BodyBeats Productions to put together this nice line-up with BAHNTIER, AUTO-AUTO, AESTHETIC PERFECTION and headliner COMBICHRIST. The event took place in 'Trix', formerly known as 'Hof Ter Lo' - a name that might ring a bell as a stop on the last VNV Nation tour a few years ago and the home of BodyBeats and their renown BIM Fest, the “Belgian Independent Music Festival.
Bahntier
Started in 1999 as the ambient/experimental project of Stefano Rossello, BAHNTIER evolved, became more aggressive, concrete, and percussive. In 2005, Stefano met Justin Bennett (live drummer of Skinny Puppy, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Peter Murphy, and many others), who soon joined the band. On stage, Justin is joined on the drums with additional sound manipulation by Fillippo Corradin.
Music & Performance
Opening for a hall that's not even close to half full is not an easy task, admittingly the doors opened quite early at 20:00 but still it does help to try. And that’s somewhere where it lacked with BAHNTIER that left the intention that the same 3 songs were repeated a few times and that was the set. On the stage itself was not that much action going on with the drummer Justin the most "in" on the action but for some reason Stefano was constantly in the same "I have to hold this arm like this" move for most of the tracks and a bit too much overacting on the sound-buttons to end it all.
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 7
Sound: 8
Light: 6
Total: 7 / 10
Auto-Auto
Originating from Gothenburg, AUTO-AUTO brings a mix of Electro, Synth-Pop, Chiptune music as produced by the home computers of the 1980s mixed together with hip-hop inspired beats inspired by what some would describe as industrial themes.
Music & Performance
When the first things you see on the stage are 3 small guys with blond coloured hair behind a worth mentioning setup of synths you almost know for certain that you are a looking at Swedes and that you will hear happy Synth-Pop tunes. Not breaking in the tradition of the previous guess this is exactly what the audience got. Of course the synths did limit the 'show' aspect of the set as not much movement was allowed but at least the light engineer did find his switches when compared to the BAHNTIER set so it could still be called an improvement. But the songs were nice; the set was nicely built up and after the 2nd band of the evening the venue seemed to bathe in the smell of happy Synth-Pop.
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 7.8 / 10
Aesthetic Perfection
Taking three years to complete the new album ‘A Violent Emotion’, AESTHETIC PERFECTION comes to Antwerp with a new album full of catchy and energetic songs in follow up to ‘Close To Human’. The previous stop in Belgium did not hold much tracks of the new album but this was about to change.
Music & Performance
You could comment on many of the aspects of the performance such as the pretty static "generic guy behind the synths" or the empty stage or the pretty basic light effects but you certainly cannot complain about the voice and the energy that just seems to beam out of Daniel Graves. For the first time in the already long evening the audience started to move more up and down than left and right as more tracks from the new album came out of the speakers that were positioned on both ends of the stage. All in all an ideal warm-up for the headliner of the evening: COMBICHRIST.
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.8 / 10
Combichrist
Hitting the scene in 2003 as the solo-project of Andy LaPlegua from ICON OF COIL fame, COMBICHRIST offered a much more industrial and harsher sound just hovering over what some would define as Industrial Noise. Naming the tour the same as the new album ‘Today we are all demons’ you know what to expect and what to receive. COMBICHRIST was about to hit the stage and hit it hard.
Music & Performance
First of all some respect needs to go out to drummer Joey for making the concert after all, as he was close to literally wheel chaired to the stage coming from an IV-drip in the hospital earlier that day. With lots of smoke and white floodlights from the side the entire set was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish with - obviously - a large amount of tracks from the new album. On stage was the close to perfect mix of loud and harsh industrial sounds combined with the limitless miles that are travelled on stage with nonstop running up and down by Andy. Add to that an amount of movement from the rest of the performers that is bound to cause major headaches and other injuries to any other mortal without superhero strength and the entire venue exploded in a non violent way.
There was quite some effort of adding a live aspect on electronic music with extra drum sets but maybe it was exactly bit too much on the percussion side as sometimes the sound tended to drift off towards a wall of bass with hardly any of the vocals rising above it. This being in a minority of the tracks it’s something that you can forgive easily so why don’t we just do that? As a final note its worth mentioning that drummer Joey came close to not making the end of the show, falling down from his stool right before the final encore but making it nonetheless... Everything for a good show!
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 9
Total: 8.8 / 10
Overall the evening could be seen as a successful cooperation between the crew behind the Vampire Parties from Antwerp and the guys from Bodybeats that is just screaming for a repeat but sadly enough it’s not possible to get COMBICHRIST to make a stop in your country every three months - well not in something the size of Belgium anyway. Vampire Party: http://www.vampireparty.com/
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