Kulturfabrik, Krefeld, Germany4th May 2010
Alec Empire
German ALEC EMPIRE is most notable for being the front man of ATARI TEENAGE RIOT, releasing a couple successful album until they broke up in 2000. Beginning of 2010, the band announced a reunion show. Walking on solo paths from the break-up of his former band, he developed kind of an erratic manner, musically spoken. He never was clinging to the same musical genre twice, which resulted in albums such as 'Low on Ice', an ambient collage, or 'Les Étoiles Des Filles Mortes' where he was flirting with experimental Jazz stuff. Apart from releasing stuff under his own name, he's known for having several ongoing musical activities under different aliases, some of which being NINTENDO TEENAGE ROBOTS or JAGUAR. His latest release goes by the name of the EP 'Shivers' and was published through his own Eat Your Heart Out label in 2009. http://www.myspace.com/alecempire
Music & Performance
At first, time was proceeding and nothing really happened, except us waiting and spending the time with chatting. Quite some minutes after the initially scheduled start, the first drones sounded on stage and told about the coming of ALEC EMPIRE. The two had hardly entered the stage as the mayhem already began with the merciless beats of the extreme 'The Ride' with Alec screaming relentlessly “My message is war” while shaking his bones vividly to the rhythms. The sawing guitars of 'If You Live or Die' “maltreated” our listening nerves and the partly 80s inspired beats made the last hesitations fall. If you just took the time and looked around for a couple seconds, you realized that just everyone was dancing behind you and Alec kept pushing them to the max, riled them up as often as he could and. He's got a knack for pushing people, really. He knows exactly what to do, and if it's just holding the microphone into the ecstatic crowd to make them scream even louder.
The most ecstatic reactions occurred of course where stuff of the recently reunited ATARI TEENAGE RIOT was presented like the blistering 'No Remorse' that started the encore the audience had to work hard for, as it didn't appear at first as if there was anyone going to return at all. Anyway, the joy was even bigger when he did and the party could continue. The second one in line was 'Destroy 2000 years of culture'. But the highlight surely was 'Revolution Action' for which Alec asked rapper CX Kidtronik to support him on vocals and making the stage their playground. Both still managed to do that after Alec brought several people from the audience on stage, so they could riot with them. To describe this concert properly, you have to use the term jack hammer with beats that could crack your skull. It was an amazing and different experience we won't soon forget.
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 8.2 / 10
All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)
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