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Zeche, Bochum, Germany
18th September 2007
Negative, Day Eleven

Same band, same place, just about one year later. Finish Glam-Rockers NEGATIVE were back on Bochum again and again, the Zeche was packed. Since the band released the first album ‘War of Love’ and the hit single ‘The Moment of our Love’, the band gained constantly success and their fan base got bigger and bigger - not only in their home country Finland. Again, they had another Finish band as support - DAY ELEVEN. Sharp at 8:00 the show was ready to start.


Day Eleven

Support that night were DAY ELEVEN from Tampere, Finland, who started making music about ten years ago. Anyway, the actual year one for the band was 2003. First album was ‘Almost over Everything’ which was released in spring 2005 via GBfam Records; second album ‘Sleepwalkers’ was released in March 2007. DAY ELEVEN are Janne Pajari (vocals, guitar), Matti Lötjönen (guitar), Olli Sopanen (guitar), Kimmo Kärkkäinen (bass) and Luca Di Giovanni (drums). http://www.day-eleven.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/dayeleven



Music
With their music, the Finish five-piece tries to combine an uncompromising attitude and hunger for success with a blend of tradition and new ideas rooted in 90s grunge rock containing shades of punk rock too as well as slight influences of pop mixed up with heavy guitars. In my opinion they not totally succeeded because the songs did not sound new and fresh. Just something you have heard several times before. With the new album, the band creates a leaner and meaner sound.



Performance
As support band, DAY ELEVEN had to deal with a quite dark stage as so many other support acts. The show itself was quite static on the one side of the stage while the other half of the band was moving more; especially drummer Luca was very vivid behind his instrument. Most interesting for the NEGATIVE fans was probably, that during the show Antti started filming it, first on stage and later on from the pit. Compared to JANN WILDE AND ROSE AVENUE who supported NEGATIVE the year before, this band was not celebrated that much by the fans. There was not much more than some polite applause.

Rating
Music: 5
Performance: 5
Sound: 6
Light: 4
Total: 5




Negative

Until now, NEGATIVE have gained quite a big fan base - mostly consisting of girls obviously as you could also see during the Bochum show. The Glam-Rock band from Finland was founded 1997 in Tampere. Sometimes NEGATIVE is categorized as Gothic Rock, but that’s not quite true; the band itself calls their style “Emotional Rock”. Their musical paragons are bands like GUNS N’ROSES or AEROSMITH what you can recognize not only in NEGATIVE’s music but also in their appearance.



The debut album ‘War of Love’ was released 2003 and was a big success in native Finland. In September 2004, the second album ‘Sweet and Deceitful’ followed. The first single out off it – ‘Frozen to lose it all’ - climbed to the top position in Finish charts immediately. In 2005, the band played their first festivals in Germany and later in autumn a first tour followed. Together with HIM and THE RASMUS, NEGATIVE were touring in 2006. The whole tour was very successful. End of September 2006, the third album ‘Anoretic’ was released followed by a tour through Germany again. Already this is one year ago and now the band is present in the German clubs again. And as one year ago, they are playing the Zeche Bochum once more. NEGATIVE are Jonne Aaron (vocals), Larry (guitar), Sir Christus (guitar), Antti (bass), Jay (drums) and Snack (keyboard). http://www.negative.fi/ / http://www.negative-love.de/ / http://www.negativeband.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/negative
 


Music
Even though the band is still (after one year) promoting the latest album ‘Anoretic’, the setlist differed quite a lot to the last appearance here in Bochum. But anyway, several songs out of that album were presented during the show. After the well-known circus music, the show started this time with the older ‘Misery’ which was welcomed with frenetic applause by the fans, before ‘Swans’ from the recent album followed. In general, the first half of the show was dominated by older songs like ‘My my - Hey hey’, ‘Frozen’ or ‘Misty Morning’ before the band concentrated more onto some new songs, i.e. ‘Glory of the shame’ which also could have been found on a GUNS N’ROSES album, ‘A song for the broken hearted’ - a very emotional and even a but cheesy song - or ‘One last shot’ and ‘Planet of the sun’.



First of those two is quite interesting with use of dramatic sounding strings - of course not played live while the latter one was something extra for the girls. After the main set, the encore consisted of three more songs: ‘Embracing Past’ from ‘Anoretic’, ‘Naïve’ and ‘In my Heaven’. Most songs were newly arranged for the live performance containing longer passages and solo parts for different instruments. The sound was a lot louder than during the support band and from time to time slightly booming, not really good… at least where I was standing.



Performance
Somehow I must say that it was all the same like one year before… only slightly different. Again, the whole stage had something of circus atmosphere. On the sides there were two canvases with fantasy drawings. Behind them, several small light elements were mounted and during the show they were lit up. The big speaker on stage was covered with a flag showing a cannabis leaf. In front of the drum set there was some metal construction looking like a locomotive. On the keyboard, heavy metal chains were hung up and a green plastic snake was mounted. Of course the metal microphone stands looking like chains for Jonne and Sir. Christus could not be missed. The one of Sir Christus had some transparent plastic tube mounted looking like a giant straw. Later I learned that he was making some strange noises with that tube. On both sides of the stage, black and white chequered podiums were placed to make the circus complete. The only thing missing this time was the backdrop showing the face of the sad clown from the ‘Anoretic’ album cover. Instead, there were lots of small lights placed like a net in the back of the stage looking like a star sparkled sky once they were lit up.



When the introducing circus music started, the band entered one after the other the stage. All were dressed wild… This time, Jonne was Clothed completely in white… latest when he undressed the dark vest during the show. There was a lot of power and energy on stage right from the start. The guys were jumping around, posing, animating the audience or shaking their hips which - of course - made more than one girl scream. But somehow it all seemed a bit too experienced for my taste… it was nearly exactly the same as seen several shows before. Well… one thing was different than to the show a year before… no girl was showing the tits even though Jonne asked for it. Of course the band still knows exactly how to handle the audience and make them scream.



They were flirting with the girls - especially Jonne and Sir Christus - and shaking their butts. Even Jonne’s spitting around was appreciated by the audience. Sir Christus’ sliding over the stage on his butt was equally acclaimed as Antti’s head banging and shaking his hair. It was just Rock ‘n’ Roll behaviour. When the band started QUEEN’s ‘We will rock you’, the crowd flipped out totally. Of course the boys were using the two podiums at the sites a lot too. Something I did not know before was the moment, when Sir Christus went into the crowd to surf it.



The mood in the packed venue was brilliant; people were dancing, singing and clapping everywhere. Besides that, the band offered a brilliant light show with glistening bright colourful lights. The band was in a very good mood, laughing a lot, and so was the audience. You cannot say the show was bad… a pure Rock’n’Roll show. It was just a bit too un-spontaneous for my taste, seen too often.

Setlist
01. Intro
02. Misery
03. Swans
04. My my - Hey hey
05. Frozen
06. Misty Morning
07. Glory of shame
08. Secret Forgiveness
09. A song for the broken Hearted
10. One last shot
11. Planet of the Sun
12. Moment
13. Fading Yourself
14. Until You're mine
---
15. Embracing Past
16. Naive
17. In my Heaven

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 6
Light: 9
Total: 7.9





All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)
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