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Kulturfabrik, Krefeld, Germany
23rd September 2006
Phillip Boa & the Voodooclub and Collie Electric

PHILLIP BOA is one of the very view Indie rock stars bred in Germany in the 80s. Pop and Avantgarde are the both poles of his work. Ingratiating melodies, impelling sounds and the voice of Pia Lund are the characteristics of BOA’s VOODOOCLUB. Three of his most important album now have been reworked and re-released. BOA himself took control over the re-mastering process of ‘Copperfield’, ‘Hair’ and ‘Hispanola’. Those albums impressed even the UK music press in the 80s and during the re-mastering, BOA rediscovered forgotten outtakes and unreleased songs. Today’s show was something special. It only consisted of those three albums where the presented songs were brought on stage in a new dress.


Collie Electric

The local band COLLIE ELECTRIC from Krefeld are three guys (called three dogs) making pure music with only guitar, bass, drums and of course vocals. If you search the net for the band you may not find very much about the new project of Markus Maria Jansen who celebrated some success with his band JANSEN before. There’s only a myspace-site with no information at all. As we were told at the concert, this was the very first stage appearance of the band. They also have not released a CD yet, but you could buy a limited edition at the show. There are also some songs for download on their myspace-site. http://www.myspace.com/collieelectric  



Music
What the three guys bring on stage is very pure music without effects – only created by guitar, bass and drums. During the set, some faster songs alternated with ballads. The fist song ‘Wishing well’ reminded me a lot of the sound of TITO & TARANTULA. Especially the singer was very much into the stuff he was doing. Remarkable is the perfect use of the instruments. One brought out very strange sounds from the guitar – striking for example during the last song ‘Heaven’ when the guitar sounded weeping and sawing at the same time. At the end of the ballad ‘Final Crap’ a strange looking harmonica-like instrument was used for some special tunes too. The sound during the whole set was quite clear and with the right loudness - nearly perfect for the show.



Performance
The three dogs entered the stage looking a bit like a school band – singer and bass player in grey suits with long pants and the drummer in a similar suite… but with shorts. All wore ties and the singer came with dark sun glasses for the extra portion of coolness. Nevertheless he took it of later during the show. While bassist and drummer were not too vivid on stage especially singer Jansen was very ecstatic and extroverted – he moved a lot on the limited space he got and even jumped around with his guitar like a youngster. Even though it was the very first gig of COLLIE ELECTRIC you felt the routine the band had due to other projects. It was like they’ve always been on stage. As for the light show, the stage was lit quite well with mostly white and yellow light – but there were not too many variations in it what made it a bit monotonous over the time.



Setlist
01. Wishing well
02. Elysian
03. Silent Day
04. My Flower
05. Final Crap
06. Poison
07. Sleeping on a Wire
08. Heaven

Rating
Music 7
Performance 7
Sound 8
Light 6
Total 7




Phillip Boa & the Voodooclub

For long years, BOA and his VOODOOCLUB was the only internationally accepted act out off German independent scene besides the EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN. Just his first release ‘Philister’ had drawn attention of international music press. Catchy melodies, snottily-drifting sounds and the unmistakable voice of Pia Lund very fast became the trademarks of his music. Influenced by the British Punk movement end of the 70s, 1963 born artist BOA very soon rose up the ladder of success. Beginning of the 90s, BOA moved together with wife Pia Lund to Malta, put the VODOOCLUB to rest and turned on harder sounds with his project VOODOOCULT. When BOA and Pia Lund split up there seemed to be no gong on for the VOODOOCLUB. He released the album ‘Lord Garbage’ without his band but later on the VOODOOCLUB arose again. Pia released some solo albums and after some years she started to work with BOA again and some more albums were released. Finally on 1st September 2006 the albums ‘Copperfield’, ‘Hair’ and ‘Hispanola’ were re-released and are now presented on stage. PHILLIP BOA & THE VOODOOCLUB are Phillip Boa (vocals, guitars), Pia Lund (vocals), David Rebel (guitars), Maik T. (bass), Toett (keys, voodoodrums) and Moses Pellberg (drums). http://www.phillipboa.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/phillipboaandthevoodooclub



Music
Just after reading the announcements it was very clear that this tour should become something special. The setlist consisted only of songs out of the three re-released albums, whereof the most successful from each album was played as encore. The band influenced by British Punk and New Wave oscillate stylistically between Pop and Avantgarde. Continuous attribute are catchy melodic refrains broken by mood changes or alienated. The high and clear chant of Pia Lund is fronted by the throaty voice of Phillip Boa. The first third of the set was reserved for the album ‘Copperfield’ whereof seven songs were played. Just the first song ‘Laugh, Planet’ started with heavy drums. The microphone was a bit too low, but soon it became better and the sound during the whole show was very good. After ‘Copperfield’, BOA turned to the album ‘Hair’ which he acknowledged with nine songs. ‘Albert is a headbanger’ and ‘Fine art in Silver’ were probably those two songs out off that album which became the most applause during the show.



The last third of the main set was reserved for the album ‘Hispanola’ which was credited by seven songs as well. The songs mainly were marked by the sound of guitars and bass – for some songs the electric guitar was even changed for an acoustic one – but also the keyboard was used for several songs. Sometimes, the keys were played by Toett, but at time Pia also took over the keyboard part. Also the drums were very intense during several songs. They especially hit you when usual drums as well as the “voodoodrums” were played. So you got the double effect of the beats. Highlight for most of the fans were surely the encores with the big hits out off the three releases: ‘Kill your Ideals’, ‘Container Love’ and ‘This is Michael’. Those songs were accompanied by heavy clapping and loud singing. No one in the audience seemed to get enough from the band. But some when every concert has to end…



Performance
Knowing PHILLIP BOA it will always be a surprise how a concert would be like and how the mastermind would behave. He was and is entitled as the ‘Likeable Asshole’ by the press and sometimes he used to behave like this on stage cursing at his audience or destroying the cassettes of his interviewers. But on the Saturday night in Krefeld he seemed to be in a very good mood as all the band was too. BOA and Pia entered the stage very elegantly dressed – he in a dark suit with a scarf and she in the dark flowered dress with black boots. The rest of the band looked more like rock stars though. Phillip started the show with the announcement that this would be no normal concert but something very special just to play songs out of three albums. I had the impression that all the fans attending the show liked to be part of that concept. That this was something special was also shown by the fact that Phillip had a big folder on stage containing the setlist, the lyrics to all presented songs and lots of notes too. While Pia did not say any word towards the audience during the evening, Phillip spoke a lot and announced nearly every song – mostly by a little story explaining the song. Some of those stories were a bit funny or ironic.



Especially Phillip was into every song with his body and soul, moving ecstatically or playing air guitar. Always he was pushing up the audience with gestures. Phillip’s good mood was shown in different ways – he was kneeling in front of the photographers smiling into the cameras, writing autographs during the show or doing hand shakes with the audience. When one of the fans gave him a glass of beer he drank, smiled and clinked the glass with him. Especially the faster and harder songs were celebrated by the audience and welcomed with excessive dancing, jumping and pogo. Loud singing accompanied the better known songs. The light show during most parts of the set was quite dark with a dark blue and red and slightly used smoke. For some songs bright white lights were turned on and flooded the stage with lightness. When the band left the stage after ‘de-generators’ there were accompanied with loud applause and screams and very soon they came back for three more songs which turned the venue into a boiling pot where all people sang and jumped around. Deeply move by so much support the band left the stage after more than two hours and released a very satisfied audience into the party night.



Setlist
from the album ‘Copperfield’:
01. Laugh, Planet
02. Hyena
03. Crash, Crack
04. Lunatics over Brighton
05. Andy W.
06. Scotland Yard
07. Revolution, Bebe!
from the album ‘Hair’:
08. Hurray
09. You sent all my letters
10. Primitive man
11. Tragic Mastery of Stockhausen
12. Happy spider
13. Morlocks in England
14. Albert is a headbanger
15. Fine art in silver
16. I wanna be a Hoover
from the album ‘Hispanola’
17. I don’t need your summer
18. The day I lost my sleep
19. Love-Hate-Crap!
20. They paint the silence
21. Don’t kill me slaughter
22. Ernest statue
23. De-generators
Encores:
24. Kill you ideals (‘Copperfield’)
25. Container Love (‘Hair’)
26. This is Michael (‘Hispanola’)

Rating
Music 9
Performance 9
Sound 8
Light 7
Total 9 (8.6)





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