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Saint, Oberhausen, Germany
4th November 2007
Rotersand & Autoaggression

It was the first headliner tour ever for the guys of ROTERSAND. The closing concert of this tour led them to Oberhausen and the guys were a little bit nervous to play in the club they often visited themselves. They were supported by the one-man project AUTOAGGRESSION, also from the Dependent label.


Autoaggression

AUTOAGGRESSION is the project of Lukas Schneider. The name of the project is a medical term and means, that a person does harm to him / herself on purpose. The project has released two albums so far. The first one which is called 'Geräuschinformatik' released in 2005 immediately climbed up to the 4th Rang of the German alterative charts and even got the title “Newcomer of the Month” from the Zillo magazine in 2005. The second album 'Artefacts' was released in February 2007. The name refers to the fact that many of the sounds used on the album are based on artefacts. The term “Artefact” is also a description for an object that was artificially created by humans. AUTOAGGRESSION is Lukas Schneider (production, arrangements, vocals). http://www.autoaggression.net/ / http://www.myspace.com/autoaggression



Music
“Purely electronic and complex” is a good description for the music of AUTOAGGRESSION I guess. The songs of AUTOAGGRESSION are ranging from slower tracks that have an ambient-like atmosphere to harsh club tracks with very diverse arrangements. Lukas presented a good mixture of his two albums on stage and even included the previously unreleased track 'White Dust' and the hidden track out of the most recent album 'Artefacts'.

Performance
The Performance consisted mostly of Lukas standing on stage behind a table with synths and a MacBook operating those synths and doing vocals on some songs, but this is contingent to the fact that most songs are instrumental or the vocals are done by Lukas himself, so there's no need to a big performance.



For the song 'Shallow Things' he invited Nives Garasevic on the stage who also did the vocals for this track on the album 'Artefacts'. It was very dark during the whole performance, just some spotlights bathing the stage in red and blue light. The audience was very restrained and kept some distance to the stage. Most people were just watching the performance even though it was possible to dance to the tracks. Maybe the people just wanted to listen to the tracks because of their rather complex structure.

Setlist
01. RNG (hidden track from 'Artefacts')
02. Reflector
03. White Dust (unreleased)
04. 3.14
05. The Sky is not yours
06. Blau
07. Shallow Things (new live version)

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 6
Sound: 8
Light: 5
Total: 7




Rotersand

Now it was time for the main act of this evening. ROTERSAND released their first EP 'Merging Oceans' in 2003. The EP immediately entered the German alternative charts and also became a big club hit. The debut album 'Truth is fanatic' was released in the same year and expanded the bands position even more. In October 2004, they switched over to Dependent Records and the new album 'Welcome to Goodbye' was released in June 2005 preceded by the single 'Exterminate, Annihilate, Destroy' and followed by the Remix EP 'Dare to Live: Perspectives on Welcome to Goodbye' in 2006. The most recent album is called '1023'. It is named after the hotel room in which the guys lived during their last year's USA tour in Detroit. Both, the album and the preceding DJ-Single 'Lost' climbed up to the top positions of the German Alternative Charts. ROTERSAND are Rasc (vocals, guitar), Gun (keyboard, guitar) and Krischan (turntables). http://www.rotersand.net / http://www.myspace.com/rotersand



Music
ROTERSAND presented their mixture of electronic music with organic elements like harsh or acoustic guitars on stage. ROTERSAND have meanwhile a rather big portfolio to choose from so they not only played songs from their new album '1023' like 'Lost' which was also released as a club promo to DJs and became big floor filler; same at the concert. The crowd danced and sang the lyrics together with Rasc. They also presented several other songs out of the album like 'I Cry' or 'Rushing' but there was also time for a ballad which was 'One Level Down' where Rasc put on his guitar and said “Don't be afraid, this is an acoustic guitar”. The chant was mostly presented by Rasc, but during 'Dare to live' Krischan joined Rasc on stage to spur on the crowd and even sing together with Rasc.



Performance
The first thing you saw, when you looked on the stage was... almost nothing. The fog was so thick, you could hardly recognize if there was anyone on stage or not, but suddenly you could see two rays of light cutting through the fog and moving around with the first tunes. Abrupt they turned around and revealed Rasc who was holding those two spotlights in his hands. Fortunately the lights were lit up so you were finally able to see what was going on on stage which Krischan and Gun had already entered. Krischan behind this huge construction with the synths and turntables on it on the left and Gun was on the right side behind the keyboard, but changed his position several times to play the guitar.



One could easily see that Rasc had fun on stage and his fun rubbed off the crowd, well at least to the first few rows that were dancing and singing and clapping their hands. Rasc even took the opportunity to step down from the stage and taking a bath in the crowd and simultaneously encouraged them to dance more. The mood got better and better the further the concert went on. When Rasc announces 'Almost Violent' he asked a woman in the crowd if she would know the song. She said “No” what caused the audience to laugh and even Rasc had a grin on his face but said “Then we have to change that”.



When 'Undone' was started, the guys surprised us with a wonderful piano intro played by Gun accompanied by Rasc's voice, what brought them a big applause and Rasc asked “Do you wanna hear the rest of the song?” The audience responded with a big “Yeah”. This was unfortunately the end of the set and the concert was over.... No, I'm just kidding. As the band left the stage, the crowd stridently demanded an encore, because they didn't want to let them get away so cheap.



After a while Rasc's voice sounded from the speakers asking “Are you still glad to be here?” The answer was more than clear and the band entered the stage again and Rasc disappeared again into the crowd. After the concert was over, the band was also at the merchandising stand to sign everything “preferential on bare skin” like Rasc said. All in all, this was a great concert with an awesome mood within the audience as well as at the band, who often thanked the audience.



Setlist
01. Rushing
02. Electronic World Transmission
03. Last Ship
04. Almost Violent
05. I don't know
06. One Level Down
07. I cry
08. Lost
09. Almost Wasted
10. Undone
---
11. Dare to live
12. Exterminate, Annihilate, Destroy
---
13. Merging Oceans

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 8.7



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