Zeche Carl, Essen, Germany
30th of October 2006
Deathstars and Stoneman
We arrived at Zeche Carl quite early, to do an interview before the concert started. Much to our surprise people had already started to queue up at the entrance doors, so we thought it would be quite packed by the time the first band started. As a live experience both bands were an unwritten page for me, so I was excited to be enriched by their performances that evening.
Stoneman
Stoneman are from Switzerland and are getting bigger everyday through word of mouth and gaining new fans trough live performances. They started out in 2004, but have already managed more than 100 shows. Right now they are tagging along with Deathstars to promote their new album "sex.drugs.murder". Stoneman are: Mikki Chixx (Vocals), Rico H. (drums), Dave Snow (keyboards & programming) and Mr. Fly (guitars). It wasn't exactly packed by the time that Stoneman went on stage; I'd say that the venue was about filled to one third of the area. It maybe felt a bit less just in front of the stage, as parts of the crowd had spilled over up to the gallery. http://www.stonemanmusic.de / http://www.myspace.com/stonemanmusic 
Music
I had never heard of this band before, so everything was new to me. But they seemed pretty solid as musicians, playing some kind of dark metal. The dark part made quite obvious with song names like "I'm taking your life..." and "Atomic holocaust". Add some growling on more than a few of the songs and I think you get the picture. This is admittedly not really my cup of tea, but I must say that I found them a bit boring musically. Their cover of "Cocaine" didn't do anything for me either; in fact I generally tend to forgive covers only when made by bands that already are successful. Although in this case they hardly will be able to build a career on their cover. Perhaps it was thrown into the setlist to lighten things up a bit; "Cocaine" is after all such a happy-pill in comparison. But a bit of joking was at least woven into the act by the singer after they finished "Cocaine", by saying "the next song is called Heroin". It wasn't though; it was a song with German lyrics called "Schlaf mein Kind".
Performance
Starting from the left of the stage they had some keyboard stands which were covered with some black fabric and behind them the head of the keyboard player was just about all that was visible. Then the singer, just in front of a stack of Marshalls, which in turn was in front of the Deathstars drum set. To the right of him was the guitar player of the band and lastly the drummer. Unusual with the drummer in that position, but I guess you have to deal with the cards you get when being the support act. How Stoneman coped with this somewhat cramped setup is also partly what gave a bad impression performance wise. They were certainly moving on stage, which is of course good. But the third time the singer knocked over the mike stand in front of the Marshall, it clearly didn’t project professionalism. The singer and guitar player had some gags going on stage to liven things up, and the perhaps more sober guitar player patiently placed his mike back where it was supposed to be every time. Even though not much was visible of the keyboard player, his head was bobbing up and down and he was throwing his hair in all directions almost constantly. Despite all this stage activity, not much spilled over to the audience and they were staying mostly immobile. I saw a few nodding heads here and there, but that was about it. 
Setlist
01. Good bye and fuck you
02. Evil fly
03. Stoneman
04. I'm taking your life...
05. Protect me
06. Devil in a Gucci dress
07. Madman song
08. In my arms
09. Cocaine
10. Schlaf mein Kind
11. Atomic holocaust
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 6
Light: 6
Sound: 6
Total: 6.4
Deathstars
"Deathstars has an impressing history. They've been topping the TV-charts in Sweden and Germany, they've made Hollywood-themes, they've been banned from TV-stations and are among the best selling rock acts in Sweden.", as it says on their website - quite impressive. Their music is attracting fans of both industrial metal and gothic metal and the band is currently out at an extensive tour to promote their new album "Termination Bliss". New for this tour is the new band member "Cat" (guitars). The other members are: Andreas "Whiplasher Bernadotte" Bergh (vocals), Emil "Nightmare Industries" Nödtveidt (guitars and keyboards), Jonas "Skinny" Kangur (bass and backing vocals) and Ole "Bone W Machine" Öhman (drums). http://www.deathstars.net / http://www.myspace.com/deathstars 
Music
Deathstars will not be easily placed in some of the perhaps more obvious metal genres, neither is it gothic music. Maybe someone better equipped than me can classify it more precisely. But at least the singer agreed with me before the concert that a very good description is "dark music with guitars and a heavy sound". Sometimes it's better to keep it simple. The venue was still only about half full by now, but it was apparent that this act was what everyone was waiting for. It seemed "Last Ammunition" was a good start, since the band immediately gained response in the audience as the heavy sound of this song impacted on the crowds that had gathered this day. I confess that this may not be what I usually listen too, but at least one thing was quickly apparent to me, the sound mix was a lot better for the main act. I also would like to make one reference musically, especially on the new songs like "Tongues" and "Cyanide" there is something that somehow reminds me of The Birthday Massacre. But this is of course on a completely different level, darker, harder and deeper.
Performance
The band members appeared on stage in more or less the usual order, with Whiplasher last. The wall of sound, the additional lighting and the energy that fired up the first few songs really ignited the audience. I still wasn't totally familiar with all songs but it seemed like a well thought out ordering, with no real low periods. Of course much of that is contained within the music itself and is more or less given. But it is always nice to see a band that starts up with a lot of energy and continues the show the same way. By the time of "Synthetic Generation" it felt like the audience had geared up enough to be in sync with the energy of both that particular song and the band. Being a track from the previous album, named the same way, it came as no surprise to see people singing along to it. Seeing people still singing along to the song "Tongues" after that; however, can only be contributed to the good sales of the new album. For the most part, Skinny was standing to the left on stage, throwing his long dreadlock hair and looking very much like Marilyn Manson. Yes, I realize he must be really tired of reading and hearing that - but it's a good description nevertheless... 
Bone on the drums in the back and Whiplasher in front, usually flanked by Nightmare and Cat. These two guitar players did something that visually looked quite cool on several songs. Whenever they didn't have something to play the stopped dead in the back and then instantly sprung to life - reactivated - with a lot of energy as their parts of the song came along. All in all everyone was doing a great job and giving a lot on stage. Whiplasher tied not only the songs together, but also the act and the impression, with his short small talk between the songs. Sometimes with some twisted Swedish references and sometimes just a short line like "I like to play God sometimes", just before they actually played "Play God". The last song before the encore was introduced with the words "...this is how it all ends, it ends with cyanide". We all knew it wouldn't though ;)
Setlist
01. Last Ammunition
02. New Dead Nation
03. Trinity Fields
04. Motherzone
05. Synthetic Generation
06. Tongues
07. Blitzkrieg B00M
08. Greatest Fight on Earth
09. Virtue to Vice
10. Little Angel
11. Play God
12. Semi-Automatic
13. Cyanide
---
14. Damn Me
15. The Revolution Exodus
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Light: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 8
More pics on Black-Cat-Net
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