Elektrisch! Festival - Krefeld 2007

Kulturfabrik, Krefeld, Germany
27th January 2007
Elektrisch! Festival: Mechanical Cabaret, Purwien, X-perience, Mesh

On 9th February, MAJOR RECORDS and RE-FLEXION will release the interesting compilation ELEKTRISCH! 2. The release will include 28 tracks from various bands of the international electro scene. Involved are famous bands like Erasure, Camouflage, Client, Mesh and more. Collateral to the upcoming release a club tour took place with X-PERIENCE, MESH, MECHANICAL CABARET and PURWIEN. During this ELEKTRISCH CLUB TOUR on 27th January we went to KREFELD - the last gig on this tour because the primary last gig in HANNOVER has been cancelled by the local presenter. The fans in DRESDEN were also disappointed due the bad weather - a lot of snow blocked the streets and the band had a tight schedule, so unfortunately the show in DRESDEN had to be cancelled as well. The evening in Krefeld should be a special event, because Mesh wanted to record their performance for a Live DVD.


Mechanical Cabaret

Last year they have supported MESH already and now they were back again with them for the Elektrisch! Festivals. MECHANICAL CABARET are coming from London and it’s the musical project of Roi Robertson. Everything began in the year 2000 when Roi recorded his first demo CD which was called ‘Malevolent Maladies’. For the live performance he was supported by Tobi Chandler at the synthesizer. They played at that time many concerts in and around London. The band was completed by Bruce Lovelock, a friend of Roi, who is from Shrewsbury. In spring of 2006, their recent album ‘Product for your Insecurity’ was released and they got the offer to support MESH on their European tour. So MESH fans who started loving MECHANICAL CABARET’s music were very pleased to see them again. The place still looked empty, but Roi said later there should have been 350 already from the start. http://www.mechanicalcabaret.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/mechcab 



Music
With MECHANICAL CABARET you find many of the great and big names of the electro music together in one. Roi’s voice reminds of MARC ALMOND and the sound has a little bit of everything - DEPECHE MODE, FAD GADGET, NEW ORDER, PSYCHE and so on. They started the set with ‘Disbehave’ and there was no other way to start dancing. We got three songs out off their recent album, two older ones and they surprised with a cover version of the DEPECHE MODE classic ‘A Question of time’. Everyone seemed to enjoy it very much and the crowd was singing along.


Singer Roi is the main actor on stage, while Bruce and Tobi are more concentrated on their synths. Roi loves the contact to the crowd, so during their second song he was jumping off the stage and started to cuddle people in the first row and was singing face to face, what he repeated later. The audience was reserved at the beginning, but it was getting better with each song and Roi is someone who is infectious. Though this time he was quiet somehow, I’ve seen him already posing much more and taking off some of his clothes much sooner. When they started DEPECHE MODE’s ‘A Question of time’, Roi said for this song he is Dave, Tobi is Martin and Bruce is Fletch. The set was too short, but Roi said they will come back to Germany this year so there is another chance to see them. I hope the come again for club concerts and not for festival gigs, though it would be great when much more people will get to know them.



Setlist
01. Disbehave
02. Cheap and Nasty
03. Nothing in Life that’s worth having will not be taken away
04. See her Smile
05. A Question of Time
06. When we go, we go together

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 8
Total 8.3






Purwien

Christian Purwien - the singer and mastermind of PURWIEN is recently still better known as the singer of SECOND DECAY, his former band which was founded in 1987. With SECOND DECAY he released seven albums and did a lot of concerts. The greatest and most famous hit of SECOND DECAY was and still is ‘I hate Berlin’, I think you know it. In 2006 Christian Purwien went on with his new band called PURWIEN, consisting of himself (vocals), Steffen Neuhaus (keyboard) and Themaxx (drums, e-drums). The first album is called ‘Eins’ and consist amongst others the track ‘Alle Fehler’ which was sung together with JOACHIM WITT. http://www.purwien.net/



Music
The setlist consisted of ten songs; about 50% were older SECOND DECAY songs. Besides that, some new songs were taken from the upcoming album ‘Eins’. The intro was a spoken lyric, after it the band entered the stage and Christian introduced himself. The show began with two SECOND DECAY songs, followed by some new tracks. Christian himself characterizes his music as "modern young dance music"; I think it's a style of German popular music, highly sentimental ballads with simple, catchy melody or light, pleasant, throwaway pop tunes, easy to listen to but not really challenging and the most songs sound alike. PURWIEN’s show benefited from the old SECOND DECAY hits like ‘Kaltes Weisses Licht’ or ‘I hate Berlin’, but in my opinion it's not really an advancement of SECOND DECAY.



Performance
The performance was funny but sometimes a little bit absurd. Christian performed his songs barefoot and during the show he removed his jacket and later the shirt too. Between the songs he did some jokes. The lightshow was formidable and in the background nice video projections were placed.



Setlist
01. Intro (spoken)
02. Lauf der Zeit
03. Für immer
04. Bei Dir
05. Vielleicht ist es so
06. Raum 12
07. Alle Fehler
08. Kaltes weisses Licht
09. I hate Berlin
10. I'm leaving

Rating
Music 6
Performance 8
Light 9
Sound 9
Total 7.5






X-perience

Founded in 1996, X-PERIENCE released their first single ‘Circles of Love’ on their own label and made cooperation with Warner Music Germany after having some hot play lists at radio FRITZ in Berlin, Germany. The first release was a success in Germany. The second single ‘A neverending Dream’ became a smash hit all across Europe and entered the charts at peak-position 1 (Germany 4 - gold award), the first album ‘Magic Fields’ was one of the most-selling albums of 1996 in Finland and reached gold- and platinum award there. 2nd and 3rd album followed in 1997 and 2000. Now the new album ‘Lost in Paradise’ is in stores and the current single ‘Return to Paradise’ was released on October 27, 2006. X-PERIENCE are Claudia Uhle (vocal), Matthias Uhle (Keyboard) and Alex Kaiser (Keyboard, Bass). On stage they were supported by a guitar player Sebastian. http://www.x-perience.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/xperiencemusic



Music
The music of X-PERIENCE is a kind of melodic pop with simple lyrics, nice to listen to but not very diversified; the outstanding part of X-PERIENCE is the nice soulful and melodic voice of Claudia. The setlist included a lot of new songs taken from the current album ‘Lost in Paradise’ inclusive the yet unreleased song ‘Fireworks’ which will be a b-side of the upcoming single release. Additional they played some older songs and hits like ‘A neverending Dream’ or ‘Circles of Love’. Another highlight was the nice acoustic version of ‘Personal Heaven’ which was written by Midge Ure (ULTRAVOX). Sadly the sound mixing was suboptimal in my opinion.



Performance
Eye-catcher on stage was the pretty female singer Claudia with her red hair, primary clothed by a white pelt-jacket which she removed later. She performed the songs very charming and soulful with a nearly bashful and fragile charisma. The rest of the band mostly was hidden in the fog because the light mostly was focused on Claudia in the center of the stage. During the song ‘Personal Heaven’ Claudia was supported only by Sebastian with an acoustic guitar.



Setlist
01 Intro
02 I Feel Safe
03 A Neverending Dream
04 Return To paradise
05 Fireworks
06 Circles of Love
07 Personal Heaven (Acoustic)
08 Million Miles
09 Poison Kiss
10 I Feel Like You
11 Magic Fields

Rating
Music 7
Performance 8
Light 7
Sound 6
Total 7.2






Mesh

Do we still have to introduce this band? MESH were founded by Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn in 1991. Third original member Neil Tylor decided to leave the band last year. Like already in December 2006, keyboard player and singer Geoff Pinckney of ALIEN 6 and THE NINE was joining MESH for the Elektrisch! Festivals, as well as Gary Howe on drums.  Both seem to be steady members on stage in the meantime. http://www.mesh.co.uk/ / http://www.myspace.com/meshwecollide / http://www.mesh-fanclub.de/