Live Review: Christmas Ball - Cologne 2010

Written by Sebastian Huhn Tuesday, 11 January 2011 12:44

Theater am Tanzbrunnen, Cologne, Germany
27th December 2010
Christmas Ball 2010: Fields of the Nephilim, Project Pitchfork, Laibach, Agonoize, Faderhead

Well, after Christmas the biggest problem for many is how to get away the unnecessary weight added during the holidays with all the delicious stuff on the table. The Christmas Ball right after the weekend offered a perfect opportunity to do just that with the help of a couple of top-class acts. But first the mission was to get there at all over icy streets which we luckily succeeded doing and following a few complications with finding the entrance we could escape the cold and get into the warmth of the theatre to spend the time we had until the first band of the evening would enter the stage.

Faderhead

After FADERHEAD from Hamburg / Germany was making music for about 17 years; he finally released his debut album ‘FH1’ on the Accession Records label in 2006. His musical influences are spread widely - OASIS, MARILYN MANSON, ICE CUBE, SLAYER, THE PRODIGY, PET SHOP BOYS and many others - over different genres. According to his own statements, he did not grow up influenced by the typical electronic bands (i.e. DEPECHE MODE or KRAFTWERK) and had very few electronic influences. He just likes “synthesizers and fat drumbeats”. The second album ‘FH2’ was released in April 2007. After FADERHEAD and his former record company Accession Records parted ways, it wasn’t so sure if a new FADERHEAD album would ever see the light of day (according to his own words). But with a new label (L-Tracks) the new album, surprisingly titled ‘FH3’ was hitting store shelves on 10th October 2008. The EP ‘Horizon Born’, holding only ballads came out in October 2009 and in 2010, the next album ‘Black Fridayx’ came out. This time FADERHEAD live consisted of Sami (song writing, production, vocals, guitars), Marko Visconti of XP8 (synths, keys). http://www.faderhead.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/faderhead666



Music & Performance
7 PM, first act of the evening, low expectations regarding the audience count, especially on a Monday. FADERHEAD himself thought the same and was fairly surprised and excited to see how many people actually turned up. He feared already he would have to play stuff on an acoustic guitar for a handful of people. I would have loved to see that by the way. But this count of people called for a club-based approach and the melodic ‘Electrosluts Extraordinaire’ underpinned that firmly. While the main man was doing his thing at the front, drinking Vodka, occasionally spilling some into the audience, Marko Visconti of XP8 did the synth job and did it pretty well. The most recent album ‘Black Friday’ would be extensively supported throughout the set. From “the first ballad of the album” ‘Escape From The Machine’ over ‘Baby Firefly’ and ‘The Way To Fuck God’ to the hammer ‘Destroy Improve Rebuild’ you got all you could ask for with lots of tunes of the other albums in-between, and the audience requited with good mood, contributing to making it a perfect start.

Setlist
01. Electrosluts Extraordinaire
02. Acquire The Fire
03. ZigZag Machinery
04. Escape From The Machine
05. Dirtygrrrls Dirtybois
06. Baby Firefly
07. The Way To Fuck God
08. Houston
09. Destroy Improve Rebuild
10. TZDV

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 7.4 / 10




Agonoize

The Hellectro genre has spawned many ascendants. In Germany, one of the most prominent ones is AGONOIZE who’re first appearing on the radar in 2004 with the debut album release ‘Assimilation: Chapter One’ with a couple EPs following shortly thereafter to bridge the distance between the first and the second album ‘999’ emerging in September 2005. Their next album ‘Sieben’ (Seven) was released in November 2007. A new EP ‘For the Sick and Disturbed’ followed on Halloween 2008 and in 2009; the limited single ‘Bis das Blut gefriert’ forecast the release of the newest AGONOIZE album ‘Hexakosioihexekontahexa’ in autumn 2009. AGONOIZE is Chris L (lyrics, vocals), Mike Johnson (synths) and Oliver Senger (synths). http://www.agonoize.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/agonoize



Music & Performance
If there ever will be a cabinet of musical curiosities; I bet AGONOIZE will be part of it. I said it once and I’m saying it again this time. The crowd had gotten thicker by now and when the show really took off with ‘A Cut Inside My Soul’, you could spot the first at least nodding people around here and a lot of eyes fixed on Chris, performing the song in a straitjacket. From the very beginning I was anticipating a thing very typical for an AGONOIZE show and I didn’t have to wait long until it happened to ‘Bis das Blut gefriert’ where Chris left the stage to get a knife and cut his wrist to spread the “artificial” blood all over the people and even my head was catching a drop. That would be happening one more time with him cutting his throat. The crown of nastiness however goes to the rubber dildo sperm cannon during ‘Koprolalie’, the set closer. In-between, AGONOIZE  delivered the full package of an high-octane performance with anything from danceable to extremely danceable, which was highly appreciated since the crowd was heated up by FADERHEAD and totally up for it at the time

Setlist
01. A Cut Inside My Soul
02. Schaufensterpuppenarsch
03. Bis das Blut gefriert
04. Alarmstufe Rot
05. Death Murder Kill
06. Staatsfeind
07. BängBäng Goodbye
08. Femme Fatale
09. Koprolalie

Rating
Music: 5
Performance: 6
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 5.9 / 10




Laibach

From the very beginning of the Slovenian collective LAIBACH in June 1980, there was controversy; controversy revolving around their use of uniforms and totalitarian-style aesthetics and they were also accused of being members of the neo-nationalism movement. Confronted with those they just said "We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter". The first album release was named ‘ŠKUC Ropot’ came out in April 1985 on a native label in Ljubljana followed by ‘Rekapitulacija 1980-1984’ on a Hamburg-based label. LAIBACH’s musical work, however, isn’t exclusively limited to writing and producing normal. For instance in 1987, they’ve been invited by Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg to contribute the score to Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, released on CD in 1990 or a re-interpretations of Bach’s ‘Kunst der Fuge’ many years later in 2006, which was also the year of ‘Volk’, an album seeing LAIBACH interpreting various national anthems. For the album, the band collaborates with SILENCE from Ljubljana. Their latest release came out with ‘Laibachkunstderfuge’ in 2008. http://www.laibach.nsk.si/ / http://www.myspace.com/laibach



Music & Performance
There is a fundamental difference between the previous band and LAIBACH, which is them actually having a message; they aim to really express something other than merely provoking with splatter effects and stuff. The stage setup remained the same as when I saw them last and even before the lights were turned off it was Milan Fras’ droning, deep voice, sounding pervasively through the room on start of ‘Boji’, one of LAIBACH’s earlier works in updated sonic fashion; a statement as impressive as anything, putting to the table the demanding dimension of this performance. The larger-than-life video projections had their fair share in stretching your ability to focus to the limit. But it’s more enjoyable than other things. Three more early works filled the next minutes fully before the ‘Volk’ block started with ‘America’ with the introduction breathtakingly sung by the dark-haired lady who would continue to impress us over the duration of the performance. ‘Anglia’ and ‘Türkiye’ would be the other two national anthems, re-modelled so they would combine the idealism of national anthems with some realism.



Another hymn, one self-created, was to follow with ‘Tanz mit Laibach’. Milan, otherwise keeping a rather low-profile during a performance encouraged the audience here. It only riled them up even more. Just as previously witnessed, ‘Das Spiel ist aus’ marked the end of their performance. All the band members were bowing down once in front of the audience before leaving the stage for good, accompanied by the applause and encore shouts of an excited audience.

Setlist
01. Boji
02. Krvava Gruda - Plodna Zemlja
03. Ti, ki izzivaš
04. Država
05. America
06. Anglia
07. Türkiye
08. Tanz mit Laibach
09. Alle gegen Alle
10. Du bist Unser
11. Hell: Symmetry
12. Das Spiel ist aus

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 8.7 / 10




Project Pitchfork

PROJECT PITCHFORK is one of the spearheads in the alternative electronic music, initially consisting only of Peter Spilles and Dirk Scheuber. Later Jürgen Jansen and live members Achim Färber and Carsten Klatte joined the line-up. The formation wasn’t just known for critically-acclaimed albums, successful tours and appearances on every conceivable festival but also for some prominent support acts like RAMMSTEIN or COVENANT. After some very successful years at the beginning of this millennium, the popularity decreased with the more introverted albums ‘Inferno’ and ‘Kaskade’ but nothing has changed in East Germany and in Russia, where a tribute to Pitchfork sampler has been created in 2005. In 2009 they eventually came back with a new full-length, titled ‘Dream, Tiresias!’, just to let follow the next one, ‘Continuum Ride’, a year later. http://www.pitchfork.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/projectpitchfork



Music & Performance
I’ve seen PROJECT PITCHFORK quite a few times in the past already, but I can say this one really offered some surprises, and here I’m not talking about songs from the new album ‘Continuum Ride’. But first things first, and the literally first thing was an intro, segueing into ‘Conjure’ that through the rather rocking live rework came with a violent brute force. The start of a performance that inarguably brought an alteration of roles in the game! The main protagonist still was Peter Spilles whose presence could’ve filled the stage alone - if it weren’t for Carsten Klatte who’s literally exploding on stage and not just once upstaged Spilles. I admit that it was more than a surprise seeing him act like that, but it was a fantastic thing to watch him going with the flow of the music and the chemistry matched, really. ‘Timekiller’ very early had the audience going from zero to hero before with ‘En Garde’ something from the new album followed and ‘Souls’ dived way back into the past.



While the overall scenery, that is, the light show was quite a dark matter there was one little detail that lend it some plus points. Laser beams creating some sort of force fields created a visual feast and at times it looked like being liquid with the drifts of smoke captured therein. After the final chapter ‘Existence’, the calls for an encore were that much convincing, the band came back for the rocketing ‘Rescue’.

Setlist
01. Conjure
02. Endless Infinity
03. Timekiller
04. En Garde
05. Souls
06. Beholder
07. Human Crossing
08. Carnival
09. Continuum
10. The Longing
11. Fire & Ice
12. Existence
---
13. Rescue

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.9 / 10




Fields of the Nephilim

This name is bound to the traditional Gothic Rock and by many people from the press as well as from the fans this band is praised as a legend. The FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM have been founded by Carl McCoy in 1984; the original line-up consisted of vocalist Carl McCoy, saxophonist Gary Whisker, Tony Pettitt on bass, guitarist Paul Wright and drummer Andrew "Nod" Wright. Subsequent to the release of the first EP ‘Burning the Fields’ the first line-up change took place and Whisker was replaced by Peter Yates; already in 1986 they switched record companies to release the debut ‘Dawnrazor’. The following ‘Blue Water’ was the first FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM single to reach the UK charts. The year 1990 brought the release of the second album ‘Elizium’ and in 1991 Carl McCoy left the band after paying the rest of the band's members for the rights to the NEFILIM name and the remaining members formed other projects. Eventually in 2005, a new album was released by the title of ‘Mourning Sun’. http://www.fields-of-the-nephilim.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/fieldsofthenephilim



Music & Performance
So the hour of the main act had struck now and contrary to my assumption there would be mostly older and a lot less people remaining after PROJECT PITCHFORK proved completely wrong. The place was packed with people of various ages when the ethereal choirs announced the opening of the show with ‘Shroud’ and the musicians entering the stage one by one. Carl McCoy, however, remained invisible until close to the take-off of ‘Straight Into The Light’. With not too much fog used this time, the musicians actually could be seen. But apparently that wasn’t half as important as what was delivered musically. Only a micro-chord of the mentioned song was enough to have the overall mood going off the scale. While that one and the following ‘Preacher Man’ were particularly upbeat manifestos to head band along to, the following ‘The Watchmen’ emphasized the emotional face of the band, while still maintaining a rocky flavour, and the ever impressing vocals of the front man could come to full advantage.



The rockier vibe was completely lost for the following down tempo ‘Love Under Will’. All these tracks being as spectacular as they were presented, there were few songs that get an audience at their show all crazy. One particular of those was ‘Moonchild’ and upon starting and the fans recognizing it was hailed as nothing was hailed before. If a band like that ever plays, it is safe to assume there will be an encore after the regular set is over and the “Fields” came back for two songs, wrapping up the festival in a breath-taking way, afterwards releasing the audience into the night to travel home or what else they maybe were up to.

Setlist
01. Shroud
02. Straight to the Light
03. Preacher Man
04. The Watchman
05. Love Under Will
06. Endemoniada
07. From the Fire
08. Moonchild
09. For Her Light
10. Sumerland (What Dreams May Come)
11. Psychonaut
---
12. Chord of Souls
13. Mourning Sun

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 7
Sound: 9
Light: 8
Total: 8.3 / 10



All pictures by Marcus Nathofer