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DSC07254Bahnhof Pauli, Hamburg, Germany
11th January 2020
Aesthetic Perfection - “Into The Black” Tour 2020

AESTHETIC PERFECTION had to reschedule their Hamburg show from October 2019 due to health issues and so we finally got to see them again in January 2020, about 2.5 months later. While of course being sad about the cancellation on the one hand (with full understanding, health should always be priority), we actually just stretched the anticipation forward the show and got rewarded with an engaging sold-out gig at the atmospheric Bahnhof Pauli last Saturday night.


Aesthetic Perfection

AESTHETIC PERFECTION, founded in 2000, has had a huge influence on the Goth, Industrial and Electro Scene in the past two decades and always stood out with songs that everyone should know - ‘Spit It Out’, ‘Antibody’ or ‘All Beauty Destroyed’ as talking about “classics” or taking some of the highlights from the current album ‘Into The Black’ - ‘No Boys Allowed’, ‘Ebb And Flow’ or ‘Wickedness’ just to name a few. Right after making up for the shows from autumn, AESTHETIC PERFECTION will be on tour with LINDEMANN in Europe, followed by a tour with LORDS OF ACID in the US in March and April. In between you can also catch some headline shows, check the dates online: http://aesthetic-perfection.net / https://www.facebook.com/aestheticperfection

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Music & Performance
The weekends get busy in Hamburg and so that Saturday fans of awesome Electronic sounds were able to attend two shows on the same evening. So the AESTHETIC PERFECTION show to make up for the postponed gig from end of October was scheduled extra early. For me as I just arrived around 3 pm back in Hamburg from another show the day before, it turned out a little bit stressful, but actually this is an amazing time - imagine you can go to a concert on Saturday night and be in bed by 9 pm - dreams coming true for the over-30-year-olds. Or you just continue partying and head over to the next concert and stay there for the monthly Dark Scene party. But back to the concert here. The show started at seven and AESTHETIC PERFECTION entered the cosy stage of the sold-out venue with a whole lot of energy and enthusiasm to the gloomy intro ‘Welcome To Perfection’ from the current album ‘Into The Black’.

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The following song, ‘Gods & Gold’ as heavy as it is, made a well-fitting transition from the slow intro into the energetic explosion that took immediately over to the audience. The next song as one of the first songs that I got to know - sometime back in 2012 it was for me - ‘Inhuman’ is just everything you need: extraordinaire Industrial Pop with the sense for an engaging dance track and the aggressive vocals melting together with the playful music. And the evening went on like this with smashers as they are ‘Rhythm + Control’, ‘Wickedness’ or ‘Never Enough’. It is always a pleasure to watch Daniel, Joe and Elliott perform on stage; Daniel is the perfect charismatic frontman as you just could wish for and knows very well how to handle the audience, watching Elliott play all the different instruments as he does on stage with Aesthetic Perfection, sometimes it also seems like he is not into gravity at all - impressive (I might watch it dozens of times, the Theremin is still magic to me) and Joe who is just the first drummer on this planet who really impressed me the way he did and does.

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He is also probably the reason I actually got into Industrial some many years ago after seeing him on stage. Even with me being not into the genre like a decade ago, I could not ignore that the live performance and energy is unique and from there just got into it. The time went by incredibly quickly und suddenly they performed the spookiness and craziness breathing ‘The Dark Half’ and left the stage. Gladly, it was just a break, the crowd was on fire and demanded for more. And the clock just showed 8 pm. A few moments later they were back and Daniel thanked everyone for coming and sent out a few more words to the crowd. The first song played at the encore is also one of my favourites - the fragile and intense ‘All Beauty Destroyed’. No words can describe how much this mixture of vulnerability and fragility in Daniel’s voice, the piano melody and the increasing intensity that is sneaking up slowly towards the emotional outbreak make me shiver - internally and externally.

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Breaking the growing intensity of the last song, ‘Love Like Lies’ is the groovy, still very intense, but a lot more extroverted song to me that shows another facet of AESTHETIC PERFECTION. And so here we are, the last one was about to happen and bring the crowd one last time to go crazy, ‘Spit It Out’ as the “classic” it is did not disappoint. Elliott joined the crowd for some moments while playing and so the band and the audience just melted together into the energetic, emotional and partying mass that it was. After the show I could see a whole lot of happy faces and sparkling eyes that told me that the people here just had a wonderful show.

Setlist
01. Welcome To Perfection
02. Gods & Gold
03. Inhuman
04. Antibody
05. Rhythm + Control
06. Wickedness
07. Never Enough
08. Dark Ages
09. Filthy Design
10. The Siren
11. If I Die
12. The New Black
13. The Dark Half
14. All Beauty Destroyed
15. Love Like Lies
16. Spit It Out

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Light: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 9.3 / 10

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All pictures by Nastja Iz

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