FRANNZ Club, Berlin, Germany16th July 2026
Culture Wars
Some concerts demand an immediate reaction. Others reveal what they have left behind only with a little distance. Almost a month has passed since CULTURE WARS played Berlin, and in between there has been a flight back to Mumbai, an abrupt return to everyday life, weekend duties and the familiar phenomenon of an ever-growing list of things that were supposed to have been done yesterday. Only now, with the first opportunity to work through some of those unfinished stories and catch my breath, is there finally time to look back.
That distance is not a disadvantage. My weeks in Germany had been packed with concerts, festivals, familiar faces and more live music than I could reasonably process before boarding my flight back to India. A month later, individual evenings inevitably begin to blur at the edges. The ones that still return to mind without being summoned are therefore usually the ones worth writing about. CULTURE WARS are one of them.
Their Berlin show on 16th July was the final concert before my journey back to what is currently home, and at first glance it might have seemed an almost understated ending to several rather eventful weeks. No enormous arena, no elaborate spectacle and none of the weight of decades of musical history. Instead, there was a band from Texas, a Berlin club and an audience that had apparently discovered them faster than anticipated. In retrospect, that contrast may be precisely why the evening has stayed with me.
Originally scheduled for the considerably smaller Mikropol, the concert had to be moved to FRANNZ Club due to demand. By the time CULTURE WARS arrived in Berlin, their European adventure therefore already seemed to be developing a momentum of its own.
Calling CULTURE WARS a new band would not quite tell the story. Calling them an established one would miss what currently makes them so interesting. Formed in Austin, Texas, in 2017 and now based in Los Angeles, Alex Dugan, Caleb Contreras, Josh Stirm, Dillon Randolph and David Grayson have spent the better part of a decade developing their sound, playing shows and gradually expanding their reach. Their 2021 EP ‘teche’ provided an important step along the way, while support slots with considerably bigger acts gave them experience on larger stages long before they had a full-length record of their own.
Yet 2026 feels distinctly like the beginning of a new chapter. Released in April, ‘Don’t Speak’ is remarkably their first full-length album, despite all those preceding years of development. Their current European run consequently finds CULTURE WARS in an intriguing position: experienced enough not to behave like newcomers on stage, yet still encountering audiences and places that are new territory for them. Ahead of the tour, the band themselves spoke about the prospect of visiting cities most of them had never even seen before. Berlin seemed to capture that exact moment.
Music & Performance
From the opening minutes, there was little uncertainty about whether CULTURE WARS knew how to command a stage. Dugan naturally occupied its centre, but without turning the musicians surrounding him into background decoration. Instead, one of the strongest impressions of the evening was how much this felt like a band in the traditional sense of the word. Every member brought a distinct presence, yet nobody appeared interested in competing for attention. Smiles, glances and spontaneous interactions repeatedly travelled across the stage, creating an impression of five musicians who genuinely enjoy playing together.
That chemistry is central to the band’s current musical direction as well. For ‘Don’t Speak’, CULTURE WARS deliberately stripped the writing process back to its foundations, initially building songs around little more than voice and guitar or piano before expanding them into full arrangements. The result is music that can move freely between Alternative Rock, Pop immediacy, atmospheric synth textures and considerably grittier guitars without losing sight of the song underneath. Live, that approach made considerable sense.
The guitars were allowed to bite harder than their polished production might initially suggest, while the rhythm section gave the songs considerably more physical weight. At the same time, the melodic accessibility remained intact. CULTURE WARS know how to write a chorus, but the Berlin performance demonstrated that there is considerably more underneath those hooks than an attempt to manufacture an anthem. Dugan proved an engaging frontman precisely because very little about his interaction with the audience felt manufactured either.
Particularly memorable was his reaction to the turnout. There was genuine surprise and gratitude in the way he addressed the crowd, and considering the trajectory of the Berlin date, that response made sense. What had begun as a show intended for a much smaller venue had grown into a night at FRANNZ Club. Those moments gave the concert an unusual sense of immediacy. Here was a band clearly accustomed to performing - one that had already learned from sharing stages with far larger artists - but still capable of looking out into a European audience and appearing genuinely affected by the fact that all these people had come specifically for them.
The set itself provided an almost complete portrait of where CULTURE WARS currently stand. Rather than constructing the evening around a handful of singles, the band played ‘Don’t Speak’ in its entirety, albeit in a rearranged running order, allowing both its immediate hooks and more atmospheric moments room to breathe. Songs such as ‘Wasting My Time’ and ‘Heaven’ demonstrated the two sides particularly well: one driven by infectious momentum, the other providing space for a more vulnerable quality to emerge. There is also a nice circularity hidden within the album itself.
‘Lies’, which closed both Don’t Speak and the Berlin evening, reaches back much further into CULTURE WARS’ history than the album’s 2026 release date might suggest. Rather than presenting a sudden reinvention, the record feels more like the point at which years of experimenting, touring and developing have finally converged into something coherent. That made the performance particularly interesting to watch. There was no need to distinguish between some hypothetical “old” and “new” CULTURE WARS.
What stood on stage at FRANNZ was simply the current result of that development - polished where necessary, rough around the edges where it mattered and, above all, remarkably comfortable in its own identity. Just as memorable as the band, however, was the atmosphere in the room. There was an unusual warmth among the audience throughout the evening. People looked after one another, shared smiles with strangers and celebrated the music without the pushing, competitiveness or unnecessary aggression that can occasionally make tightly packed club concerts rather less enjoyable than they should be.
That feeling travelled in both directions. The audience clearly fed off the band’s enthusiasm, while CULTURE WARS seemed increasingly energised by the response coming back at them. It is a simple dynamic when it works, but impossible to manufacture when it does not. Technically, there was little to distract from it. The sound remained balanced and powerful without sacrificing individual instruments, while the lighting suited the dimensions of FRANNZ Club rather than attempting to transform an intimate concert into an arena production. The relative simplicity worked in the band’s favour. This was a show built around musicians, songs and the connection between the two sides of the stage.
Almost a month later, back in Mumbai and firmly returned to everyday life, that impression has not faded. If anything, the distance has made the appeal of the evening easier to understand. Among weeks filled with concerts, festivals, familiar artists and considerably larger productions, this relatively intimate club show is one of those evenings that continues to surface in my memory.
Perhaps that is because there is something uniquely rewarding about encountering a band at precisely this point. CULTURE WARS are not newcomers learning how to perform. They have spent years doing exactly that. But neither does it feel as though the story has already been written. With their first album finally released and new audiences now finding them far beyond Texas, they seem to be standing somewhere between the long build-up and whatever comes next. Berlin offered a rather convincing glimpse of what that “next” might look like.
Should CULTURE WARS return on their next European run to considerably larger rooms, it would hardly be surprising. Those who filled FRANNZ Club, however, will be able to remember the point when the room was still small enough for every smile, every glance and every reaction to travel directly between stage and audience. Sometimes it takes a little distance to recognise the concerts that stay with you. This was one of them.
Setlist
01. Bittersweet
02. Wasting My Time
03. Heaven
04. Slowly
05. In The Morning
06. Miley
07. It Hurts
08. (Tokyo)
09. Hell or High Water
10. cortisol, it’s not always what’s in your head
11. Don’t Speak
12. Typical Ways
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13. Lies
All Pictures by Dagmar Urlbauer
