Hafenklang, Hamburg, Germany4th March 2020
Molchat Doma - Tour 2020 - Support: Thiavv
Over the past weeks before the show in Hamburg it was fascinating to see how the Post-Punk band from Minsk, the capital of Belarus, was adding one sold-out show after another to their tour statistics. Also a whole lot of venue upgrades followed. The concert in Hamburg was sold-out weeks before which was extremely surprising and great to see.
Thiavv
THIAVV are a newly founded Punk Rock & Post Punk band from Hamburg. THIAVV are Julian Humankapital (guitar), Tier (drums) and Pablo Langeweile (vocals, bass). These three guys have formed previously to ¾ the Punk Rock band PLASTIC PROPAGANDA (active from 2012 to 2017). Julian is also active as drummer in CAVITY/SEARCH and Tier played until just recently in the Oi Street Punk band called VIOLENT INSTINCT and is still active as drummer for HEADÄCHE. THIAVV themselves just finished studio recording sessions in December and January and plan to release their debut in mid of the year. https://www.facebook.com/thiavvband
Music & Performance
When I arrived at Hafenklang, I didn’t even know if there would be any support band on this evening. A friend asked someone from the crew and got the answer that a local band would open tonight. Still no idea what to expect, we just let the things happen. And it turned actually great. The trio from Hamburg got more and more into the mood as the audience at the same time started celebrating them and dancing all the way. I was actually really impressed by the enthusiastic crowd. Also loved the lights, something I also do not usually expect to be in a small underground venue like Hafenklang. At some point Pablo, the vocalist, told that it was their very first live gig as THIAVV. Of course, they all have lots of experience playing in other bands, but presenting very new songs to an audience that doesn’t know you at all for the first time in this quality is such an inspiration and means a lot of fun actually.
The charisma and the songs themselves were strong and made everyone dance, no matter if it was a song with vocals or an instrumental. It was also great to see how their social media channels that were created like a day before the show, were growing on the likes and followers immediately afterwards. Keep an eye on the release in summer, and dear event organizers, don’t hesitate to book them, you won’t regret!
Setlist
01. Intro (Instrumental)
02. In The Open
03. Run (Instrumental)
04. Down With It All
05. Borrowed Face
06. Outro (Instrumental)
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Light: 8
Sound: 7
Total: 8 / 10
Molchat Doma
For many of you there is no reason to introduce MOLCHAT DOMA, but I actually discovered them not too long ago and was curious as they are from Belarus, and I am originally from a small Russian town next to the border with Belarus, so this country is more familiar to me than, let’s say Siberia, as it’s so far away from where I spent my childhood. MOLCHAT DOME are Egor Shkutko (vocals, in Russian), Roman Komogortsev (guitar, synths & drum machine) & Pavel Kozlov (bass & synths). The band was founded just three years ago and is conquering literally the world music scene with their Post Punk, Synth Pop and New Wave hymns in Russian. They have released two LPs - ‘From The Roofs Of Our Houses’ in 2017 and ‘Floors’ in 2018 via Detriti Records, Berlin. https://www.facebook.com/molchatdomaband
Music & Performance
I asked myself how I missed the hype around this band before seeing all these people literally freaking out from the first moment when the band came on stage. The air was thick and filled with the smell of cigarettes, it was getting hotter and the hype in the crowd was growing exponentially. And for me it felt so incredibly beautiful and weird to attend a show of an underground band, singing in Russian, that is sold-out and so freaking awesome in my chosen hometown Hamburg. It felt like a kind of a parallel universe just opened up. The music itself is surrounded by the atmosphere of the songs that were written by a legendary Russian band KINO that was active in Soviet Russia between 1981 and 1991 and found its sudden end due to the tragic death of the front singer Wiktor Zoi.
KINO was about the feeling of the youth generation of the 80ies and early 90ies and they wrote the soundtrack of the teenage & rebellious years of more than one generation. And like NIRVANA are still listened here in Western Europe by 16-year-olds (I just talked to a girl like that myself), so is KINO a band that appears in the playlists of teenagers for decades ever and ever again. So there are some elements in the music of MOLCHAT DOMA that bring back that certain feeling that I had as a teenager listening to KINO. The bittersweet postmodern depression, the monotonous & at the same time emotionally touching way of singing, the hint of madness and the crowd going absolutely crazy. I loved to see so many really young people there dancing and taking part in pogo, having fun and singing “ya ne umeyu tancevat” (“I am not able to dance”), while actually dancing and living the massive feeling of rebellion.
After having a concert break due to private priorities this concert was the exact thing I needed to get back and celebrate the comeback. Still extremely impressed of that evening and far beyond. Emotionally touched and grounded, it felt so good to share the energy with the rest of the people that night. No matter it was a Wednesday and the next day was calling for going back to work - moments like this are the perfect getaway in the craziness of modern life. Egor, Roman and Pavel created an extraordinaire atmosphere just performing the way they did and it was a highlight for sure.
Setlist
01. Kommersanty
02. Toska
03. Lyudi nadoyeli
04. Kletka
05. Ya ne communist
06. Otveta net
07. Zvezdy
08. Tishina
09. Technologiya
10. Sudno
11. Volny
12. Ne smeshno
13. Doma molchat
14. Tancevat
15. Novostrojki
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Light: 8
Sound: 7
Total: 8.3 / 10
Pictures by Nastja Iz
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