Live-Music-Hall, Cologne, Germany3rd April 2006
Staind and Mad Doggin´
I arrived quite early at the venue but still there was a very long queue waiting outside the Live-Music-Hall - the first sign for the sold-out venue. And that it would be sold out was expected – after lots of trouble and rumours that the formerly for autumn scheduled tour might be cancelled totally not it was finally time for the band to visit Cologne even though the concert previously was scheduled for 16th March and was postponed to April.
Mad Doggin´
The Metal band from Hamburg/Germany was founded in 2001 and recorded their first demo with help from Björn Düßler (4LYN). In autumn 2003 the band recorded their first studio album ‘F.O.A.D.’ (Fuck Off And Die) and just points out its position against the restraints in the music landscape. The recent album ‘Isle of View’ is the third release in the short history of the band which consists of Ben – Vocals, Ning – Guitar, Flow – Bass and Jarek – Drums. In the past they supported bands like ‘Soulfly’ and ‘Stuck Mojo’ as well as they were on their own headliner tours. Their videos are played even in music television. http://www.maddoggin.de/
Music
‘Mad Doggin’ – Germany’s biggest Metal-hope – are presenting a rollercoaster ride through the complete Metal genre. But mainly their style is straight, clean, plain, rhythmic, hammering with a safe voice and brought to the audience very coherent what not many bands in that genre are able to manage – simply said pure old-school Metal. But they also present sensitive rock ballads as well as the evil Metal-smasher ‘Lord of Darkness’. Without doubt the band shows how real Metal has to be. And as it fits to that kind of music the sound was loud – but not in a bad way.
Performance
The band entered the stage overly punctual short before eight and started right away in typical Metal manner – growling, grunting, screaming and moshing – that’s how it has to be. The show was underlined by evil red light bringing out Ben’s tattoos and evil look how it has to be. The band obviously enjoyed being on stage and Ben said how nice it is to play in front of a sold-out venue – even though the audience still was a bit restrained. In-between the hard metal stuff there was room for a slightly softer song – especially for the women. The band did not even shrink away from the good old eighties presenting a cover version of ‘Sunglasses at night’ underlined with grunts and shaken hair. Final and highlight of the show was the typical Metal song ‘Lord of Darkness’ which finally brought the audience to wake up and clap and scream with the band.
Rating
Music 8
Performance 8
Sound 7
Light 6
Total 8 (7.6)
Staind
The US-band ‘Staind’ consists of Aaron Lewis (vocals, acoustic guitar), Mike Mushok (guitar), Johnny “Old School” April (bass, backing vocals) and Jon Wysocki (drums). The band started its career back in 1995 with some live shows. Later in 1996 they released the self-produced album ‘Tormented’ from which they were able to sell 4000 units. In October 1997 they played a concert together with ‘Limp Bizkit’ and Fred Durst signed the band on his label Flip Records where they released their first real album ‘Dysfunction’ in 1999 which leads them to the break-through. ‘Staind’ sold more than one million units of this album. The album ‘Break the Cycle’ followed in 2001 and is often called their best one. Within only two weeks the band sold more than two million copies of that album. After ‘14 Shaded of Grey’ in 2003 they released the current album ‘Chapter V’ in 2005 and now they are finally presenting the new songs love on stage. http://www.staind.com/
Music
After a short break ‘Staind’ started their program in time at nine with well down tuned guitars and the edgy dark ‘Falling’ from their current album. The focus of the set was on the recent album ‘Chapter V’ and on ‘Break the Cycle’, but also some sings from the previous albums have been played, i.e. ‘Break’ from the very first album of the band – ‘Tormented’. The varied set showed how wide the musical bandwidth of the band is – songs between melancholy and with nice harmonies alternated with heavy guitars. Also the acoustic sounds that accompanied Aaron’s voice had its place. Out of the recent album, ‘Staind’ mainly could impress with songs like ‘Paper Jesus’. One of the emotional highlights might have been ‘Epiphany’ for which singer Lewis only played his acoustic guitar. The encore was opened with the mid-tempo sing ‘Right here’ – also from the new album – and then went on with two older songs for the finish. The overall sound was melancholic, dark and full with self-pity.
Performance
When looking at the stage it was somehow impressive what was built up there: a drum-podium in the middle with lots ob speakers besides. And right and left of it all more than ten guitars at each side. And they all were used during the set. The venue was filled up now until the very back – but the audience still was a bit restrained at the beginning… very typical for that city. The good musical impression that was presented on stage was a bit clouded by the reserved appearance of the band. Front man Aaron needed until the fifth song to finally say some words to the audience: “This song is out of our first record”. While all band members were quite cool on stage at least Mike was a bit more vivid. The light show was as reserved as the band itself – I had expected something more advanced of a band like this. There was nearly no light from the front so that people could not really see the facial expressions of the band members. There was some more light from the back though which gave some nice effect combined with the smoke on stage. After about 90 minutes the set was over and most of the people were satisfied anyway by the show.
Setlist
01. Falling (CHAPTER V)
02. Crawl (DYSFUNCTION)
03. So Far away (14 SHADES OF GREY)
04. Paper Jesus (CHAPTER V)
05. Break (TORMENTED)
06. Fade (BREAK THE CYCLE)
07. Blown Away (14 SHADES OF GREY)
08. Epiphany (BREAK THE CYCLE)
09. Intro (14 SHADES OF GREY)
10. King of all Excuses (CHAPTER V)
11. Everything changes (CHAPTER V)
12. For you (BREAK THE CYCLE)
13. Reply (CHAPTER V)
14. Open your Eyes (BREAK THE CYCLE)
15. Outside (BREAK THE CYCLE)
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16. Right here (CHAPTER V)
17. It's Been A While (BREAK THE CYCLE)
18. Mudshovel (DYSFUNKTION)
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