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welle7Factory, Magdeburg, Germany
10th December 2011
Welle:Erdball

Arriving at the almost sold out Factory that night, it clearly showed the attention the band attracted: good music, new designs and of course a great live show. However, this time the band surprised even the biggest fans with a new kind of concert…

The German Electro Pop band in uniforms with a strong affinity to Fifties´ aesthetics and its C64 (that is regarded as the fifth band member and responsible for the minimalist sound) was formed as HONIGMOND in 1990 and renamed to WELLE:ERDBALL in 1993. The debut album ‘Frontalaufprall’ was delivered in 1993, followed up by all in all eight long-players including some special editions. The release of ‘Der Sinn des Lebens’ (1998) made WELLE:ERDBALL become popular in Sweden and Denmark too. In 2006, the radio station broadcasted the album `Chaos Total´ and recently the movie ‘Operation: Zeitsturm’ was released on DVD. WELLE:ERDBALL is Honey (lyrics, vocals), A.L.F. (music, programming), Fräulein Venus (percussions, vocals) and Plastique (percussions, vocals). Currently, they are touring with the album ‘Der Kalte Krieg’. http://www.welle-erdball.info / http://www.myspace.com/funkbereit / https://www.facebook.com/WelleErdball

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Music & Performance
It wasn't the first time for me to see WELLE:ERBALL live and in person but since their show has always been such a big thing, I was still excited before the lights went out to show the beginning of this night's show. Before we entered the Factory, however, the guys at the door gave us a little sheet of paper which had a bunch of WELLE:ERDBALL songs on it. After being confused for a second, we soon solved the riddle: the fans were supposed to mark their favourite songs in order for the band to play them afterwards. On stage was a small voting box where the sheets could be handed in. After some confusion about the realization regarding this concert of wishes, the band started a little late with the first part of the show which included mostly songs from their current album ‘Der Kalte Krieg’ (the cold war). Both, Plastique and Fräulein Venus, were dressed really nicely, each of them representing either the old USSR or the USA. They wore matching dresses and little rockets on the sides of the stage showed their nationality.

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The band started out with a little James Bond scene including the typical 007 music. Plastique and Fräulein Venus stood behind big walls made out of plastic. Those walls were hollow and so, the band was able to blow some smoke between the two layers which gave a nice effect, contributed by some lighting. The first part of the concert showed a lot of the new songs but also some oldies like ‘Starfighter F-104G’. The last song of the first part then was a cover of Nicole's ‘Ein bisschen Frieden’, WELLE:ERDBALL style of course - quite fun to watch and listen to. Shortly before the break the band reminded the audience of the voting sheets and then went into a little break in order to count the voting on the different songs. Soon, they were back on stage, Plastique and Fräulein Venus wearing something else of course, and announced that the audience in Magdeburg had such a good taste that a lot of older songs made it into the list. This was followed by Honey's fear he wasn't able to remember all the lyrics - and so it happened: he forgot the words during a song.

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However, this wasn't really a big deal because the audience helped him out during the songs. After listening to some really good WELLE:ERDBALL songs like ‘Schweben, Fliegen, Fallen’ und ‘Ich bin aus Plastik’ we unfortunately had to leave the show early. I am sure the rest of the show was such as good as the first parts of it. WELLE:ERDBALL: great show, great music and great idea about the wishing list. This shows that life sometimes really is a “Wunschkonzert” (request concert).

Setlist (first part of the concert)
01. Welle: Erdball (Intro)
02. James Bond Theme
03. Deutsche Liebe (C=64)
04. Feuerwerk
05. Eine neue Zeit
06. Amerika
07. Kabinett
08. If you want to sing out…
09. Vor all den Jahren
10. Starfighter F-104G
11. Der Kalte Krieg
12. Hab ich Dir heute schon gesagt, dass ich Dich liebe?
13. Ein bisschen Frieden (Nicole cover)

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 8
Light: 7.5
Total: 9 / 10

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All pictures by Anne Kuhfuß


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