Last updated 08.07.08
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Undoubtedly the Wave Gothic Treffen in Leipzig is much more than just a international music festival. It's real gathering of different people and different bands from around the world common in their love to dark culture in its huge variety. Streets full of dark dressed goths, extreme coloured punks, camouflage EBM lovers and other people who lives that extraordinary way. That's Leipzig city during May 9-12th, 2008 - 17th Wave Gothic Treffen (WGT).
Day 1 - Friday May 9th, 2008 |
First step at the WGT festival is to take your wristbands and passes at Agra fair ground. It's always impressing that organisers give the right to use public transportation for all WGT visitors absolutely free. Keep in mind, WGT takes place in the whole city of Leipzig at more than 25 venues! So wristbands works perfectly to allow people take their tram or bus to any city destination they ever need.
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At noon we've got our press-passes and after short dinner went to Cinestar. Cinestar is nice movie theater located on the upper floors of a shoping mall in the center of Leipzig. If you would like to see your favorite artists, get some autographs and and even take some photos with them, go ahead to this pleasant place! Just check schedule and find right time to catch them here. We started our photo reports from autograph-session of cool guys from 32 Crash. As always, Jean-Luc de Meyer (legendary Front 242 frontman) was amazing, and other guys were very welcome and nice too ;)
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Then we moved by tram to Werk II, simple dark hall with huge iron doors located at Connewitz Kreuz, to see 32 Crash live. This venue seems always to be overcrowded, and we always wonder why ;)
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While we waited for 32 Crash, we saw live appearance of Solar Fake, electronic/EBM project of Sven Friedrich (best known with his bands Dreadful Shadows and Zeraphine). Sven was on stage together with keyboard player, but main performer was the screen behind him ;) Audience was extremely treated with back screen projection, for several songs words appeared on the screen as Sven sang them. Sven has a great voice and he sang almost all Solar Fake debut album. There was a lot of fog on the stage, but thanks to organisers we could use flash and shot something for you ;)
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32 Crash show was so rush so the band could fit 17 (!) songs into their impressive set. Three guys appeared on stage in their black pilot costumes and black sun glasses.
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Most of 32 Crash songs are rhythmical and danceable, but some are slow and hypnotic. Vocals differ from calm and quiet to distorted and angry. Perfect electronic mixture get very positive reception from public.
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Next day we started with autograph session again, it's absolutely lovely thing here to do during festival. Der Graf from Unheilig was at his best, smiling a lot, talking and posing for photo possibly with every fan came to see him ;) Absolutely great moment was when Der Graf met his most young fan ever ;)
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After a little break we continue our photo reports from Cinestar. It was time for Hocico, and really huge crowd came to see their Mexican electro idols.
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Guys were nice and definitely much more gentle than their harsch music ;)
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After more than a hour Hocico finally left the house, and Santa Hates You came to check how much devoted fans they have. Strange but that amount was not so impressive as Hocico or Unheilig had just few hours before. Possibly the reason was people still wonder who they (Santa Hates You) are.. but under this name are great man Peter Spilles (cult frontman of Project Pitchfork) and his beautiful female band mate.
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We tried our best to make their time not too boring, and hope it was OK ;) Then came few fans and autographs started.
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So mission was complete. Time to go Agra where we would like to see Hocico and Covenant, live. Agra is the old fairground of Leipzig at the border of the city. This is where you can find the camping area, the «Heidnische Dorf» (medieval village where you might camp as well in medieval style) during the festival, as well as many food stands. Indoors you can find the huge shopping area, bar, the main stage and a little hall where some parties and discos are held.
First band on were Hocico. In real I'm not big fan of such kind of music 'cos it rather annoying that I can't recognize what they are singing. So I was not really looking forward to seeing them, but beginning show that was on stage keep my breathe frozen.
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Need to say the Agra was very full, and the crowd are very excited about what is about to happen. As the music starts, we saw native Indian looking person in full tribal dress. Then two more Indians appear on stage dressed with huge elaborate head dresses made up from foxes heads plus huge amount of big feathers. First Indian started to bang his drum and the other two on opposite sides of the stage start a very elaborate Indian dance. I think the entire crowd were completely mesmerised by this performance. After several minutes the dance comes to end, and Erk Aicrag made their loud and hard rhythmical electro. The Agra is absolutely rammed, people are dancing everywhere during that great and powerful performance.
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Swedish guys Covenant started their show with intro track «20Hz». It was beautiful and very electro romantic show, with great lights and screens. Eskil and Joakim spreaded their energy to the crowd, and it's for sure infected it.
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Beside their all times classics like «Bullet» and «Call The Ships To Port» they performed new song «Come». New member Daniel (Houjobb) enriched the live performance with additional live drums and some cool samples.
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After a little walk across the town we came again to Cinestar where Welle:Erdball were doing their autograph session. It was the very first time we ever saw this band, and it was very pleasant to found them very friendly and very positive.
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Later there was a time to meet our old Bristol friends - Mesh. Guys were in good mood, Mark weared funny hat, Rick often smile and posing for photos with fans.
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It was nice to make a photo with all the band which I never do since their first visit to Moscow. We always think about friends like these! ;)
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As always quick dinner and we were forwarding to Kohlrabizirkus, where we would like to see 4 bands. Kohlrabizirkus are two cupola halls, events are usually held in the North Hall.
First band OneTwo entered the stage as a quartet, beside Claudia and Paul there were two support musicians, on keyboard and guitar. They performed such tracks as «The Theory of Everything», «Signal» or «Cloud Nine», plus some OMD's («Messages») and Propaganda's («Dr. Mabuse» and «P-Machinery») classic.
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Welle:Erdball started their show from the great fake. At the start of the show some people who looked like Welle:Erdball were on stage, but there were only their twinnings, the real Welle:Erdball members were carried to the stage like mannequins during the first song which was very suitable Kraftwerk's cover «Roboter».
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As usually, the band use oil barrel as a drum and C64 computer (it's made a big pleasure for crowd!)
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Next band on stage were Swedish synthpop legends S.P.O.C.K which as we could understand never played in Germany for a long time (comparing to Moscow ;) and they were very welcomed here for comeback.
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Their retro space performance was really funny. Old hits like «Astrogirl» or «Never Trust A Klingon» quickly made crowd crazy, made them singing and dancing. Little Swedish flags appeared around the venue. Android did some jokes and at the start of «All E.T.'s Aren't Nice» he shot the crowd with a big water gun.
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After Swedish spacemen it's time to meet our Earth-based heros Mesh. Beside Rich and Mark on stage there were already known drummer and guitarist.
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Like usually, Mesh did powerful and very dynamic performance, with great light. The setlist consisting of 13 songs include most of tracks from the 2006' album «We Collide» («Crash», «Petrified» or «My Hands Are Tied») plus some classics («Little Missile», «Friends Like These»).
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We started final WGT day with meeting our big friends Die Krupps. They did their autographs, but found some time for us too, and we talked with Juergen possible about everything in the world ;)
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It was very symbolic that our last WGT2008 concert was Die Krupps' show. They are really best in concert power and energy. Kohlrabizirkus this time was under their absolute control. Metal machine music of hard electronic beats, heavy metal guitars and voice of singer Juergen Engler.
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Concert made everybody satisfied with mix of classic hits like «To The Hilt», «Germaniac» and «Fatherland» with some new songs like «5 Millionen» and «Der Amboss».
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It was our second WGT, and as always we had a great time! This WGT has its own highlights as prior one, some great bands and surprises. We wanna say BIG THANK YOU to the organisers for these fantastic days at the festival. So we are looking forward to WGT2009, and invite everybody join us there too! See you in Leipzig in May 2009!
[ © 2008 shout! - all right reserved. All photos by alex davie .]
