15th Wave Gotik Treffen - Part 5

Bands in order of appearance:

The House Of Usher
Bloodflowerz
Dope Stars Inc
The Last Dance
Eisheilig
The Breath Of Life
Painbastard
Killing Miranda
Legendary Pink Dots

Parkbühne and Moritzbastei, Leipzig
Monday June 5 2006

Because the Wave Gotik Treffen takes place in a variety of venues, large and small, scattered around the city of Leipzig, it's not always easy to tap into what you might call the traditional festival vibe. The one place where the WGT touches base with what I dare say Glastonbury attendees would recognise as the familiar festival atmosphere is at the Parkbühne, an open-air stage hidden amongst the trees in the mysteriously named Clara Zetkin Park.

It's actually a purpose-built performance space, which for the WGT is tricked out with a big PA and all the paraphernalia of rock music, and, always assuming the weather's good, it's a relaxed place to absorb a few bands. Well, the weather today is good, so let's get on with some absorbtion.

I recall catching a set by The House Of Usher at a previous WGT: they played, I remember, competent but unexceptional gothic rock, which pressed all the right generic buttons without ever really hitting the button marked 'cool unique stuff'. They do the same here, trundling through a set of workmanlike rock-noir numbers which sound pretty much as you'd expect, but don't really have anything sufficiently special about them to make me pay more than token attention.

It's left to the following band, Bloodflowerz, to kick the proceedings into gear. Again, I've seen them before at the WGT, way back in 2003, curiously enough at this very same location. Not much has changed from then to now, although the band has undergone a few line-up changes. But the sound - punchy, commercial metal - is still in full effect, and the band's vocalist, a good-humoured but feisty rock chick in big boots, still carries the show with huge aplomb.

She single handedly lifts the band out of what would otherwise be the also-ran zone, for if it wasn't for her big personality (and, indeed, big boots) at the front of the whole caboodle, it must be said that Bloodflowerz would be a distinctly less cool proposition - no more than a bunch of hoary old rock guys just doin' their thing. But, once their engaging and sparky singer is added to the mix, the band become something worth watching. If I were a record company, I'd be inclined to take her aside and start talking about solo deals...

Dope Stars Inc. have the biggest grins in rock 'n' roll. A kind of pop-metal boy band, they seem to be aiming for a rampaging rock monster image, but their clean-cut good looks and obvious delight at being on stage makes them seem disarmingly like the boys next door.

They bounce through a set of techno-metal, their big guitar sound underpinned by whumping beats. The singer smiles with the glory of it all, and everybody on stage rocks out like they're having a party.

It occurs to me that Dope Stars Inc. are the quintessential festival band: they have the ability to get out there and have fun, and everyone, dour-faced goths and diehard metalheads alike, end up being swept along. I doubt very much if I'm ever going to buy a Dope Stars Inc. album, but strictly for the duration of their WGT set, I'm a fan.

If The Last Dance seem like they're taking it all in their stride, that's because they probably are. As with many acts at the WGT, this must count as a bigger gig than usual for the band, but The Last Dance are seasoned tour troupers and they're not about to be put off their stroke just because everything's suddenly been scaled up. They throw out their greatest hits with the amiable ease of a band that knows its moves backwards and forwards, and their songs hit just the right note of accessible, danceable rock.

In their way, the Last Dance are just as much a great festival band as Dope Stars Inc. But for all their professional ease, they're not afraid to rock the boat when they reckon it's necessary. Taking time out between songs to encourage us all to buy merchandise, vocalist Jeff takes it upon himself to reveal a little of the inner workings of the WGT.

'I don't know if you know this, but a lot of the bands which play the Treffen don't get paid,' he says. 'And even the ones that do get paid - well, they don't get paid so much. So please, go over to the stall and buy some CDs, a T-shirt - anything. Because it all helps!'

I'm sure all that is true enough, but I can't help wondering if it was entirely tactful to raise money issues live on stage. If The Last Dance don't play the WGT again, we'll know that Jeff burned his boats at that moment!

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Now the bill takes a decisive step towards the metal zone, for Eisheilig are nothing if not a metal band. While they may have a certain bias towards melodrama which, I suppose, gets them under the goth wire, in all essential respects they do metal, pure and simple. What's more, they do it with all the legs-apart, head shakin' moves that I thought went out with Saxon, if not Spinal Tap.

This amounts to a curiously traditional take on a musical genre which, these days, is often mashed up with other influences - but Eisheilig strike me as unreconstructed metal traditionalists, and their music seems curiously old fashioned as a result.

If the band had a time machine, they could appear at any rock festival from about 1972 onwards, and I'm sure they'd fit right in. Me, I'm about to get right out, for there are some more bands appearing today over at the Morizbastei which I've resolved to give the once-over. So, let's head for the exit and a short stroll across town...
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It's a surprise to find The Breath Of Life opening things up at the Moritzbastei today. This is a band with fifteen years' history, to its credit; a lengthy track record of touring and recording, and a loyal following, too, which ensures that the venue is rammed with eager fans right from the start. Personally, I'd be distinctly unimpressed if I were a band with that kind of profile, only to find that I'd been fobbed off with an early start at a festival.

Fortunately, the opening slot doesn't seem to bother The Breath of Life, who effortlessly create their trademark swirl of sound with such unruffled confidence you'd think they were holding down the headline.

I've always said that the way The Breath Of Life are often categorised as an ethereal band does them an injustice, for their sound is much more insistent and abrasive than that. The guitar sound shimmers like light on stainless steel, over rhythms as implacable, and yet as delicate, as carved stone. Violin and keyboards weave their way in and out. It's rock music for sure, but with a nice balance between delicacy and power that marks the band out as unique in a world of humdrum pablums.

It's Isabelle Dekeyser, on vocals, who really nails the band's identity. Swaying in her own strange amplitude, as empyreal as if she's half way to another planet, her vocals flying to the arched roof of this underground chamber, she's the focal point and the minister of The Breath of life's magic. It might only be opening time, but we've already hit some sort of climax.

But of course, there's more, and here comes our next band. I know nothing about them, but sometimes, the name tells you all you need to know. Painbastard deliver - well, what d'you think? If you guessed at a loud and belligerent shouty-crackers industrial stompathon, you'd be right.

A fierce bloke in army fatigues hollers fearsomely at the audience, while the beat hammers vastly behind him. It's effective enough for a few songs, but after a while the band's bug-eyed belligerence - every song a declaration of war - begins to pall. They don't do anything else.

Once you've got your head around the shout-and-stomp thing, which, frankly, doesn't take long, for it's not the most sophisticated of musical concepts, Painbastard don't have anything else to offer. Stomp, shout. Shout, stomp. Is it over yet?

By now the crowd has grown even bigger, to the point where the crush of bodies at the front is almost alarming. I find myself clocking the fire exits, just in case: one is across the stage, effectively bloked by a bank of keyboards, the other - back out in the foyer - is blocked by a merchandise stand. Bizarrely, in obey-the-rules Germany, fire regulations seem to be a distinctly elastic concept.

But at least the large crowd can be taken as a good sign by the bands. It shows that they're making an impact, and for a UK outfit like Killing Miranda, I'm sure it's good to see this evidence that they're making headway on the German scene, given that this is exactly the thing that many UK bands like to claim just can't be done.

Killing Miranda might have the reputation and the take-no-prisoners sound of a spiky rock combo, but on stage they're not afraid to inject a little wit and humour into their show. Frontman Rikky adopts a quizzical demeanour between the songs, surveying the crowd with a raised eyebrow, casting ironic asides into the crush - and then, as the band cranks up, suddenly he's an in-yer-face rock frontman, a madcap cross between Jaz Coleman and Robert Plant.

Killing Miranda's live show is a highly effective demonstration of a punchy rock band giving it the max, and if truth be told it's quite an eye-opener to see how far they've come since their old-skool origins on the UK goth scene. Maybe they're cutting loose a bit more, too, knowing they're away from home, away from those old UK scene preconceptions, but whatever the band's approach, it works.

For me, the best moment in the set - and a neat demonstration of how Killing Miranda always keep control - comes when a geezer in the crowd shouts out some complaints about the WGT. Apparently a show or two ran late, and he missed his favourite bands, or something. Rikky holds out the mic to let him have a rant, but, realising it could all get a bit unnecessary, he sudenly whisks it away again, and defuses the situation with a joke: 'You're through to the Killing Miranda call centre. And I've just put you on hold!'
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Everyone, it seems, has crushed in to catch the Legendary Pink Dots. I'm sandwiched between some unreconstructed prog heads, gazing about with an air of erudition, and some boisterous deathrock girls, who are fresh from the horror punk show across town, where they've just seen The Other. Now they're awaiting the Dots with equal anticipation. There's a comment I could make there about the sublime and the ridiculous, but I will curtail my smart-arse tendencies on this occasion.

Suddenly, they're on: a collection of slightly mad scientists, with Doctor Who on vocals. The Legendary Pink Dots are the worlds unlikeliest rock band, that's for sure. But then, they're not really a rock band at all: more like a surrealist musical project designed to compliment the stream-of-altered-conciousness poetry of Edward Ka-Spel. And somehow, by the force of some strange magnetism, this unlikely crew with their off-kilter music have the audience in their grip right from the start.

Leaning forward, as if he's got a vital message for all creation, Edward Ka-Spel fixes the crowd with a disconcerting stare from behind his shades, and proceeds to lead us up the garden path. No, I mean, he leads us on a crazed journey through his enchanted verbal forest of tall tales and instant myths, anecdotes and allegories, fairy tales and science fiction double features.

At times, he almost performs songs. It's at once baffling and compelling, and a tribute to the astute artifice of the band that this stuff - which would surely leave less ingenious performers floundering - holds the audience rapt and wide-eyed throughout.

Then it's party piece time: the saxophone player, a mischievous figure in a beatnik suit, goes walkabout in the crowd, with only his sax and a spotlight for company. And as if to reinforce the impression that the Legendary Pink Dots occupy their own plane, the crowd, densely packed though it is, miraculously melts away before him and allows him to pass - a Moses moment, if you will. I couldn't begin to tell you what the Legendary Pink Dots' songs are about, or what, if anything, their show means, but it feels like some strange force of magic has reached down a finger and given the Moritzbastei a prod tonight.

And that, give or take a few hours of all-night clubbing (because the finale party goes on long after the bands finish), was the 15th Wave Gotik Treffen, the latest in this ever-lengthening line of festivals that always manages to throw up a few moments of sheer alchemy among the crazy mish-mash of goth 'n' roll, folk 'n' techno, industrial, metal and all points in between. And all served up in an entire city's worth of theatres, night clubs, cellar bars, and, erm, big tin sheds. If this is the crossroads of everything - and frankly, it's hard to argue that it is not - then I'm happy to lie down in the midst of the traffic.

Back to the Wave Gotik Treffen - part four