15-10-2009 Into The Darkness Festival

Venue: Batschkapp, Frankfurt (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

Into Darkness is a festival tour of four bands: Dope Stars Inc., Lacrimas Profundere (who joined for the Birthday Massacre who couldn’t be there), Deathstars and Diary of Dreams. All bands draw quite some fans but somehow I mostly happened to see Deathstars shirts in the audience.

Anyway, since it is four bands, the show starts quite early. Tonight I was in Frankfurt to see the show and the venue was very crowded and several people were still standing outside finishing their cigarettes and just about to get in. The first band of the night was Dope Stars Inc from Italy. Dope Stars Inc play glamorous Synth-Rock. Many people could sing along and definitely everybody danced along. Even though the guys played for 30 minutes only, they rocked a lot and gave everything. All of them tried to animate the audience to clap or shout, which the fans did. Dope Stars Inc played old and new songs. Everybody had a good time, and it was only the beginning.

The next band was Lacrimas Profundere from Germany. With gloomy lyrics and a dark and deep atmosphere these four guys rocked the venue as well. The singer performed very passionate, the rest of the band rocked their hearts out as well. Always moving around they got everybody in the venue going along. Extremely wild went the audience when Lacrimas played old hits, but also newer songs were like a lot by not only fans. Lacrimas Profundere’s show also lasted for 30 minutes only. And unfortunately they could not add an encore either.

The following band had let us waiting for a long time, even after the change over and sound check was done. But their fans where patient. Others weren’t that patient and started talking loud, going out for a smoke or to get a drink. But finally they entered the stage: Deathstars from Sweden. With a lot of fog and dim light they performed partially with a rehearsed choreography of guitar and bass players while the singer pulled of his own little stage drama. He talked a lot with the audience, got them scream and go wild a lot. Everybody cheered out loud, sang along to each song and danced heavily. Watching Deathstars felt like watching a play or a boygroup on stage because every movement and every word seemed rehearsed and pre-decided. Hardly anything was really happening spontaneously. Old and new songs didn’t make any difference in the audience’s activities. All songs were danced to and cheered to equally. Their performance lasted for about an hour.

After Deathstars had finished some people left for good. But the venue was still crowded enough for the last band Diary Of Dreams. Diary of Dreams is a German electronic music group with a gothic attitude. The lead singer and founding member Adrian Hates has produced most of the albums by himself or with minimal help from others. He rarely uses a full band, except when he is on tour. The music of Diary of Dreams is not only music, but it is art with a deeper meaning. I haven’t seen the bands in ages, so I was really excited to see them again. Impressive as usual they performed, catchy melodies and deep lyrics got the audience dance along and drift off into a “Traumaworld”. Even though the music is very serious, Adrian had to smile a lot on stage. It felt like the guys have a sort of homebase in Frankfurt. It was a very familiar atmosphere. The performance was energetic, the stage was filled with fog and the light added the final touch to make the picture complete. Old and new songs went deep down under your skin and will last past their 60 minutes of performance. I was really impressed by the Diary of Dreams show and many others in the audience were too. A perfect ending for tonight’s Into Darkness Festival.