26-06-2016 Combichrist

[schema type=”event” evtype=”MusicEvent” name=”26-06-2016 Combichrist” description=”Support: Rabia Sorda, Filter” sdate=”2016-06-26″ street=”Batschkapp” city=”Frankfurt” country=”DE” ]
Sunday night at Batschkapp, Frankfurt brought out quite some people. Despite the fact that the German soccer team was playing a match against Slovakia. Most of the people that came out, were long time fans of either of the three bands playing tonight: Rabia Sorda, Filter and Combichrist.

The venue was filling slowly and was only halfway filled, as the first band, Rabia Sorda, entered the stage.

Rabia Sorda is the side project of Erk Aicrag, lead singer of the Mexican aggrotech band Hocico. Rabia Sorda, like Hocico, is electronic music, though it is somewhat less aggressive and noisy than Hocico. While his main project, Hocico, goes down a certain path, Aicrag uses Rabia Sorda as a vehicle for his own musical creativity. He mixes different aspects ranging from ethnical influences to 1980s-style melodies and punky attitude to aggressive electronic music.

The trio raged on stage, performing their songs. The singer never stood still, not even for a second. Neither did the audience. The energy floating around in the venue was intense. The light was dim and fogged, but some in the audience was dancing so heavy that they didn’t even look around to notice that. The cheering after each song was loud and intense. Quite some fans were singing along to the songs.

Rabia Sorda played for about fifty minutes, performing songs of each album, as well as some of their newest songs. The guitar player was moving around on stage, almost as much as the singer. The singer Erk was jumping around for the entire fifty minutes, not losing his breath. As it was time for the trio to end the show, they were thanking the audience for the interaction and all the applause. The fans didn’t want to let Rabia Sorda leave the stage, but there were two more bands about to play.

After a short change over it was time for Filter to take over the stage. Filter is an American industrial rock group formed in 1993 in Cleveland by singer Richard Patrick and guitarist/programmer Brian Liesegang. The band was formed after Patrick desired to start his own band after leaving Nine Inch Nails as their touring guitarist. Their debut album, Short Bus, was released in 1995, and ended up going platinum, selling over one million copies, largely due to the success of the band’s single “Hey Man Nice Shot.” After the album, the band would go through the first of many line-up changes, leaving Patrick as the only consistent member across all music releases.

As Filter went on stage, the reception of the audience was mixed. But the singer of Filter focused on the fans in the audience. Some of them were wearing band shirts. One of them was wearing the first Filter shirt ever made, which was really special. Filter played songs off all their albums and out of all their eras. Between the songs, the singer Richard, was talking about politics and the things that are currently going on in the world these days. The audience mainly agreed. Filter also played for fifty minutes before they said goodbye for tonight.

The change over was accompanied by some great 80s rock hits. The venue was filling a little more now. And then, after about twenty minutes change over, it was time for Combichrist to enter the stage.

Combichrist is an American aggrotech band formed in 2003 by Norwegian Andy LaPlegua, who also founded the bands Icon of Coil, Panzer AG, Scandinavian Cock and Scandy. Combichrist is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The band consist of only LaPlegua in the studio with Joe Letz, Nick Rossi, Eric13, and Brent Ashley for live performances. Releases by the band have been very successful in terms of sales and charted in top positions for dance and alternative charts worldwide.

The light was dimmed with fog and flashing, as the band began raging on stage. With two drummer, a bass player and a guitar player, Combichrist was able to play the complex arrangements of some of the later songs live. Almost no samples needed. The singer Andy was moving around on stage, singing to the audience and infected them with his energy. The audience jumped along, sang out loud and even started a circle pit. No one was standing still during the performance of Combichrist. Combichrist began with their newer songs before they performed old classics. Most people could sing along to the new songs, but definitely everyone was singing along to the old classics. The show was intense and the audience had a blast.

After about ninety minutes, the show was over. The fans demanded more and received an encore of two songs. Then the show was over. Everyone left the venue soaked in sweat but with a smile on the face. It had been a great show on this Sunday night. Combichrist is always a blast seeing live.

Rabia Sorda
Filter
Combichrist