31-05-2008 Big Boy

Supports: My Flea Circus; Venue: Universum, Stuttgard (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

It’s already end of May again, the year had rushed by very fast so far. Some friends and I were in Stuttgart again, but this time not just for meeting up and drinking coffee but also to go and see Big Boy again. It’s been more than half a year since I had seen them last time and I hadn’t seen their new guitar player Gabor yet either.
But tonight I would, as well as another band I haven’t seen before: My Flea Circus from Canada who would start out the night. They played at Universum, a club and café at the underground station next to the park in Stuttgart, a relatively new location and quite interesting. The concert area seemed small because the audience room was more like a hallway. The stage was low and so was the ceiling. Big people might have a problem on stage and shouldn’t jump too much, not to say at all. The club was filling very slowly, but there were quite some fans in the end, not totally crowded but not too empty either. It was just perfect to still have enough room to dance, move around and get new drinks from the bar.

There was only Nee (vocals and guitar) and Ryan (drums) on stage, the bass player had left the band shortly before. But the two Canadians still rocked big time. Nee wore a great and quite unusual outfit which suited her well as I thought. Some people cheered, others just listened. My Flea Circus is not common music and hard to describe as well. I guess you’ll have to make up your own mind about them, but I liked it. Nee rocked the house and so did Ryan, both got more and more of the audience dancing and cheering along. It was a pity that they only played a short set.

Up next was Big Boy. They have been working on their new album lately and also played several new songs I liked a lot. The four guys were active on stage as usual. Especially the singer was running around quite a lot, he even ran through the audience a couple times. The low ceiling was right above their heads with only a centimeter room in between as they moved to the very front of the stage where a sort of step or podium was at. There were two bottles of hard liquor on stage as well as beer and all got drunk by band and audience. The people danced and sang along quite loud. As the singer fell he started bleeding on his arm which made me worry a little bit but it looked worse than it actually was. Big Boy also played old songs as “One Good Reason”, “Get Over It” and so on as well as a German song which somehow surprised me. I didn’t expect them to sing German although they all are. The show was very familiar and nice, the audience seemed to really enjoy it and cheered for more and they got more. I now hope that I won’t have to wait half a year till I will see them again…

Here is what they played:
Intro
Ponygirl
Terror Era
One Good Reason
Love Is Almost Perfect
Gestasi Baby
Fake It
Get Over It
Heroin Heroine
My Own Rules
Sin-Sational
I Hate Myself
Ships

As encore:
Diese Welt
Hail The Big Boy

Links:
My Flea Circus MySpace
My Flea Circus Official