05-02-2011 Pluswelt Festival

Venue: Essigfabrik, Cologne (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

Tonight we were back in Germany, back in Cologne and back at Essigfabrik. Not for the Combichrist and Mortiis tour only, but for the Pluswelt festival where five bands were playing!

Quite some people were waiting outside in the cold already, long before doors opened. But most people arrived right as doors opened.

The first band began shortly after doors opened. I missed them though because I had an interview with Combichrist.

I was right back in time for Blitzmaschine though, a band who had just released their single and has the debut album coming in March. Blitzmaschine is a German EBM project by a duo from Hamburg. Their music was very catchy and thriving. They played tracks of their newly released single EP as well as a cover song of DAF. Everyone in the venue was dancing along to the tunes of Blitzmaschine. In between the songs they talked to the audience. The stage was covered in fog and with all the red light it was sometimes a little hard to see. But the music was all that matters. Blitzmaschine is definitely an awesome new project, live even better than on CD. Stay tuned for their album and all the shows to come. They are definitely a must-check-out!

Everyone was still in a good mood from Blitzmaschine an all warmed up, ready to continue dancing. During the changeover pop songs, radio classics and electro music were mixed together to make the time go by faster. But Vomito Negro really pushed the patience. They had video problems and simply did not want to go on stage and just do it the rock’n’roll way: without video screens but improvise and pull off an amazing show. Well, ok, we’re at an electro festival after all and it was part of their performance. Absolutely understandable. The audience was getting very impatient though, the good mood dissolved and people even got annoyed already. A real pity. Because as the band finally came on – without video screens after all – nobody was as much in a party mood anymore as they had been right after Blitzmaschine. Their old school EBM did just not come out right and the band seemed just annoyed from the technical difficulties as the audience. And, Vomito Negro also had to shorten their set due to the extensive delay! It was just not their day, let’s hope all will work out much better next time, because actually they are good!

The audience was still not back on the peak they had before. Luckily the Mortiis changeover was a lot faster and the fog also thickened. And then they came on: Mortiis rocked the annoyance, impatience and all the other bad moods out of the audience and got them back up on the previous peak and even higher! The Norwegians owned the stage and the venue for their performance. Awesomely catchy and thriving, extremely energetic and infecting you just had to move along to their music. Industrial rock heated the club again and got the people dancing and moshing along. Mortiis is an amazing live band. The four guys just know how to put up a breathtaking performance so you just don’t know where to look first. So go check them out again! They are currently touring with Combichrist and probably hitting your town as well!

Now, after this awesome show, the front row became all giggly and excited. It kind of seemed like a teeny boy group show, only that the audience did not look like typical teenage girls at such shows, more like the zombie version of it, in a good way of course. Anyway, you could tell that most people had come out tonight to see Combichrist. The venue suddenly felt so much more packed than it was before. Everybody was cramped to the front. After Eminem’s “Dust And Bones” the band came on stage and was welcomed by a loud cheering and everybody going insane. People danced their minds out, moshed, jumped and moved around recklessly. The best thing for you was to move around as well in order to not get hit by arms or bodies flying around to the beats. The band went wild on stage which made the audience go even wilder. The entire club was shaking as during an earthquake with everyone dancing around like that! It was insane. The atmosphere and good vibes were exploding in the air. Blasting out old and new hits, the audience knew them all and moved along to the music. Tonight’s show was so much better than the previous one. Maybe it was because it was the keyboarder’s birthday, maybe because today’s audience was so much better or maybe all of the above. Combichrist put up a murder show again and blew everyone’s minds, got the ones hooked on their music and performances that have not been addicted to it before. Combichrist made it yet again! Thank you for the music!