27-10-2008 Hellnights

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

The pre-Halloween till Halloween tour through Germany has hit Frankfurt again: Hellnights, this time at the Batschkapp almost a week before Halloween. This year’s line-up sounded quite nice. Four bands scaring the quite crowded venue. Several people were dressed up like Halloween and everybody was looking forward seeing the bands.

First band of the night was a female fronted one, also the only female tonight: Zombina and the Skeletones from the UK. Zombina and the Skeletones have been wrenching 100% pure rock’n’roll genius from the very pits of their tortured, vampiric souls since 1998. As a live band they’re the bloodiest and funniest cult experience you can have short of sacrificing yourself to some goat headed deity in the woods on St. Swithens Night. They have several albums released already. The singer enjoyed simply being herself on stage, playing with the audience and loving the music. She performed with loads of passion and the positive vibes coming from the band spread across the audience. Many people sang along and cheered for them. The singer talked quite a lot of German which was greatly appreciated by the audience.

Next band was a German one, singing German as well. Somehow they reminded me of Bauhaus and Kraftwerk although it’s not really the same kind of music. Der Fluch was founded in 1981 and is a mix of Cramps, Meteors and Misfits, only in German. Many people liked their performance, I somehow just didn’t really know what to think of it. Personally the music and the band was stuck in the 80s which was nice to a certain extend. And they quoted too much out of old movies, (horror) fairytales and other bands for me. But the audience danced and loved it.

The next band was also from Germany and a band which I have seen quite some times already: The Other. Founded in 2002 they scare their fans ever since. They mostly sing English but on the new album there are also some German songs. The band reminds a lot of the MISFITS but is not being a copy cat, just terribly influenced by them because before The Other was The Other, they were a MISFITS cover band. And what is wrong in sounding a little bit like them anyways?
Ok, before I get completely off track here: The Other at Hellnights having the audience going wild. That’s where I’ll continue now… So everybody sang along to the songs and enjoyed the eyeball ritual. This one is that the drummer (Dr. Calligari) is having a jar full of eyeballs and distributes them in the front row. Supposedly these are the eyeballs of the audience from the past show that didn’t cheer and go along too much. The audience was even moshing to their music and had a blast. So did the band with their horror masks and makeup.

Last band of the night was Blitzkid. A band from Virginia in the US.
Blitzkid began in the winter of 1997. Their current drummer is the former drummer of the MSIFITS. Oh what a night full of thoughts of one of the best bands in the world! To Blitzkid everybody was going even wilder than before. A huge moshpit and even stage diving began in the audience. The band talked a lot to the audience and thanked them big time for all the support. They played songs off all albums and even some brand new ones. The bass player went wild on stage jumping around and doing the weirdest things while playing the bass. The audience loved it and everybody had a blast. Although it was not Halloween yet, we all had the feeling of it. So happy early Halloween.

Links:
Blitzkid MySpace
The Other MySpace
Der Flug MySpace
Zombina and the Skeletones MySpace