08-09-2011 Danse Macabre Festival

Venue: K-17, Berlin (Germany)
By: Sabine van Gameren

Berlin had three festivals in a row to offer in the famous K17 club. Tonight everyone came to see these Danse Macabre bands on stage.

The first formation that would be here tonight is Effter. This contains out of two guys from Italy who are now located in Berlin. They design a landscape of cool, cold electro noises in a minimal environment, making it just vibrant enough to keep your attention with their sound in a live performance where not too much seems to be going on at first. After a few minutes you get used to the cool atmosphere of this duo and feel more convenient with it which brings you to the point of adopting their sound. They had an interesting performance, probably not the most accessible music but the open mind gives them a chance and appreciates it.

After that the gorgeous vocalist Vic Anselmo enters the stage, sitting right there with her Keyboard and her voice as a weapon to conquer the listeners. With a few technical problems going on she could still get her show going and surprise many. We saw this femme earlier singing with Das Ich on Amphi Festival, but tonight a whole different side of her got introduced and it is something we like. The pure, gothic songs come out quite beautiful and it seems like Vic got the attention of the audience within seconds she opens her mouth. Gorgeous show, way too short of course, for such a vocalist who can capture people so easily. Hopefully we stumble upon her some more some when.

Substaat was less entertaining though, afterwards I got asked to blame the soundtech but the fact that their show did not come off had less to do with that, more with the fact that it takes too long for them to build the energy. The start was quite calm performance wise and people are just waiting for that climax but there is no teasing in the ride towards it. That is why it all appeared a bit boring. They tried to assure me the album was much better and now I have read the review my colleague wrote on it (review) it seems like they have a point on that. Let’s hope next time they will be more convincing as it seems like it really is in them after all.

Eisenfunk is one of the bands that got many people to the club. The band got some fame with their song “Pong” and the video of it via youtube and more games are honoured with a song. But this band is not having as an all over theme, it was just one album called “8bit”. What actually goes throughout their whole set is the same sort of beat, catchy as it is and quite simple lyrics that does not really make sense, but this music is maybe more made for dancing and having fun, which is what most of the audience seem to live up to this evening. A nice show you surely should have seen once at least and you don’t have to take too serious but just enjoy.

Tonight is was up for Gothminister to headline. The Norwegians released their album “Animal Inferna” this year and are promoting it quite well by playing some songs of it. Also their hit “Monsters” got played and it being quite early in their set.
As always Gothminister has his stairs with him and climbs up on it high regularly to have a good view over the audience while entertaining them. His own little baby monster got up there as well to give the words some strength. Way faster than anyone wanted their set was over, leaving us all with an unsatisfied hunger for more. Seems like you have to catch them when you can!