After taking several years off from the road - except for the
occasional performance in their home country of Switzerland, or nearby
France - The Young Gods returned to European stages to do a short tour.
I went to see them on their stop in Hamburg.
The concert was poorly promoted, the only poster announcing the show
was put up in front of the venue while we were waiting to be let in.
Regardless of that, quite a few people showed up, I would say about 150
to 200 give or take a few. This was a good amount of people for the
size of the venue, it wasn't too crowded, but neither too empty.
When listening to The Young Gods' music, they may at first sound like
your typical Industro-Metal band, with distorted guitars and
everything. The bigger is the surprise when you see them live, and the
only guitar used on stage is an acoustic one used to generate some
feedback. Everything else is sampled and put to good use by keyboard
player Al Comet. Add a drummer and singer Franz Treichler with his
irresistible french accent, and you end up with The Young Gods.
I kind of pity the people who live next to or above the venue, the
Westwerk. The amount of volume and noise The Young Gods put up on stage
for the next 90 minutes was just insane. One of the loudest concerts
I've ever been to. You wouldn't think that three guys can pull off
noise like that and enjoy it. Apparently they do, as you could see that
they were having an excellent time up there on stage.
During the show, the emphasis was on their current release "Second
Nature". They played most of the songs from that album, mixed with some
old classics. The slower songs like "In The Otherland" or "Laisser
Couler" definitely benefited from the intimacy of the small venue. I
can't imagine these songs would come across that well when being played
in a big concert hall. Highlights of the concert were "Skinflowers",
the stomping "Astronomic" and "Kissing The Sun". The performance was
well received by the audience, so the band had to come back on stage
twice before the lights finally went on. The show ended with one of the
Kurt Weill cover tunes they do so well, which put a nice end to a
fantastic show. Make sure you catch them live if they ever play a show
near you.