TRAVELING & GIGS

“When I was a young boy”, no, kidding. It starts and ends with lyrics.

I was considering scrapping ‘Rockculture’ altogether because I’m not allowed to write up the gigs I’m contracted to report on for other outlets, and I am often too lazy to report on the gigs I go to for pleasure.

But as ROCKCULTURE is no more and no less than a personal blog, which some of you may enjoy reading, I shall continue to write. It is what I do.

I find concerts post-Covid WEIRD. Gigs are my happy place but being surrounded by sweaty, music-loving peers doesn’t feel the same anymore.

After attending four gigs in five days during the summer of 2022 – Pearl Jam, Iggy Pop, Jerry Cantrell, Nick Cave – I came down with you-know-what.

I got back in the saddle in time for Hyde Park BST, seeing Pearl Jam (again, because once is not enough, musical geniuses they are, different set and contagious positive energy) and Duran Duran.

I’d waited 40 years to see Duran Duran, and, man, what a disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong. Nick Rhodes is still the artistic mastermind behind it all, but I could have just watched a video and listened to a record. The press seemed to think it was fabulous. It was not. It was beautiful to SEE, but not to listen to. And the audience was an entitled Ibiza crowd who have too much money and no manners. Late 50-year-olds seriously thinking they still have a chance to bed John Taylor. Ew.   

Nothing mattered to me this year, other than finally seeing Duran Duran, going to as many Pearl Jam gigs as possible, and then going to the Taylor Hawkins tribute in London, maybe even the one in LA.

If you know me, you know how PERSISTANT I can be. Hence, I eventually got tickets to see the Foo Fighters at Wembley.

I cried for the duration of the concert. So did Dave Grohl.

The concert wasn’t perfectly choreographed, but that was fine. A lot of healing was done. Still, Taylor Hawkins’s death will forever leave a gaping hole in music.

Fast forward to the Kia Forum tribute. Thanks to a special friend, I was able to attend.

This time, no crying. Just admiration. Admiration of artists I formerly looked down upon. Because who knew that Miley Cyrus has one of the fiercest voices I’ve ever heard; Taylor Momsen, more than a pretty face. Both women literally blew me away. In combination with P!NK, Alanis Morissette, and Joan Jett, I would like to think that women ruled this tribute. So empowering, but also so healing.

Speaking of powerful women: Grace Jones at the Hollywood Bowl. Another force of nature. How is it possible for a 74-year-old woman to perform that kind of show? Don’t say drugs (because everyone around me tells me she is fueled by drugs – if she did the amount of drugs, they all said she does, she’d be dead, not hulla-ing for fifteen minutes straight). I’m a bit jealous to be fair, also, because her son is her keyboarder. I wonder if I can be in my son’s band. I could play the triangle.

Was also lucky enough to go to see Bring Me the Horizon in LA, who reeled their energy back to their original hard core; nice touch to bring in Bryan Garris (Knocked Loose) for Diamonds Aren’t Forever.

My musical taste is broader than I imagined, by the way. Why? Because when rushing to the Hollywood Bowl for yet another concert, the Pet Shop Boys were already on stage, and I sang and smiled for the duration of their set. Music connects, and it doesn’t have to be metal.

Musically, the co-headliner New Order, were not as smooth as one would have hoped. But the tunes still ring true, and their music and lyrics are a source of infinite joy.

And last, but not least, this emo girl decided to see My Chemical Romance for the first time in her life.

When people reckon “EMO” is a new thing – I will enlighten you. It is not. Every song has lyrics you can find meaning to. The emos of now are no different from the emos back in the day. It is as I have always said, “LYRICS MATTER”.

Gerard Way understands the depth of my soul, just like Andrew Eldritch did 35 years ago. All you have to do is listen. And go to gigs.

Dave Grohl @ Kia Forum (Rockculture®)

Miley Cyrus - photo by ROCKCULTURE®

Young Boy Gerard Way / My Chemical Romance - photo by ROCKCULTURE®

GARY NUMAN @ Batschkapp 17.06.2022

I skipped school for my first Gary Numan concert back in 1984. It was a time I needed to escape from a dysfunctional home, and I traveled all the way to London from Germany to connect with an alternative family made up from creative types. Gary Numan was one of those types, though I dare say he has grown into a performer who knows how to captivate the audience not just by his music these days, but by working the stage as if he’s had Stanislavski training for decades.

Tonight, he traveled to Frankfurt and I don’t have to skip school or work to see him.

Whilst the support I Speak Machine – a unique performer who channels Siouxie and Nine Inch Nails but makes it her own - is already getting the audience hyped for Gary Numan, the guy standing next to me whispers to his girlfriend, “Oh, Gary Numan is the guy who inspired Depeche Mode.” The same guy who said that before the show concluded after, “Bloody hell, that was more like Rammstein.”

INTRUDER TOUR 2022

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INTRUDER TOUR 2022 〰️

Richard Beasley takes his seat behind his drum kit opposite of David Brooks on keys, whilst the two imposing behemoths Steve Harris on guitar and Tim Slade on bass take stage. They guard Gary Numan, as he struts on stage brimming with a confidence he certainly didn’t have when I saw him 38 years ago.

 

Although Gary Numan was ill a few days ago, he delivers ‘Intruder’ with conviction and as the Steve and Tim sway and freak the audience out a little with their goth/android stance, the crowd are already under Numan’s spell.

He delivers ‘Halo’ from the album ‘Jagged’, dancing, swaying his arms as only Numan can.

After ‘Metal’, the percussion heavy ‘The Gift’ makes the stage and audience pulsate. Numan’s make-up, still the black eye shadow rings, the three red streaks, are highlighted by clever lighting and his perfected stage performance bring together an almost dystopian event.

It is apparent to the “new” Gary Numan fans at the Batschkapp, that he is the one who is behind all the ideas Marilyn Manson has ever come up with and as Numan prowls the stage, the feeling has become one of devotion to the man who now grabs the microphone to deliver the honest song ‘Is the World Not Enough’ from 2021’s Intruder.

‘Pure’ is not just this performance, but the song after ‘Films’ – Numan holds his Les Paul like he is going to strangle it before succumbing to heavy riffs and powerful vocals. This show is pure theatre.

‘Resurrection’ seques into ‘Down in The Park’ and Numan once again uses every inch of the stage to dance and fill the space with his moves.

The synths give away his most popular song in Germany ‘Cars’, but the delivery tonight is heavier and more energetic than expected. Numan plays his keyboard whilst the rest of the band navigate through the instrumental parts of the songs and the crowd are loving every minute. Even if there may have been people in the audience who only know him for that one song, they would have had a different experience altogether, listening to tonight’s version.

As a heavy beat erupts, the mood goes even darker with the next song ‘My Name Is Ruin’. If you hadn’t felt the goth feeling in the Batschkapp so far, you had now.

The next song has every phone in front of my face, trying to capture the lighting which erupt for ‘The Chosen’. Numan dances like he’s only just entered the stage – his movements careless and smooth.

The last song of the show is ‘A Prayer for the Unborn’ from 2000’s album Pure. Numan carries his guitar as if it was a gun, then swishes it on his back and does his flying bird arm thing. Steve Harris and Tim Slade look more aggressive and the guitarist spits into the crowd. Was it the flying bird thing that made him want to spread his avian coodies? Who knows?

The Encore starts off with ‘Here in the Black’ and finishes with the iconic ‘Are Friends Electric’. Although this was his breakthrough hit, it is more than that now. It is a mantra for everyone that ever listened, anyone who ever took his innovation and made it their own, from Trent Reznor to Marilyn Manson, from Dave Grohl to Gaga.

And even though I may have a nightmare or two because of the skirted giants (only because one of Sith Lord’s skirts showed his skinny long legs, not because of the freaky faces they pulled), this was the best gig I’ve been lucky enough to see in a long time. Not ever, because that would be a lie, but a long time.

 

Foo Fighters @ The Anthem, Washington D.C.

So apparently, The Anthem is THE new rock club of the East Coast. It is not just a rock club, my friends, it is a concert hall with the most epic acoustics, the most beautiful design, but with a feel of a cosy rock club, holding anywhere between 2.500 and 6.000 music lovers. It sits on the redeveloped Wharf on Washington’s Southwest Waterfront and has been developed by no other than Seth Hurwitz, the legend behind D.C.’s other epic venue 9:30.

So, who would you want to open up such a venue? You would probably want a local hero and there happens to be this one guy who played his first ever gig in D.C. at 16 years of age. His name is Dave Grohl and his current band is of course the Foo Fighters.

The initial warm up gig for “Friends & Family” on Wednesday goes down like a storm, but the official opening night on Thursday is by far the longest show the Foos may have ever played. 2 ¾ hours of Foo Fighters, reminiscing about his days on the wharf eating jumbo crabs on the waterfront, listening to the local radio stations and mostly importantly playing a huge range of songs from “I’ll Stick Around” to “The Pretender”, all along teasing the audience with a universal question these days “Is rock’n’roll dead?”. Not if the Foo Fighters have anything to say about it and to prove this phenomenon not only have they enlisted three drop dead gorgeous backing vocalists for some of their new stuff from “Concrete and Gold”, they also ask The Anthem guy himself, Seth Hurwitz, to come and play drums on the Rolling Stones cover “Bitch”, giving the epic Taylor Hawkins a little more limelight in the process.

The gig without a curfew ended with “Everlong” and it doesn’t matter how often you have heard or seen this song- smiles and goosebumps all around in this epic new venue, The Anthem.