Eblo

Einstürzende Neubauten

Amy and I saw Einstürzende Neubauten last night (4/30/04) at The Metro in Chicago. As it turns out, the last time we were there was to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (9/13/98) - worth mentioning because at the time, Blixa Bargeld, lead of EN, was also a Bad Seed (he left the Bad Seeds to focus on EN just before we saw Nick Cave again last year (6/21/03)). Amy wasn't really familiar with EN's music, but has something of a crush on Blixa, I fear. I'd heard enough mp3s of theirs to know I like their stuff. Avant-Garde without being pretentious. Industrial. Dynamic. And dense.

As for the show, well, I've been to a few concerts in my day, but this is the first one I've been to that started with the hum of air compressors charging up. I mentioned "Industrial," right? EN plays a lot of non-traditional instruments - and I'm sure started doing so when the Blue Men were just little blue spermatozoa. The Blue Man group connection is easy to make when you see a big set of PVC pipes set up on stage. But instead of just beating on the tubes (which are only used for a few songs), EN's talented percussionists play the tubes with the compressed air. It's a nice sound, has decent stage presence, and hey, air compressors! Blixa made the joke that part of their tour prep included a trip to Home Depot. Much funnier to hear him say through a thick German accent. After the first song, which used up a lot of air, the compressors had to be recharged. EN was clever enough to perform a piece that not only covered up the drone of the motors, but made use of it to provide the foundation for the piece.

Another concert first for me was to see a guitar and bass, on two separate occasions, played with a vibrator. The device was used two different ways. It was either held just about the guitar's pickups so the noise from motor was picked up, processed, and amped out to the audience. Texture was added to the sound by varying the speed of the motor. The other technique was to lightly touch the strings with the end of the toy, um, tool, uh, whatever. Again, it produced an interesting sound not often wrenched from a guitar. I have to say, I stumbled across a similar idea on my own once using the vibration of my cell phone against the strings or body of my acoustic guitar. I never put it to much use, though, and didn't make the artistic leap to think - hey, vibrator! I'll have to work on that.

Other 'found sounds' (<-- hey, did I just coin a term, or what?) include beating on various tins, bins, springs, chains, square steel tubing, what looked like car parts, and other hunks of metal. The compressed air was blown at microphones, in plastic bottles spinning on a lazy susan (so different sized bottles were being played in succession), and pretty much anywhere else it could make noise. And yeah, a band member would occasionally use it to cool his face. Another trick which sounded really cool was jacking a portable radio into an echo box. Blixa would spin the tuner as he spiked the volume to add a percussive punch to a few songs. At one point, I heard part of a commercial for Lowes Theaters. Chaos tamed.

But EN's sounds aren't all loud and grating (though how the HELL does Blixa screech like that?). They do 'subtle' well, too. After all, any monkey can beat on a pile of metal. For one really quiet number, during which I had to tell some chattering bitty to "Shut the hell up!" (more on that in a bit), the percussion guru (I don't know band memebers' names - I'm not a fanatic fan) stood stage front slowly crinkling one of those foil space blankets you pack in a first aid kit. I don't even think it was miked. It looked a little silly at first, but eventually got mesmerizing and both visually and sonically, really pulled me in. Another thing the drummer did, which ended up being too subtle for me, even with my ear plugs out, was to throw handfuls of packing peanuts over the hunks of metal he used as cymbals and a drum. Perhaps if there was less ambient crowd chatter, I may have picked it up. I liked the idea, though. Everything makes a sound. Even packing peanuts hitting a steel plate.

Which brings me to my next point, why go to a show if you're just going to talk through it? At least go stand at the bar in the back. More than once, in my own special way, I asked people to be quiet. About halfway though the show I got fed up with this two guys that were talking and laughing very loudly over my right shoulder. Eventually, I turned around and said, "Hey, guys, if you want to chat, maybe you should go to a bar." They actually shut up. But later on, Blixa was regaling us with the story behind one of the songs, and he got fed up with the crowd. He stopped his story and said, "I'm sorry, do you have a problem listening to me talk?" Poor guy. After some exchange with the crowd which encouraged him to carry on, he said if we wanted to enjoy the show, it was up to us to make the people around us be quiet (Yay, performer endorsed vigilantism! What do you expect from a bunch of Germans?). With that, a bunch of people threw out a "Shut the fuck up!" to the nearest offender. It helped for a little while. But later on, during the crinkly song, which as I said, was VERY quiet, a girl quite loudly said, "I just had an 80s flashback!" That's when I asked her to keep quiet. For some reason, a bunch of people around us laughed. I think they were laughing at her. Her male friend came up with the witty 3rd grade retort, "Fuck you, baldie." Before I could respond, Amy told me to let it go, and I turned back towards the stage. I think she feared a fight. I don't think it was going to get to that. But if it did, I knew Blixa had my back.

But poor Blixa was having a frustrating night in other ways, too. On several occasions, he was visibly unhappy with the sound mix and it seemed every time he tried to signal for a correction, the sound guy happened to be looking away. At one point the keyboards were stepping over the rest of the music and Bargeld seemed very upset to think they might be thought of as a synth band after that. If he had something to throw, I think he would have beaned the sound guy.

Going back to the crowd for a moment, it was a decent mix of folk. As might be expected, I think the mean age was a few years older than a lot of others shows I've been to. I guess that's what happens when the band itself is over 20 years old. I'm not quite sure what kids these days are listening to, but I don't think it's German Industrial Art-noise. The fact, then, that it was well attended is even more impressive considering the show didn't start until after 10:00 p.m. Some of us old crumudgeons haven't started an evening after 9:00 in quite some time. A late night for us is stopping on the way home from work to get the SUV washed before we put it in our attached 2-car garage in the suburbs. But occasionally, we still know how to party. But I digress. There weren't too many truly outrageous get-ups, then again, I might be a little biased. I've been to Thrill Kill Kult and NIN shows. There was some sexy, some silly, some vaguely gothy, and some normal everyday street wear. Mohawks seem to be making a strong comeback, especially brightly colored ones. One of my big regrets in my life is that I never did a mohawk when I had the folicle fortitude for it. I saw one utili-kilt (on a guy with a pink mohawk, no less), and what must be a new trend I don't have my thumb on the pulse of - suit-pants and vest (like a three-piece without the jacket) and a cap. Saw two or three of those. There were lots of cloves and a little pot in the air.

From a certain perspective, it was a pretty 'normal' crowd, and aside from the loud talking, well behaved. No pushing, no shoving, there's plenty of room for everyone. Mosh is dead, I guess. Funny considering my first show at The Metro was They Might Be Giants. And people moshed to them. In fact, it was my first crowd-surf. But yesterday, there were actually signs up stating that the club's insurance policy strictly forbade moshing, slam dancing, crowd surfing, and stage diving, thank you for your cooperation. Part of me, the aging youngster, screams, "Fuck you, insurance man, I've got angst I need to vent on my concert-going neighbor!" Well it's more of a wimper, because the 30-year-old guy with the sore knees and tired back says, "Thanks for keeping these damn kids off my head."

The distractions of inconsiderate conversationalists and slow sound guys aside, the music was good, and the band had fun - the bassist is one silly guy. Nothing makes me smile like a band obviously enjoying what they're doing. They did two encores, which seems to be a bit of a dying tradition, so the show ran from about 10:15 to roughly 1:00 a.m. Blixa said this was going to be their last tour of The States because it was too expensive to tour here. Sad. I guess we'll have to plan a trip to Berlin to catch them again some time.