Last year Rose and I made the long journey to Cardiff to see Nachtmahr. This was when Rose was just starting to come around to the idea of Electronic Music, and I didn't really think she was going to enjoy it. However, I gave her a CD with some Nachtmahr songs on it and to my absolute surprise, she really liked it. It was a stunning gig, probably the best gig I had seen since 2004, and so, eager as I was to see Nachtmahr again, I was more than aware that this gig had a hell of a lot to live up to.
We left home about 1pm, and arrived at our hotel in Newport around 4pm. This gave us a little time to shower and chill before leaving for another drive to Bridgend and then on to Swansea. Doors were supposed to open at 7 and the show was supposed to be over by 10pm. On the way down we were suggesting that maybe we should have cancelled our hotel and driven home, as we could have got home by 2am, but on our way back to the hotel after the gig we were more than happy that we didn't have a four hour drive ahead of us.
On the website of the venue it says something like 'bringing music to this shitty city' and I'd have to agree it's not the most picturesque of places! After a long drawn out debate with the car park ticket machine we rocked up at the doors at 7:10 to find everyone standing outside (oh what a surprise). We were told the doors would open at 7:30 so we went and sat back in the car for a bit. It was quite warm outside already (when we got back in the car about 11pm it was 19.5deg!) and when we went back about 7:35pm everyone was still standing outside, including a woman wearing all sorts of layers of clothes. Another woman (who'd clearly been to the venue before) was warning her it was going to melting in there, and she wasn't wrong.
When we finally got inside, it was very, very warm indeed. And the closer you got to the stage, the warmer it got. We had a quick mooch around the merchandise stall (unlike most EBM bands, Nachtmahr does seem to provide a goodly selection of stuff for people to buy - I thought most bands live / survive off their merch sales these days so I don't know why other bands don't do the same, the merch at Resistanz was pitiful) and business was brisk! I saw several people with Nachtmahr armbands and shirts, sadly though there was no Shiv-r merch and the only CD available was 'Wax Wings Will Burn' (which I already bought ages ago).
We got a drink and sat down for a bit until Pete appeared and the show was about to start. We approached the stage and felt the heat increase and... oh yes, I forgot to mention, an odd thing about The Scene is that it has windows in it... so the band comes on effectively in daylight. Who thought that was a good idea? I'm not too sure about the Arabian Nights theme either... but windows are a definite no-no.
If I remember correctly, Shiv-r kicked off with 'Asylum' from the latest album (Wax Wings Will Burn), and it was immediately apparent that adding a drummer to the ranks was a good idea. For me, coming from a Metal background, a drummer helps elevate a band above a kind of glorified karaoke. For some bands this is more of an issue than others, Nachtmahr don't seem to need a drummer, but when we saw Shiv-r with Aesthetic Perfection last year (Bristol Fleece) there was definitely something 'missing'. It was still good, but this was definitely better.
The drummer was hilarious actually, reminding us of one of those 'art rock' drummers you might see on a very old episode of 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' or possibly Away from Voivod after he's popped a few mushrooms... But still, very visually entertaining and with Pete giving it plenty and keyboardist adding some aggressive backing vocals and a further point of visual interest with his spray on latex sleeves, the band 'performance' was much improved from before.
Despite my attempts to catch up with the older material, there was still a few songs I didn't recognise. To be honest I would be happy with a setlist made up entirely of songs from 'WWWB' (plus 'Pharmaceutical Grade', obviously) and I'm more than happy to report that Monster, Wolves, and the thoroughly brilliant 'Eye of the Needle' all made an appearance. One thing I really liked though was that even though Shiv-r had a live drummer, they still sound like the album on stage. When we saw Grendel recently we were both disappointed that they seemingly re-invented themselves as a Metal band onstage, yes guitars and live drums add 'presence' and 'physicality' to the sound and performance but don't take it too far or it sounds like a Metal band covering an Electro band's songs.
We both really enjoyed Shiv-r and had we been feeling slightly less hot and I slightly less 'sore throated' we might have made more effort to talk to Pete when he was by the merch stand. We met him and his girlfriend at Euston station last year on the way to the SOS festival and they were both very nice, I hope he's remembered my 'advice' to include lots of harmony vocals on the new songs!
After the show we stood near the back, enjoying the breeze coming up the stairs and I enjoyed a few Strepsils while we waited for Nachtmahr to come on.
We had stood right at the front for Shiv-r, but by the time Nachtmahr were getting ready to go on the place had filled up quite a bit more. We positioned ourselves a few rows back, from the front and immediately found ourselves behind the 'Tallest Man in the World'. We moved to one side, but then we were in the way of the bar and eventually retreated to the back. The venue could easily have coped with the crowd (though I'm glad the other 300 tickets remained unsold!) if it wasn't for the stupid seating area in front of the merch stall. I mean fair enough, it's obviously a multi-purpose venue and bar, but this was a pain in the backside.
As I said at the start of this post, Nachtmahr's main obstacle tonight was the awesomeness of our last meeting. To be fair I think they were probably every bit as good as last time (though I did miss the other keyboard player with his hilarious 'Dream Boys' moves...) but one thing which was a disappointment for me was that the setlist almost completely ignored the last two albums ('Feindbild' & 'Veni, Vidi, Vici') with Nachtmahr seemingly falling into the 'Old Metal Band' trap of playing 3 or 4 new songs and then ignoring the last few in favour of 'classics'. That's okay for a band like Slayer because they haven't done anything of note since 1990, but the last three Nachtmahr albums have been easily their best as far as I am concerned, so that was a shame.
The show wasn't quite as slick as last time either, I don't know if that was the venue's fault or what, but Nachtmahr's projection video was barely visible most of the time, and it seemed to be being projected onto an old sheet, which didn't really help matters, and of course the other thing as I mentioned before was the windows, which detracted from the atmosphere somewhat, at least until it got properly dark.
Undoubtedly the Cardiff gig last year was in a better venue, but the crowd here were well into it. Speaking of the crowd, there were some sights to be seen here, not least the guy who looked like a future-punk Jim Broadbent in a bodystocking, complete with high heels!
Songs I can remember included: Kampfbereit, Tanz fur Mich, Boom Boom Boom, Can You Feel the Beat, I Hate Berlin (the only track from Feinbild), Katharsis, Tanzdiktator, Madchen in Uniform, El Chupacabra, Deus ex Machina... and that's about all I can remember. Like Shiv-r, my Nachtmahr listening tends to be focussed on the more recent material so I'm struggling a bit here.
Speaking of 'Madchen in Uniform', the lovely merch girl was in attendance again, but sadly she couldn't provide Rose with a small Nachtmahr hoodie in the design she wanted. I saw a really cool 'Can You Feel the Beat' T-Shirt on some guy, but they weren't for sale, and in the end it was a toss-up between a couple of shirts for me, I came down on the side of the one which looked a bit less, err... Nazi-ish!
After the show we headed back to the Hampton by Hilton in Newport for a drink in the bar (£7 for a glass of wine, I thought this was supposed to be a budget hotel!) and then hit the sack about 2am.
Though my review may sound unduly negative, it was a good show and I'm glad we went, it's just that the Cardiff show last year was truly outstanding and set the bar really, really high.
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