Gigs

Gig Review: Beatsteaks + The Human Targets

[Venue: Barfly, Cambridge]
[Date: 27 April 2008]

Tonight was one of the more bizarre shows I’ve been to in Cambridge. I had a vague recollection of the Beatsteaks being the first German band on Epitaph in the 1990s, whose FauxCal punk accents were not that bad and sounded a bit like early-to-mid-period Bad Religion. It could be partly down to me owning a load of Lost & Found compilations, where every German band sounds either like Bad Religion or Chain Of Strength. If you grew up in Germany though in the 1990s, the Beatsteaks mean a whole lot more, as I will explain later on.

So, we get to the Barfly in time to grab a drink before heading upstairs and I was amazed that there was a queue of normal-looking people (no studs, leather and spikes) that reached outside the pub. It was quite remarkable that a band that has been under the punk radar for a few years would attract this many people. I was chatting to the bar staff about it and they wouldn’t give me a real maximum capacity number (I was told it’s “in the thousands”). They didn’t seem to expect that many people on a Sunday either.

We make our way upstairs and tonight’s only support band, Nottingham’s The Human Targets have already taken the stage. The one word that kept on coming to mind (partly due to my slight intoxication, but mostly due to their haircuts) was ‘hipster’. This is probably what the NME/Mojo crowd usually proclaim to be the only hope of rock n’ roll in this oh-so-bleak musical reality. You can’t really fault them for thinking so though; there’s the world-music touches of the Clash, the Ramones’ power-pop bounce and the occasional Black Flag freak outs that nicely blend in with their very British sensibilities and accents. They genuinely seem to be happy to be playing with the Beatsteaks (humbled you could say), totally aware that the crowd is (at first) simply being polite enough to clap between songs and exchange banter with the band on stage.

It’s around this time that I begin to realise that, what seems to be, the majority of the crowd are actually German and it’s not the alcohol making me imagine everyone is speaking ‘in code’. The alcohol does however contribute to my paranoia that the Third Reich is using this show as a launching pad for Hitler’s return, as prophesied by Nostradamus. Possibly. Sounds like the plot of a Troma film, but nevertheless an interesting twist on interacting with other people for me tonight. At the end of the Human Targets set, I decided to take a breather and head outside for some fresh air before the Beatsteaks were to come on stage. As soon as they took to the stage everything started making sense. You see, I didn’t know that the Beatsteaks are what U2 are to Ireland or AC/DC in Australia and New Jersey: WMD-class rock heroes. Apparently last time they played Berlin it was in front of 17,000 people who went off, so it’s no wonder that there are quite a few people who specifically flew out to Cambridge for the chance to see them in a tiny, cramped and humid attic of a venue.

The band’s sound has progressed a lot since the mid 1990s. Their earlier material seemed to comply to my gross generalisation of Germanic punk’s Bad Religion worship (’Suffer’ to be precise), whereas everything else reminded me at times of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the aforementioned U2, even The Police. It’s equally impressive how they managed to mix and blend songs from ‘48/49′ and ‘Launched’ with songs from ‘Smack Smash’, ‘The Living Targets’ and ‘Limbo Messiah’. The band have a mesmerising stage presence that dominates the night, making you think that this is a really informal party event, sort of like a stereotypical 1920’s jazz night: you are meant to meander, buy drinks, talk to people, have a laugh and to join in on the fun with some old time (pre-Mosh) dancing. All that singer Arnim had to do was reach out to the crowd and everyone went off. The eurocentric nature of tonight’s crowd probably had a lot to do with this. I didn’t notice a single fight or violent dancing, no unnecessary posturing or alpha male/queen bee bullshit; just sweaty smiling faces screaming along to ‘Disconnected’ like their life depended on it.

Beatsteaks played for about an hour and a half, during which time the crowd appeared to be unable to stop bouncing, singing and partying the night away, despite the ridiculous lack of air ventilation and near-unbearable heat. That’s what makes shows epic. After the show I ended up chatting to some of the Germans from the crowd, who were absolutely ecstatic about tonight. In fact, you could say they were radiating with joy, reinforcing the notion that a WMD of rock just went off inside. Why was I not told how awesome this was going to be earlier?

Photos © Timothy Reynolds

For fans of: Die Toten Hosen, Turbostaat, Bad Religion
Band links = Beatsteaks | The Human Targets

Tags: live, gig, Beatsteaks, Human Targets, review, punk, rock, barfly, cambridge

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