Switzerland! There was a long concert weekend coming up for me: Friday and Saturday Open Air St. Gallen, and Sunday Spirit of Music in Uster. Two Kaizers concerts, and in between a whole lot of other bands… wow! The only negative thing about it was that I had to go alone, cause everybody else didn’t have time or money or tickets… but well, what are you gonna do? *g*
So, get in the car, on the way to Switzerland, and it wasn’t even as far as I had expected, but “only” around 400 km. So I was there pretty early, but I still had to wait for some time to get in. Well, who cares, I was in front of the stage in time for the Kaizers concert, waiting for the things coming up at me. And coming up was a really really awesome concert!
At the beginning of the Kaizers concert the tent still was pretty empty, but it filled up quickly, the atmosphere got better with every song, the audience wanted to party, and well, of course, Kaizers delivered the perfect basis for that! They were in a great mood, were really getting things going and were obviously having lots of fun on stage. And as the time schedule wasn’t as tight as on other festivals, they had the time to do some talking in between the songs and to do weird things on stage once in a while. Did I just say “once in a while”? *rofl*
First the setlist: They started off like always with Ompa til du dør, followed by Bøn fra helvete and Hevnervals. After that, rock’n’roll with Container, gypsy music with Veterans klage, and dancing with Mann mot mann and Di grind. Then, as always, Kontroll på kontinentet and following that the return of Dr. Mowinckel. The last song was Evig pint, and as encore they played the complete Gypsy Finale, finally including Sigøynerblod again.
At the stand-up bass they had Prince William with them this time, as Thunder was playing at Roskilde that weekend with Cloroform. It was the first time I have seen Prince William, and I gotta say, not bad… indeed, not bad at all! *gg*
The atmosphere was great right from the beginning, and we had to scream “hallelujah” and “hell yeah” and so on all the time, and everybody was screaming along enthusiastically, even outside the tent. “Do you love us?” – Hey, of course, no doubt about it! And the atmosphere on stage seemed to be as hot as in the audience, the six were in constant movement (okay, they always are *g*), they fed on each other and pushed themselves up and were getting better song after song – wow! The Jackal was busy shaking hands and congratulating his band collegues for their great accomplishments all the time, and if he didn’t get a hand to shake, he was also satisfied with a crowbar… =;-)
Veterans klage was very impressive, cause they were in it with total bodily effort (waah, anybody got some words to spare? This was so great, and I have no idea how to get across what I want to say *g*). Before the last “Hjelp meg!”, Killmaster stopped the Jackal, cause he needed to switch bats before the final, the short, small bat wouldn’t do, he needed the big one for the last blow! =;-)
Of course the Jackal asked again how many Danish people were there, how many Finnish, how many Norwegian people (somehow most people raised their hands for all of these questions, well, okay, it’s hard to tell which question is “serious” and which isn’t *gg*). And who’s from Sweden? “Now, get our right now!”
Before Dr. Mowinckel was played we learned that oil barrels are indeed instruments, when Hellraizer charmingly indicated to the Jackal that he was standing in the wrong place and should be playing the oil barrel right now… “Oh yeah, I’m playing that instrument now.” – “That instrument? So that IS an instrument now?” *lol* This thought seemed to bother Hellraizer a lot, he even had to philosophize on it two days later at the other festival… *g* Dr. Mowinckel was terrific, as always, Hellraizer as frontman, the Jackal doing the hard work, and the audience celebrating…
After Evig pint, the Jackal didn’t want to leave the stage, Hellraizer had to convince him rather rudely to get off the stage. But only for a short time, then they all returned on stage hand in hand, stood in the middle of the stage for some time and let the audience celebrate them, and then they continued with the Gypsy Finale – but only after making sure that everybody in the audience could stand up to that! Killmaster pointed out that one guy in the audience didn’t look as if he could take it, and together with the Jackal he advised him to take two steps back [aehem, right into the mosh pit, yeah, that was smart… *rofl* hmm, just a comment *g*]. So then they played Sigøynerblod, Minken answered the request “Faster, Minken!” with a hearty “Fuck you!”, and then they played it even faster. =;-)
Aehem, yeah, and then there was the sunflower. On both sides of the stage, there were big buckets with sunflowers in them, and at some point in time, Hellraizer took one. For the rest of the Gypsy Finale, he was running around on stage with the sunflower in his hand, but somehow it wasn’t very useful for batting on the oil barrels… *rofl* After that, it looked a little battered, but it was still good enough to serve to conduct the audience during the choir part and to decorate Minken’s drum set afterward…
In the end, it was Hellraizer who didn’t want to leave the stage and who had to be dragged off by the Jackal and Killmaster, but hey, I can’t blame him! I also didn’t want them to got… =;-)
So, in any case this concert gets at least 15 points on a scale from 1 to 10, it was the best Kaizers concert I’ve seen so far, and this concert alone was worth all the efforts of the weekend!
But the weekend wasn’t over yet, after Kaizers there were other bands playing, and the next day, the festival went on, among others with La Vela Puerca, who were very good too. Everything was great! Except for the Swiss prices maybe, and the mud, and the cold at night, everything else was great and terrific and awesome… *sigh*