For all of us non-Berliners and perhaps Berliners alike, what does that world-famous term ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’ really mean? Berlin is like an orphan village and being a Berliner possibly means as much as being absolutely nothing and everything all at once and creating a sort of identity in the pool of so much is confusing and daunting, but! – don’t be scared! ‘Hab Keine Angst’.
An event with this title obviously creates intrigue for anyone nearby…And so, me, as a new ‘Berliner’ had to go check it out. I definitely realised and got to know a little stone of this city that was perhaps before unknown to me, namely, that this is the city where it really doesn’t matter. You can live your life. And tell anyone who doesn’t like it or looks down on upon it to ‘fuck off’.
It felt like we created a complete circle of love
We came a touch too early to SO36 and a most beautiful french rocker with silver makeup and a great accent told us how to get into the venue…
Candice Gordon was up first and gave the vocal performance that makes any woman feel empowered and ready to just say ‘fuck yeah, I am the queen of life!’ She has such a natural and influential nature when she plays and sings, it’s mesmerising to just stand and watch. Yet, the crowd responded with so much movement and joy, it created a whole other dimension to the performance.
Though the stage was very much hers and her band’s from the get-go, it was beautiful to see her reaction to these crowd’s delight; you could see that it was just as mesmerising and ecstatic for her to be there as it was for us below. It felt like we created a complete circle of love. (Yes, luurve). Candice, from Ireland, has been making music in and around Berlin (and Germany) for the past few years and has a really cool pledge project going for her next album release. I think it’s worth checking out.
Lolita was good!!
After came Lolita Terrorist Sounds with not only a magnificent man in mask introducing the whole set, but also an illustrator/artist, Reinhard Kleist, who sketched images of (mainly) frontman Maurizio Vitale, with utmost skill in a real time projection behind the band.
Lolita was good!! Wow. Being a kid from the 80s, and knowing bands like Nick Cave and Joy Division, I was incredibly happy that something raw like these bands was still out there for young people to see. (Not that the crowd was filled with 20 year-olds, hardly…) but it was good; performance meeting music.
Drums and synth. His voice ranging from coarse and intense to soft and painful and in one song it even sounded like an islamic prayer. And in Berlin, you say “Yes! Why not?”. Let all the preconceived ideas about music, style and genre fly out the window and let something new fly in. Yes, you can judge. But is it really worth it? Lolita Terrorist Sounds was musically, rhythmically and visually a pleasure to see.
So, last. An instrumental session of Mikey Woodbridge, that possibly did not perfectly fit into the last slot of the night, but was nevertheless soulful and haunting. Mikey him/herself dressed in all-white and cat-like makeup, simply accompanied by a guitarist. It was raw and beautiful, simple and a good way to end the night…
It’s about the individual and putting yourself on stage in front of a crowd of people and having something to say
After the gig was over I still had a lot of discussion about the bands, what it means to be you and I do think it was an excellent choice of musicians to represent, musically and visually, what it means to be yourself without fear of judgement and preconception. It’s about the individual and putting yourself on stage in front of a crowd of people and having something to say. All three bands this night managed to do this in such different ways.
Long live SO36 and the bands that play at this venue.
Great photos of the night can be seen on the Photography by Pluto Facebook page.
Review by Ines Soutschka, photos by Christoph Puppe
