Sonic Faces - Day Two

The Rejects, Carefree, Torpid, Kitshickers, Blue Room, Tiger Fernandez, Toxkäpp, BSE and S.M.U.S. at the Kulturfabrik (Esch/Alzette) on December 21st, 2001

Years ago, there used to be the Hierschtrock and Schluechtrock festivals at the Kulturfabrik, but then everything faded away, new smaller festivals were born. When 3 different organisations noticed this year that all of them wanted to organise the same type of festival at the same moment in time (Christmas vacation), they decided to get together and do something really big. Radio ARA's Bloe Baaschtert, the people behind the "A Sak Voll Véi" festivals and the KuFa itself finally managed to come up with more than 20 local bands during 3 days.

The first day was the introduction of the Elektrofabrik, a new project of the KuFa whose goal it is to promote electronic music. Definitely not my cup of tea, which is why I stayed off grounds on Thursday.

Day Two - 21.12.2001

The second day was the so-called alternative rock and punk evening... and also the day I was looking forward to mostly. I will try to keep this summary short and concise, and also try to find a photo for every band that played, as I took more than 150 pics during the two evening I was there.

The Rejects were the first band to play on Friday night. Normally it's a very ungrateful job to do, but they immediately had a lot of people pogo-dancing in the front row. The Rejects used to be Against Again, who used to be The Rejects, who were born out of Time Sickness. So much for their biography. Their music was very raw, straight punk rock, and next to Rëff the only serious street punk band in Luxembourg. Their very young age doesn't prevent The Rejects from having the attitude of streetwise old punks. In afterthought, this was already the first highlight of the festival.

Afterwards, it went on in a more melodic way with Carefree. They also are a very young band, and show that the renaissance of the local punk movement is not only full of great bands, but also that there is a lot of variety. Progressive punk might be a label fitting well to Carefree's music. What used to be ska-tinged in the past has become a subtle combination of punk, rock, metal and sometimes even classical music. Only the singer's performance was somehow colourless. The music is so rich and dense that a better singer would emphasise the qualities of this young and hopeful band even more.

Then something happened I had waited for a really long time. Torpid are maybe the best local alternative band at the moment. Maybe I sound as if I am dealing out too much praise here, but then Friday night really started out with some awesome bands. Torpid are only a three-piece, but the fact that some people thought their music is too complicated shows that they are masters at what they are doing. It's not really progressive music, but very abstract and angular it is at moments. We used to call this math rock when I was younger, and I guess that would still be a nice way to put it. The vocals sometimes add commercial touches to the music, which is a really good way to give people a break from too much instrumental adventures. A great gig by a great band.

Then came the Kitshickers. Their singer was involved a lot in the organisation of the festival by the way. I haven't seen them too often in the past, but they had a very energetic high voltage evening. As they were the fourth band already, they had the bad luck that my attention was a bit diverted after having drunk already more than I should have, but I was still (or barely) sober enough to enjoy their music. Especially Boris' performance on the tuba was unforgettable like always.

Blue Room... well forget them, really. So many great bands are being born monthly in Luxembourg so that we don't need some Staind clone. No photo from them therefore.

Tiger Fernandez seem to be more contested that I imagined, but I still think that they are one of the most professional bands. Yes, they have heard Tool more than once, but Sim actually has a great voice, so why not use it? Again I would have enjoyed this more if I had drunk less, but that's life, isn't it? I missed Gull on the guitar though, but if you have the chance to see this band, don't miss them.

Toxkäpp are something like stars in Luxembourg. Since they gave up punk for a more classical ska approach, they have gained a lot of fans. Have they become better? Yes and no, at the same time. Their old rather primitive punk songs had a lot of charm, and ska was something they only used here and there, but now they have band members playing saxophone and keyboards. I still like what they do, and the way they do it is really remarkable, but there is less fun in their music than there used to be. Still, after The Rejects, Toxkäpp were the first band this night to have the audience dancing again.

The same way Toxkäpp filled the room, BSE made it empty even faster. I know that some people consider BSE to be legendary, and their first CD was kinda cool when it was released years ago, but they as well as their music are dated now. Really, they are old men, and a singer who apparently is a non-alcoholic. Somehow it was maybe funny, but mostly in a way that they were not ashamed of making fools of themselves. Example: the song "Fussball" had three weirdoes in soccer clothes dancing to the music. That seemed to me like some carnival thing and was not even funny. What made them really bad was the singer's performance. First, he has a really bad voice, and second he looked fake to me. When you sing about soccer, you have to be drunk, that's a fact. I even saw him drinking a coke after the gig. Bluuurghhh!

Last band for the night was S.M.U.S. To me it would have sucked to play so late, but I think to remember that they were really good. In some way, there are parallels to Toxkäpp. Both bands have gone through major transformations. S.M.U.S. used to be 100% surf music, but they evolved into a really interesting garage rock band that combines shake'n'roll with a weird B-movie sex appeal thing. Sure, they are not really technical on their instruments (except for Patrick who is God), but there is a chemistry that is working alright. Now I just have to convince their drummer to become more tolerant of people who like to drink and drive.