die apokalyptischen reiter live

This was intended by Rock City to be a three band bill, with a local support added at the last minute. Sadly, none of the main Nottingham acts could make themselves available, so we were left with just the two. As a consequence, Rock City did not open the doors for the gig until after 8pm and the waiting crowd filtered off into local drinking establishments for some much needed refreshment. I do wonder whether this affected the crowd numbers somewhat, not least because most local acts would bring in their own crowds but also because of the cold weather endured by those wondering around outside. Ultimately, about fifty people watched the show - a rather small crowd even for a Rock City basement show on a Sunday.

Attica Rage are an unsigned act which has been doing the rounds quite extensively recently, including a number of quite sizeable festivals. They have been doing rather well for themselves and I was interested in seeing what they could do on stage. Musically, they are a mixture of styles - bits of stoner rock, bits of Pantera-esque riffing and some Sabbath like melodic songwriting. It's a combination that usually goes down quite well with me.

For me, their set was an up and down affair, with highlights and low points in equal measure. It's hard to define what it is that was missing, but it is almost as if the "glue" to hold songs and set together was in short supply. One or two songs sounded as if they needed to be cut apart in order to create two good songs instead of one mediocre song. To be honest, this is far from a rare failing on the amateur scene and can be directed at so many bands. I guess this is the real reason behind having a good producer directing the recording of an album - to pluck out the best ideas and have them developed.

On a more positive note, there was no faulting their ability to play, especially lead guitarist Stephen Bell, who treated us to some displays of guitar virtuosity that definitely withstood the scrutiny of a seasoned axe-man like myself. The rest of the band were more than worthy of the stage that they were standing on. The only two downsides of the gig were a lack of real movement, due mostly to the size of the headline act's equipment, and vocals slipping out of tune. The latter is usually due to inadequate monitoring on stage, which I think was the issue here. Of the former, more in a short while...

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter are one of those bands that I failed to see at Bloodstock Open Air, despite the fact that my band's singer was acting as their liaison. Personally, I blame it on the beer and excellent company around the VIP area... OK, you're obviously not convinced by the second half of that statement, so let's just blame the beer! I'm sure that as Germans, the guys from Reiter will understand a beer frenzy more than most.

In between the two sets, the road crew from Reiter were doing a rather drawn out line check, including a great deal of messing about with a wide vartiety of drum equipment. Twenty minutes passed during which the crowd was subjected to drum hit after drum hit. Don't get me wrong, I am aware that line checks are sometimes necessary, but this one seemed both overly focussed on drums and shouldn't really have been needed for a headline band. There are several drums that are installed on stage separate from the drum kit, including one which appears to be a bass drum on a custom mouting at head height.

When the band actually hit the stage, the first thing the crowd sees is a man walking on stage in a long black fighters' cloak, the back of which reads "Doctor Pest". No small amount of fanfare later, someone removes the cloak for him and the audience is treated to the sight of a man dressed in bondage gear and a gimp mask with spikes on it. I suppose it makes the keyboard player stand out more, but I'm not sure that the fanfare was warranted for fifty people. I can see this working quite well on a bigger stage with a larger crowd, but it fell a bit flat on a barely raised platform in front of a rather sparse crowd. He then heads over to his keyboards and sits on a large bondage swing which takes up about a sixth of the small stage in the Rock City Basement.

To be honest, this was all a distraction from the main event, which was the quality metal provided by the Reiter set. Their sound, for the uninitiated, is a combination of styles - originally more influenced by death metal and thrash with a mild spattering of industrial-esque metal, they have more recently thrown in an even more eclectic series of influences (including jazz). Musically, the band was pretty much faultless all the way through the show. Vocalist Fuchs was like a man powered by a dynamo - the further through the set it got, the more energy the man put into jumping around that stage. It turns out that climbing the PA stacks at Rock City Basement still looks good, even if they are only about 8 foot tall - it would still be more fun to see him climb the stacks at a festival I think.

About half way though the gig, the band moves from their chosen instruments and walks to the front of the stage. What follows is an impromptu interlude filled with a synchronised drumming display which lasts maybe two to three minutes. Whilst it was interesting in itself, it really wasn't worth the additional line check time just to provide the audience with something different. I think I would rather have seen another song. In fact, I am sure that this (like the fanfare for the man in the gimp mask) would have been better on a large stage. A few more gimmicks came out a little later, including a blow up boat containing a woman dragged from the audience. Yet again, this all but failed to impress because there were far too few people - almost half the crowd was required to hold the dinghy in the air and the poor girl looked like she was fearing for her life.

All in all, this was a pretty decent gig that I hadn't expected to find so interesting. I also didn't expect to be laughing at a keyboardist for anything but their choice of instrument, but I found the gimp mask and bondage gear hilarious. That said, the gimmicks fell flat for me because of the low scale of the gig. I think that Reiter may have done better to leave those aside for bigger shows and concentrate on the music. If they had, this would have been a 100% positive review.

by Kev McCarthy