Gas Giant and Rotor - Kulturhof, Lübbenau, Germany 6/7/03
From Aural Innovations #24 (July 2003)
Damn it is warm here and we drank a lot of beers. The Rotor guys were waiting for us when we arrive. They are very cool but we have a small problem and they did not bring any cabinets and we only have guitar cabinets. We have to improvise and use one of Stefan’s guitar cabinets for bass. It is a small place with a small stage and PA but soundcheck goes ok. We play most of "Never Leave", "Firetripper", "Phantom Tanker" and a tease of "If 6 was 9". Rotor was quite cool, a bit like Karma To Burn, an instrumental 3 piece band from Berlin.
We have potato salad and schnitzel for dinner and more beers. We wait and hope that some people come as this is a smallish town. It turns out about 75 people come, which is enough of a crowd to have a good time in this place. Rotor start about 10:30 and the crowd is a mixture of all types of music lovers, punks, gray long haired folks, and normal working class people. A lot seem to be friends of Kalle, the guy who put up the gig. Rotor play about 45 minutes and have a cool set but it is all riffs and few if any guitar solos. The drummer is very good and reminds me of Mani from Colour Haze. Their last song is really different from all the rest they played and I like it a lot, also very long. I talk to the band afterwards and they are not very satisfied with the way they played tonight. They said the show last night was much better and they had two guest vocalists as well.
We hit the stage just before 12 and everyone is in good sprits, some had a little nap. We have little space intro tonight and kick right into "There’s One". I experiment a bit and I get the feeling the synth is very low in the mix as when I make what I think is a loud sound I get no reaction from the audience at all. Anyway, Stefan is rocking and plays some ripping leads. "Moonshake" is really great today. Very powerful. "All Creatures" rocks like hell and the people are really getting into it. "Dragons Cave" is pretty straight today. No ending jam. "Ride The Red" is the same as the night before, tight and flying. I experiment a lot in "Back On The Headless Track" and Stefan plays some cool guitar. "Phantom Tanker" is next and Jesper freaks Tommy and I out by singing totally nonsense lyrics for the first two verses. It sounds great though when he puts more delay on his voice for this one. Stefan plays the guitar section quite strangely on this one. We go for "Too Stoned" next and I just love the totally R&R morning on this one. I thought we were skipping "Firetripper" but we go for it and it is hard and heavy and the punks are all dancing and slamming around! Jesper does not use the congas but we do extend the groove a few bars anyway. "Storm Of My Enemies" is just incredible this night and the audience really responds and wants more but we are totally wasted after the 22 minute jam. Unfortunately, the minidisk ran out and we missed about a minute around the 19 minute mark. We rehearsed "Never Leave" at the sound check but the band is not up for it, or at least Stefan is not. Another cool concert. I talk with the fans and they really liked the show a lot. We stay up until 3-4 drinking and smoking joints with Rotor. Cool guys but it is sometimes hard to communicate with the German people as they struggle with English and we don’t speak German!
Set List: Space Intro, There’s One, Moonshake, All Creatures, Dragons Cave, Ride the Red Horse, Back on the Headless Track>Jam, Phantom Tanker, Too Stoned, Firetipper, Storm of My Enemies>Jam
I crash at 3:30 but am up by 8. Can’t sleep anymore even though I tried to drink a lot beers last night.
Reviewed by Scott Heller