Pothead - Pumpe, Kiel, Germany 10/21/05
From Aural Innovations #32 (November 2005)
It is 416km from Copenhagen to Kiel and it takes about 5hrs with stops. Hell yeah, it was worth it for the Pothead rock and roll show. Tom, Peter and I arrived about 19:00 at the Peanuts Hostel and pretty much checked in and went to the train station to get Euros and then off to where the club was. We had a nice Chinese dinner around the corner from the club and arrived a few minutes before 21:00 and the club was pretty full. I guess the place holds about 800 and it was probably 550 people. The club, Pumpe is really cool with this giant pump in the middle of the area that breaks the place into bar and the music room. The music room has a great high stage and sound system as well. Right at 21:30, the band hits the stage and they would rock for the next nearly 2 hours, coming back for 3 encores. The band opened with "Rock Child" from their latest studio record, Tuf Luv. Sound was great. Brad (singer, guitarist) and Jeff (bass), were dressed in black suits with white ties and they looked very sharp! Next up was a song I did not know which went into the great sing along anthem, "Wild Weed!" "Year of the Rat" has a great classic heavy metal guitar riff and is a great song from the Pot of Gold EP. "Chess" must be one of their classic songs they nearly always play. "Dr. De Structo" was dedicated to George W Bush as it is quite a strong worded anti-war song. "Could Not Deal" has a killer groove and people were dancing like mad. Next they brought it down along with one of my all time favorite Pothead tracks, "I'm a Sinner Too", from Desiccated Soup. Great vocals. The light show was very cool at times and sometimes just a bit too much the same, like the guy had a very limited number of lights or something?? Anyway, "You Should Talk" and "Down by Law" followed. The band rocked hard with "Fire" and "Funkenbus". They next played a few old ones (remember this bands first release was in 1993!) - "All Those Memories" (released as a single without the bands permission), "Saul and Black War" (a crowd favorite. The crowd was really into it and singing a long and this surprised me because the band had never played in Kiel before. "Constantinople" is another heavy one from the Tuf Luv CD. "Sidewinder" and "Dope Says Nope" ended the concert at about 100 minutes. The band came back and played two encore songs and then left again. 3 minutes later, they came back and played one of my favorite Pothead songs, "Indian Song", and then they played Peter's favorite song, "Henry and Mabel". I thought they were for sure finished but they came back again and played "Run", another of my favorite Pothead songs. The band did not return despite the sound and lights guys thinking that they might and the crowd yelling for more. It was a great rock and roll night. Pothead could be one of those stadium rock bands if the rest of the world really heard them. They play great rock songs and ballads and just plain rock and roll. Check them out you won't be disappointed.
Set List: Rock Child, ?, Wild Weed, Year of the Rat, Chess, ?, Dr. De Structo, Could not Deal, I'm a Sinner Too, ?, You should Talk, Down by Law, Fire, Funkenbus, ?, All those Memories, Saul, ?, ?, Black War, Constantinople, Sidewinder, Dopes says Nope, ?, ?, The Indian Song, Henry and Mabel, Run
For more information you can visit the Pothead web site at: http://www.pothead.de.
Reviewed by Scott Heller