Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Vaz / St. Poelten / Austria
Concert date: 22.08.2009
Attendance: 70
Seven years, seven FreQuency festivals, and not a single one without rain. For the seventh time in a row, FreQuency got “washed out”. Properly, nastily washed out. Not on day one, not on day two, but on day three. You wake up in the morning as wishy-washy as the weather. You try to psych yourself up with a ridiculously cheap breakfast at the nearby “bowling” club, crunching on crispy kaiser rolls, then pop into Media Markt for bargain CDs that the shelves of Slovenian shops will never see, and? Outside it’s still pissing down and the feeling of total misery just won’t go away. What’s going to happen to the camera in a downpour like this? How long will my “All-Stars” stay dry? Five minutes? Ten, if I’m lucky? And the mud, mud, mud…. Damn mud everywhere. I’ll be covered in crap again! At the campsite, at the festival! By 2 p.m. St. Pölten had turned into a land of mud, swampy views and dismal grayness as far as the human eye could focus! Believe me, there’s no worse plague at festivals than rain. And the damn rain, as a rule, is always there at festivals.
RACE STAGE:
| PORT O’BRIEN: 15.25-15.55 |
This Californian quartet tells an interesting indie rock story, blending rock elements with American folk (country) and built on pure, organic, natural-sounding acoustic foundations. The sound is driven above all by guitars, banjo (hop-la, there you go!!!) and the warm, southern-twangy, nasal vocals of Van Pierszalowski, which in this kind of music are not just warmly recommended but downright required. Of course, without the mockery of hellions like Heyseed Dixie, and with a lot more urban calm and overall control in both the vocals and the instrumental delivery. The band played in a full downpour, and almost 1000 people gathered beneath the stage, their curiosity giving them no peace despite the miserable weather. And they were richly rewarded. Port O’Brien are a band worth every ounce of your attention. They’re real oddballs, hard to compare to similar bands. On top of that, they’re sparkling entertainers with a great sense of humor and an approach of pure positivity.
THE SOUNDS: 16.20 – 16.50
After Port O`Brien, the stage was taken over by Swedish new wave outfit The Sounds, where, besides the music, the temperature is raised by the hot Maja Ivarsson. Since 1999, in an unchanged lineup, she has been flanked by a quartet of handsome young lads: guitarist and one of the main lyricists Felix Rodriguez, bassist Johan Bengtsson, guitarist, keyboardist and another lyricist Jesper Anderberg, and drummer Fredrik Nilsson. The band has released three studio albums so far. The latest record, “Crossing the Rubicon”, saw the light of day at the start of this summer, and even though it still smells strongly of freshness, the crowd already knows the songs well. Worth singling out are the lead single “No One Sleeps When I`m Awake”, plus “4 Songs & A Fight” and “Dorchester Hotel”, since those are the songs that drove the Frequency crowd wild. Of course the band didn’t forget their debut, “Living in America”, which they touched on with “Hope You`re Happy Now”. Most of the playlist came from the second album, “Dying to Say This to You”, with “Tony The Beat”, “Painted By Numbers” and “Ego”, the record that brought the band fame on a wider scale. Mainly thanks to “Running Out Of Turbo”, which was used in both CSI: Miami and the MTV series The Hills. Even though it rained relentlessly, the heated crowd couldn’t have cared less. Ponchos or no ponchos, the partying only got wilder with every song played.
THE SUBWAYS: 17.20 – 18.10
British trio The Subways are definitely one of the better bands to have emerged in the last few years. Not only do all three members, singer and guitarist Billy Lunn, bassist Charlotte Cooper and drummer Josh Morgan, have incredible charisma and energy, the same goes for their songs, which practically beg you to sing along. The dozen songs they played come from their two studio albums, the debut „Young For Eternity” and the second one, „All Or Nothing”. Even though more than a year has passed since the last album, the trio is already working on new songs, and if Lunn’s words are to be believed, the third full-length should see the light of day in the first half of next year. The crowd, already warmed up by The Sounds, was sent back into ecstasy by Subways hits like “Young For Eternity”, “Shake! Shake!”, “I Won`t Let You Down”, “I Wan`t To Hear What You Have Got To Say” and “Girls And Boys”. The dozen was rounded off by the one and only “Rock`n`Roll Queen”, which Brit Guy Ritchie used in his film “Rocknrolla”. Despite some sadly omitted songs (“This Is The Club For People Who Hate People”, “Strawberry Blonde”), the girl and the two guys threw a genuine, muddy rock party, comparable to the April Fool’s one in Graz. Only their success has grown a bit since then, as they recently warmed up the stage in London for the legendary old-timers AC/DC.
EDITORS: 18.40 – 19.30
The year 2002 dropped the British band Editors onto the music scene. The lineup is singer, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist Tom Smith, Chris Urbanowicz, who tames a synthesizer on top of lead guitar, bassist Russell Leetch, and drummer and percussionist Ed Lay. Their discography includes two platinum studio albums, the 2005 debut “The Back Room” and its 2007 successor “An End Has A Start”. The third album, “In This Light And On This Evening”, is due in mid-October, and you can already hear its first single, “Papillon”, on the radio, which quietly hints that this will be another successful Editors album. Further confirmation came from “Bricks And Mortar”, “Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool” and “The Big Exit”, which the Frequency crowd welcomed with open arms. Of course, we can’t ignore that the loudest applause goes to their older hits “Munich” and “Bones” from the debut, which earned the band its first notable Mercury Prize nomination in 2006, and “The Racing Rats”, “An End Has A Start” and “Smokers Outside The Hospital Door ” from the second full-length. Even though the foursome seems rather static despite their playful songs, most of the attention goes to Smith, who takes over most of the stage with his jumping and writhing, and whose feet don’t spare the keyboards either, which, surprisingly, were still in one piece at the end of the set.
| MIA.: 20.00-21.00 |
What would Nova Rock or FreQuency even do without Mia.? They probably wouldn’t exist at all. The same goes when we think back to the “German punk rock doctors” Die Ärtzte and their offshoot Farin Urlaub Racing Team. Mia. simply have to play. This year they weren’t at Nova Rock, they were there last year. But never mind! Now they’re at FreQuency! First things first, let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t the garage punk rockers M.I.A. from the USA, but the super-successful German band from Berlin, fronted by singer and “kitten” Mieze Katz. Their set was the only moment on the Race Stage where the alternative rock vibe veered off toward pop rock ditties. Mia. do “bang out” some guitar-forward pop rock dominated by Mieze’s vocals. But a person freed from the shackles of any Germanness can’t be moved by it in the slightest. Mia. are champions in Germany and Austria. That and nothing more is what they’ll stay for the rest of their musical career. The lyrics are, logically, mostly in German. The band is doing very well commercially, so they made sure to dress the stage with a special film projection that ran throughout the show. Mia. cut through the bulk of their biggest hits and added a few novelties from the current studio album “Wilkommen im Club” (2008) to the repertoire. Not even the scantily clad bunny Mieze, changing outfits between songs, could breathe life into the deadpan truth that Mia. are a band with precious little unique spirit or charisma of their own. When gray mice squeak in German. A mile away from the charisma of eighties German supergroup Nena.
| MANDO DIAO: 21.30-22.30 |
Mando Diao! A new kind of exotic fruit from Madagascar? No, no! Just the Swedish darlings of the new MTV wave, a slightly more whinnying copy of The Beatles, doused in punk revivals of garage rock, not to mention the hairdos, took their positions on a stage that was already thoroughly saturated with thick fog, through which you could barely make out the outlines of the backdrop, covered with a huge banner showing the artwork of the band’s current studio album “Give Me Fire”. Interestingly, the band started raising hell with Sheepdog from the debut “Bring ‘Em In” (2002). The quintet was in a good mood, there wasn’t much time for excessive chatter this time, and the band rolled out song after song. The crowd didn’t care about who, what, where, why…. Starving, it soaked up the energy of its heroes on stage. No need to mention how fanatically the crowd joined in, especially singing the choruses along with the band. All eyes were glued to the moves of the pretty boys on stage. The audience coped very well during Mando Diao with the cold that had gnawed deep into their bones from skin soaked by a whole day of rain, while I moved to the VIP area and preferred to watch the rest of the show from a distance.
The sound and the performance were top-notch, and the band, with a few hits like Good Morning, Herr Horst, TV & Me, Ochrasy, If I Don’t Leave Today, I Might Me Here Tomorrow, kept the audience right there with them. Especially in the closing stretch, when after the hit Gloria and especially God Knows they kicked off the encore with their most current MTV pitch, Dance With Somebody, and festival-goers were bobbing their heads on the grounds even hundreds of meters from the stage, proof that the energy of the Mando Diao party was contagious. For the finale the band pulled one more ace out of its sleeve, the hit Long Before Rock’N’ Roll, quickly packed up and vanished into the night. The ecstatic Austrian youth only calmed down with difficulty once it sank in that Mando Diao weren’t coming back on stage. Oh, if only they knew what had already happened in this world before Mando Diao. But okay. They’re young and they’re pretty, prettier than The Beatles 45 years ago. And they’re on MTV. A great little concert, but one that felt a lot like naked contractual obligation, among other things.
| THE PRODIGY: 23.00-00.30 |
The notorious electro-punk trio The Prodigy were the festival’s biggest name, granted the honor of closing it out. I was busy with SKA-P’s set, so I missed The Prodigy’s show. Eyewitnesses told me they expected more, and that the band came to show, first and foremost, a whole lot of routine, a lack of feeling, and the sense that they couldn’t wait to disappear backstage. The show, spiced up with excellent stage lighting and light effects, seemed impressive at first glance, but The Prodigy somehow failed or didn’t want to reach their stage maximum. A rather pale attitude toward the crowd and a performance full of restraint. People expected more, and after a whole day of waiting in horrifyingly bad weather, with the rain getting even heavier during The Prodigy, they definitely deserved more than the sheer robotism the band served up.
GREEN STAGE
On day three, the Green Stage was mostly occupied by German-speaking bands, with the exception of headliner Ska-P. A shame. The organizer is obviously forced to save a euro or two as well. Compared with the Race Stage line-up, which boasted far more resonant names, there was really nothing to look for below the Green Stage until Ska-P, unless you missed the ambience of Slovenia’s Rock Otočec festival and wanted to take a proper bath in mud and steaming stench.
| MANDY TANKYS: 14.05-14.45 |
Well, what can you do! You had to give yourself a kick, pull yourself together, get going. Yes. Yes. It was almost empty beneath the green stage. Not even a single photographer was crazy enough to stand in the full downpour and devote themselves to the (only) locally significant band Mandy Tankys. Cheerfully carefree punk rockers from Austria, brimming with major-key motifs, simply stepped onto the stage facing a truly desolate landscape. Scattered “lost souls” drifted across the lawn, rigged out against the rain in the most incredible ways, so you didn’t know whether to focus on the Teletubbies parade or Mandy Tankys’ set. The band gave its best in such conditions. The lads play nicely. Into their sermon, written in the basics of punk rock, they weave a nice dose of melody, perfectly compatible with the riff foundation. A song like In League With The Devil, which we got to hear among others, shows that Mandy Tankys have some potential. The question is whether they’ll ever break out of their (merely) local significance.
| AULETTA: 15.00-15.40 |
The Germans from Mainz, of course, don’t give a hoot about English lyrics. Makes sense, otherwise they’d look even more like the sea of similar bands that stick to an organic sound, a mix of pop rock, punk and milder ska elements. The band has a sweetener, which shows in their feel for melodic compactness and a really lovely boyish voice that sings clean, with no screechy vocal-cord breaking. The boys can play. That goes not just for the tight rhythm section, but also for the two guitars, which know how to throw in a fitting (if minimalist) transitional “twist” in many places, adding some movement to the otherwise predictable compactness of the songs. Auletta are very listenable young rockers who, with songs like Pöbelei & Poesie, Ein Engel kein König, Mein Stadt and Herz von Herz, convinced me that there’s a band on the horizon who will very likely leave a mark on the German and Austrian mainstream that will be impossible to ignore. The band also outdid its predecessors Mandy Tankys by releasing a much bigger bag of signs of life into the space through active stage play (movement).
| SEBASTIAN STURM: 16.05-16.45 |
The German performer served up pure-blooded reggae, the only act to do so in the three days of the festival. A guy of Indonesian roots with a giant “dreadlocked head bush”, who released his second solo studio effort “One Moment In Peace” last year, he had some sound problems before the set, so we had to be patient for a few extra minutes before Sebastian and his backing band Jin Jin got going. What matters? The Jamaican “eloquence” in delivering verses. 100% successful. In the gray of the sky’s laundry cycle, a sun rose on stage, bubbling over with positive vibes of optimism, faith in peace, love and giving yourself over to celebrating the joy of life. An excellently functioning band with Sebastian’s charismatic figure conjured up a truly first-class reggae show with sensual stage chemistry, and so brought a nice change of pace to the festival. Sadly the weather killed some of the effects, which in such conditions couldn’t come into their own the way they would have under hot sun rays. The crowd was simply missing.
| POLARKREIS 18: 17.10-17.50 |
Yet another commercially hugely successful bunch of kids, this time from Dresden in the Saxony part of Germany, the sextet Polarkreis 18, delighted the rain-soaked crowd on the green stage as they presented their second studio album “The Colour Of Snow” (2009). So that lovers of ice and snow wouldn’t accidentally mix them up with Snow Patrol, Polarkreis 18 dressed up in white “Star Trek” jumpsuits. Of course, musically they’re cut from a completely different cloth. These boys add plenty of synth playing and electronics to the basic sound, so they sound kind of “independent” and electronic. But of course there are seductive, easily won melodies, danceable rhythms, utterly simple rhymes and the neotenic voice of the lead vocalist, who once again dutifully delivers German verses, something that can’t be “independent” even in a dream. They especially got the kids squealing when they tackled the hit Allein Allein. It’s a somewhat different band that was even interesting to a degree. But on the other hand, it wasn’t hard to feel that it’s made of quickly melting sugar, and above all the boys’ light, “feminine” vocals, as well as their feminine look and the androgynous sleepwalking gestures, are a real turn-off!
| MONO & NIKITAMAN: 18.35-19.10 |
The shock of a non-German like me didn’t fade by the green stage. After the neotenic larvae from Mars Polarkreis 18, who are probably still losing their baby teeth, getting acquainted with the first bristles of pubic hair, absolutely refuse to mutate, and around whom the area below the stage was smoking with madness (or rather, let’s say the mud was squirting up to the sky), the crowd didn’t calm down even after the male-female duo with the utterly daft name Mono&Nikitaman took the stage. The main players in the whole point of the duo are Monika Jaksch and Nick Tilstra. Obviously the German mainstream is strong enough to seal itself hermetically inside itself, self-generate, and feed a rich palette of performers, this duo among them. Sampled underbeats combined with basic drums, twisting synthesizer sounds and Tilstra’s noisy rap-style chanting, answered in the choruses by Monika’s “gentler” little voice, are obviously fashion craze number one even among the dimwitted, flustered, fluff-covered Austrians. Dance rhythms, a performance with a lot of gymnastics and precious little melody or organic feel was enough for a general wave of enthusiasm for the next 40 minutes. Oh my, what comes next?
| THOMAS D: 19.55-20.35 |
Much of the previous paragraph is confirmed by the next performer too. With the difference that German rapper Thomas D, known for being a member of hip-hoppers Fantastisches Vier, brought back a bit more groundedness to the stage with his backing crew, which included wind instruments as well as female backing vocals. Dance rhythms, but everything on stage works in sync, committed, with firm focus. It all revolves around Thomas, the prime generator of fun, and the crowd is eating out of his hand. Absolutely German lyrics. Anyone who got fired up at Peter Fox on the first day could find a touch of similar energetic vibe during this set, albeit with much, much less stage pomp.
| CULCHA CANDELA: 21.25-22.25 |
The set by a band with as many as six lead vocalists and a DJ twiddling knobs in the background was the cherry on top of the German mainstream promenade on the green stage of this year’s FreQuency, one that could actually leave behind severe inflammation of the auditory receptor organs, not to say inflammation of the brain’s association cortex. The bulk of FreQuency was at that time watching the set by Swedish nu-“Beatle” rock beauties Mando Diao on the Race Stage, but that didn’t faze Culcha Candela, who dragged along a real pile of stage clutter with a big monitor that caricatured the point of each song played, led by Schöne neue Welt. Dance, dance, dance. Party, fun. Trilingual lyrics in German, Spanish and English. A mix of hip-hopping and Latino rhythms. The polished stage play of six vocalists finally castrated the green stage and stripped it of every last rock pulse.
| SKA-P: 23.00-00.20 |
The hugely popular Spanish SKA rock punkers SKA-P, from Madrid, finally warmed up the green stage, which was dripping in its sogginess. SKA-P, commanded on stage by the indestructible founder, guitarist and singer PulPul, scattered all over the stage from the moment they took it, and without any brakes. Finally, a band with a longer track record and exceedingly sharp charisma. Not only that. You could feel that the members on stage were “totally into it” and that there’s no force that could talk them into anything that would shake their deep faith in SKA-P music. The dynamically energetic SKA-P set was fanned especially by the funny Pipi, who still “sports” that recognizable mop on his head. We got to see Pipi at the FreQuency festival in 2007, when he played with his home band The Locos, which was likewise one of the more pleasant surprises of that festival. The man pulled off his first prank already in the third song, Romero El Madero, when he dressed up as a member of a special unit, with helmet and plexiglass shield, and terrorized one of the band’s extras on stage with a truncheon. Last year the band released its latest studio album “Lágrimas y Gozos” (2008) and confirmed it with the opening song of the set, Ni Fu Ni Fa. SKA-P aren’t just provocateurs pointing the finger at everyone who has wronged the little guy. They also have an enormous measure of genuine, sparkling sense of humor, and they’re constantly surrounded by that typical touch of silliness and hedonism. And in those moments of firing off the biggest hoaxes on stage in typical SKA-P comedy theater, you can sense that deep sadness and longing hide behind it too.
The band really didn’t let up, and with that approach they blew away and swept aside all the competition on the green stage on the festival’s last day. The playing is fanatical, brilliantly tight and works in great mutual harmony. Not to mention the crazy crowd, which kept shedding one piece of clothing after another once SKA-P’s energy had robbed it of a good share of composure. An hour and 20 minutes is far too little, which is all the time we had to hang out with the devilish Spaniards. Truly, that hot temperament, in the role of main carrier on the green stage, sent a dazzling ray onto the scene, and the audience, among whom were many for whom SKA-P were the main attraction of the festival, received the most genuine energy a performer can offer on stage, which is really what you come for whenever you head out to any concert. SKA-P were the peak of the third day, regardless of the festival’s biggest name, The Prodigy!
| text: Lea Lesar (The Sounds, The Subways, Editors) |
| text: Aleš Podbrežnik (Port O’Brien, Mia., Mando Diao, The Prodigy, Mandy Tankys, Auletta, Sebastian Sturm, Polarkreis 18, Mono&Nikitaman, Thomas D, Culcha Candela, SKA-P) |
| photos: Aleš Podbrežnik |
Setlist
RACE STAGE: Port O’Brien The Sounds The Subways Editors Mia. Mando Diao The Prodigy GREEN STAGE: Mandy Tankys Auletta Sebastian Sturm Polarkreis 18 Mono & Nikitaman Thomas D Culcha Candela Ska-P THE SOUNDS setlist: 1. Tony the Beat 2. 4 Songs & A Fight 3. Painted by Numbers 4. Ego 5. Dorchester Hotel 6. No One Sleeps When I’m Awake 7. Hope You’re Happy Now THE SUBWAYS setlist: 1. Kalifornia 2. Young for eternity 3. Obsession 4. Oh yeah 5. Alright 6. Shake! Shake! 7. I won’t let you down 8. I want to hear what you have got to say 9. Turn around 10. With you 11. Girls and boys 12. Rock’n’Roll queen EDITORS setlist: 1. Bricks And Mortar 2. The Racing Rats 3. An End Has A Start 4. Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool 5. Munich 6. Bones 7. The Big Exit 8. Smokers Outside The Hospital Door 9. Papillon MIA. setlist: 1. Hungriges Herz 2. Sonne 3. Zirkus 4. Kill for you 5. Verrückt 6. Mein Freund 7. Kapitän 8. Mausen 9. Tanz der Moleküle 10. Du MANDO DIAO setlist: 1. Sheepdog 2. You Got Nothing On Me 3. Mean Street 4. Good Morning, Herr Horst 5. Give Me Fire 6. Ochrasy 7. If I Don’t Live Today, Then I Might Be Here Tomorrow 8. Down In The Past 9. TV And Me 10. Gloria 11. God Knows —encore— 12. Dance with Somebody 13. Long Before Rock’N’Roll SKA-P setlist: 1. Ni Fu Ni Fa 2. Niño Soldado 3. Romero El Madero 4. Mestizaje 5. TÃo Sam 6. Welcome To Hell 7. El Gato López 8. Crimen Sollicitationis 9. Cannabis 10. El Libertador 11. Kasposos 12. Intifada 13. A la Mierda —encore— 14. Mis Colegas 15. El Vals del Obrero THE PRODIGY setlist: 1. World’s on Fire 2. Breathe 3. Omen 5. Their Law 6. Poison 7. Warrior’s Dance 8. Firestarter 9. Run With The Wolves 10. Voodoo People 11. Invaders Must Die 12. Smack My Bitch Up 13. Take Me To The Hospital 14. Out Of Space 15. Stand Up
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