In 2007 they released their second album Once Upon A Time In The West which received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike. It was only this summer that they released their third record Killer Sounds which despite the cocky title didn’t sparkle very much interest other than that of their die hard fans. Killer Sounds is in general more upbeat than their previous albums and somehow seems to drown in all the synths used.
I wasn’t surprised then that few people were willing to pay the 20+ euros to see the band at Berlin’s C-Club. Doors opened at eight and I got there at 9. It turned out that there was no support band so I thought the band would be on stage soon. The people that were there would have made a decent crowd at Magnet but they were just enough to use about half of C-Club’s capacity. Most people seemed tired and bored when the band finally showed up at 9:30, some of them really must have sat there for an hour and a half.
The band made the most of it and launched into the set with Too Tied Up from the debut record. It struck me that they played more songs from that album than from their recent one and only two from the second. I felt like the played their hit Cash Machine a bit too early. They should have reserved that song for later. That and a cover of The Clash’s I Fought The Law were the highlights of that night.
What was good about the show was that it was performed well and that Archer took the time to joke with the audience every now and then and tried to make them sing along every now and then with mixed success.
I don’t know why they used so much fog that you couldn’t see the band once they stepped back a meter. You never saw the drummer at all which is ridiculous. All the songs from Killer Sounds were semi playback because they obviously didn’t bring any synths let alone a musician to operate them.
After just one hour and only one encore the band disappeared in the fog like their career did.
Set list:
Tied Up Too Tight
Gotta Reason
Lovesong
Good For Nothing
Cash Machine
Stay Alive
Suburban Knights
Fire in the House
I Fought the Law (The Clash cover)
Bring It On
Hard To Beat
Move on Now
Television
Stars of CCTV
Encore:
Living For The Weekend
