A PUNKY NIGHT IN KARLSRUHE
Two days before the gig in Karlsruhe I thought that I might be able to catch this
one, with this town not being too far away and the address of the venue being
mentioned on the website (I found the street "Schwarzwaldstrasse" on
a map, so I knew I'd be able to get there). The weather forecast for Thursday
said it was going to rain all day, but in fact it didn't. Once I got into my car
and started the drive to the motorway though, the first small raindrops appeared
on my windscreen...
The rain got worse while getting closer to Karlsruhe, but it was still okay as
there wasn't too much traffic. When I arrived in Karlsruhe, the first street I
came across was Schwarzwaldstr., I drove it up and down until I saw a big old
house which was sprayed over and over with graffiti, I knew this had to be the
venue! So I found myself a parking lot near the train station and went over to
the venue. (Yes, it was still raining a bit.)
I was way too soon, as I walked upstairs into a room full of punks sitting around
tables, I was told by a friendly girl, that doors opening time for the gig was
at 9pm. Still about half an hour, so I decided to take a little walk instead of
sitting down among these complete strangers. Outside it was raining harder now
(of course), so I went to the train station and looked for a toilet, in the end
I used the one in McDonald's - you wouldn't believe what was roaring out of the
speakers there - punk rock!! (Okay, it was some cheap pop punk like Green Day
or so, but this in a McD's gave me a very strange feeling!!)
As it was still raining outside I sat in my car for a few minutes and then returned
to the venue. Again, I went to the upstairs room, but later I found out that there
was another entrance for the gig. But that didn't matter, because after I sat
down for about two minutes, T.V. came into the room and we said hello and talked
for quite a while. Two nice guys came up to chat to us, one of them has been an
Adverts fan since the 70's and now was about so see his first T.V. gig!
T.V. told me that the support band would start about 10.30pm, so I knew I wouldn't
be getting home before 2am, but who cares...
Later we went downstairs into a smelly cellar where the gig would happen, it
turned out to be a good place for such a gig. We watched the support band "Teenkrieg"
who looked quite young, they played energetic punkrock, not very original, but
okay.
T.V. hit the stage close to midnight, from the first song ("The Future
Used To Be Better") on there were people singing along and screaming a
lot! What I did not like was that many were talking between the songs instead
of listening to what T.V. had to say about the lyrics, but apart from that they
were a great crowd! Girls were dancing and cheering in front of the stage, I
bet T.V. enjoyed this one too. He played lots of classics and some new songs
as usual. For the first encore he asked Teenkrieg to return to the stage and
they performed some songs together. It went very well, especially considering
that it was their first time on stage together with T.V. (they had practised
the songs before and then played them once with T.V. at the soundcheck)! Of
course these included his punk hits "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" and "Bored
Teenagers" but also "Only One Flavour", "My String Will
Snap" and "Lord's Prayer" (by the way, T.V. told me that he didn't
like the Lords of the New Church's version of that song very much, because they
changed his lyrics to please their American producer).
On his own again, T.V. performed some more encores, including "One Chord
Wonders", "Useless", "Luxury In Exile" and finally
"Runaway Train Driver".
T.V. said on stage that he would be returning to Karlsruhe if possible (I'll
try to be there as well)!
As it was late of course, I said goodbye to T.V. very quickly and went to my
car (you guessed it, it was still raining), it was 1.45am, so I got home after
3am. On the motorway the rain was pouring down, I thought to myself "I'm
a runaway rain-driver"...
However, in my hometown it hadn't rained that much, as the roads there were
dry when I finally arrived. I was already looking forward to the gig in Stuttgart
two days later, but that's another story!
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