#die kantine

AAAAAA first EE concert in Germany in 7 years!!! And right at home (almost) for me as well! I remember when they announced this tour, I was on the train home with a friend, who said he had never seen me this excited for anything lol. Athoughtment:

Had never been to the venue before and heard from friends that it was pretty out of the way, but it was fairly reachable with public transit. I think it was about twice the size of the last venue they played here for A Fever Dream? About 900 people at capacity, though the show sadly wasn't sold out (but must have been close to it). Still sad that they didn't play at the Gloria, which is about the same size I think, but SO MUCH nicer and more central, but oh well. Next time. In another 7 years :/

Okay, Low Island: Holy Shit. Never heard of them before, listened to a couple of songs before the show but didn't really get a feel for them, but they were incredible on stage, easily the best opener I've ever seen. Got a bit scared when the singer kept menacingly whipping his mic cable at the crowd but I'm fine now. It's okay.

The crowds at EE shows are consistently the nicest people I've met at concerts, was chatting to loads of people before and after the show that were around me. Shout-out to the two Spanish (I think?) guys in front of me, one of whom said it was his first ever concert and he couldn't have picked a better one, guy looked and sounded like he was having the time of his life from the moment the opener started. Bit loud during the show perhaps, but honestly who can blame them lol.

Also shout-out two the two Swedish guys I chatted to, takes dedication to come all the way here from Sweden for just one show. One of them said he only knew Distant Past (from FIFA) and Indigo, which is an interesting mix lol. Kinda sad that they didn't play Indigo and Give Me Your Blood :/

Actual concert: Fan-fucking-tastic. Saw the setlist from Brighton before the show, so I expected they would play pretty much the same set bc it makes the most sense (which turned out to be true for both nights), but lack of variety is hard to complain about a) for an anniversary tour for a specific album and b) when you get to hear songs they haven't played in years or never played at all. So. I was pretty stoked with the set all in all.

It's crazy how literally every track on GtH, including the B-sides, is such a banger. Like there are more subtle/less upbeat songs on the record like The Wheel or Fortune 500, but lichrally every song was electric live, including We Sleep in Pairs, which is easily the slowest song on the (extended) album. The crowd was very high-energy throughout, everyone around me (me included) was essentially shouting along to all of the songs (which... you can hear on some of my recordings lol). I just got over covid a little while before the show, so I lost my voice at several points throughout the evening, but I recovered surprisingly quickly.

I think the highlights for me were OAGAMG (can't believe that didn't win best B-side on the Reddit survivor-thingy btw) and Zero Pharaoh. There were a couple of points throughout the night where the climax of a song genuinely felt like some kind of religious experience and Zero Pharaoh was among them. Also I was stunned by how good Yuppie Supper was live, especially since I missed it on the Brighton setlist and thought "yeah it would make sense that they wouldn't play an almost entirely instrumental song". But: they did, and it ruled.