Aux Ruas, The Locust and KTL, Festsaal Kreuzberg

08/24/07

The night started with a friend and I hatching a last minute plan to get in to this show free after we walked by and checked the scene out. We’re broke, it’s the Locust, they’d want us to….
We cased the entire block and decided our best bet was to try to get in from the back, only Berlin doesn't exactly have 'backs'. To do this we had to climb over a Volkswagon dealership‘s security gate and through 3 1/2 hof’s (a hof is kind of a courtyard that is inaccessable unless going through the building containing it, or over the building into the hof) to try to jump the short wall at the east side of Festsaal Kreuzberg to the outer yard and into the show.
We were accompanied by countless motion lights, blinking on to our antics. I was accidentally in black with a black hood, which I decided was going to make things worse if we got caught because authorities would think I was some anarchist asshole breaking into BMW or the Bio Food Company, rather than some anarchist asshole merely trying to save 16 euros on a show.
We scaled barbed wire of all kinds, scrambled up walls, over gates and fences and strode thin, dirty alleys. The moment of truth came when we had to sneak across a filthy, tinfoil rooftop and drop down into the hof right next to Festaal’s outside garden under bright security light, in blatant view of the guys working the door. We military style crawled across the roof, faces to metal (Andy in all white) thinking that we were missing Stephen O’Malley because the Locust’s MySpace profile said that the show started at 8 and it was already 10:50. Halfway across, Andy claimed he was spotted by one of the staff who pointed at us, but I didn’t see anything like that. We had to o’ so painfully, ever so slowly and patiently wiggle the fuck off of the roof, back the way we came. Was our cover blown? We jumped down from the roof just as someone yelled at us in German a few meters away, at the front of the hof---now, trouble with Johnny Law means my ass is outta Deutschland, and directly into the Alberta oil boom. No thanks, I’m having a nice time here---so instinct to flee like the Japanese in a Godzilla movie hit me. We casually strolled the opposite direction, backs to the angry voice, ignoring the warning shouts to “HALT!”, and as soon as we rounded a corner, we bolted like mutherfuckers. Down the alley, over the barbed wire, which happened to be far less ginger than on the way in, screaming up walls and fences with scraping fingernails, jumping down 6 meter gaps onto concrete and buckling knees, trying not to destroy bones or the camera around my shoulder. We reached the car dealership yard panting and jumped that gate, running among the cars in florescent light, ducking into the gravel. We hopped one last sharply pointed fence, rounded another corner, ran down the street and into a bar to catch out breaths.
“I gotta do more cardio.” Andy told me in gasps.
We traded clothes, panted more, and I guzzled a glass of white wine with ice to cool off. We made a plan and split up because Andy was paranoid they were going to kill him and I had to use a bank machine.
I made my way to the show where he was to meet me after changing his once white jeans and hair as to not be recognized. He never showed, and when I called to find out why, he said he was “really pooped”.


The opening act were a two piece from Denmark. They were a bit like Ministry, but with fatter 909 kicks, and faster. It was good, but it made me wonder if a bald, shirtless guy could headband as hard as a guy with long hair. Anyway, Aus Raux were a good opener to the show. The small crowd danced and exchanged nods of approval.
Next, the Locust swarmed the stage (and that’s not tried cleverness, they actually swarmed) in new putty grey outfits with shitty fun fur hard-wear and reflective tape, with their photographer and sound guy also in uniform: 6 locusts at the stage.
There was sound bullshit for a sec, which postponed the wonder…and they started with 1 smack of the snare followed by everyone at once attacking their instruments with everything they had. They were a fucking flesh eating machine. So tight, so hungry, so fierce and deadly…it was the most exciting thing I’d seen since Philip Best the night before. That drummer is in my gay-fantasy-dreams, so precise and harsh, possibly the best live drummer I’ve ever seen. Set list I cannot name, but who gives a fuck about specifics. This was controlled, brilliant mayhem. It went from thrash, to hanging doom, to spaz-core, to prog, to white metal, to every kind of insane thing you can understand about fast, loud music, but it still remained perfectly in tact, obliterating the line between in and out of control. It was perfect, and I felt twitching-spasms in me that I haven’t felt at a live show in years. Plus, I expected the typical 14 minute set, and the Locust again wowed us with a set that lasted 45 minutes, maybe longer. The best part was, it never got boring at all.
KTL is a side project of Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) with Peter Rehberg from Pita that started as a theatre accompaniment project and was up next. I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Sunn O))) yet (which is pronounced ‘Sun’---the O))) being the logo, not part of the name) so this was the reason I’d come…and even paid.
It started with Rehberg using low, loud pulsing that sounded like the hum of an industrial machine. O’Malley slowly joined in with his guitar and together, they started into the symptoms of swirling drone. A smoke machine randomly set out spirts of mist, at times completely shrouding both men in bright white. Some people chokeda dn waved their hands in front of their mouths.
Basically, the sound increased and hissed and peaked. At the height, people left because they weren’t prepared for the blistering volumes or because they thought they got the point. Some screamed with their heads cocked back as if trying to imbibe greater volumes.
O’Malley then burst into flames and melted to a black puddle of what looked like motor oil on the floor…what a show!