I've always been a bit
skeptical about full-album concerts, but I wasn't about to miss a
chance to see Fehlfarben, one of the undisputed best bands to come
out of the German punk and Neue Deutsche Welle scenes. One of the
very
first reviews I ever wrote for this blog was of their iconic
debut album, Monarchie und Alltag,
the very album they were performing in full. (According to my
webhost's statistics, it's the most popular review I've ever
published.) Furthermore, just
before I caught wind of this concert, I wrote an
entire article about "Militürk", one of the songs from
the same album. To say the least, I was excited for this concert.
Artist: Fehlfarben
Venue: Heimathafen
Neukölln
Location: Berlin,
Germany
Date: 26 October 2018
Opening Act: Black
Heino
First set (Monarchie
und Alltag):
01. Hier und Jetzt
02. Grauschleier
03. Das sind
Geschichten
04. All That Heaven
Allows
05. Gottseidank nicht
in England
06. Militürk
07. Apokalypse
08. Ein Jahr (Es geht
voran)
09. Angst
10. Das war vor Jahren
11. Paul ist tot
Second set:
12. Platz da
13. Das Komitee
14. Urban Innozenz
15. [unknown]
16. Politdisko
Encore:
17. Dekade 2
18. WWW
19. Große Liebe
Not knowing anything
about Black Heino, while
doing my advance research, I quickly realized their name was
appropriative. (You'll have to forgive me
for being previously unaware
of the Schlager singer Heino, who is white, just like the members of
Black Heino.) I've been unable to find any explanation from the band
other than provocation, which is a tired excuse. Despite
my reservations, I tried to give them a chance on the merit of their
music, but they failed to impress me on that account as well. They
were boring, repetitive, and simplistic. Most of their solos and lead
melodies were literally just ascending and descending a scale. At
first, there were a few little flairs that reminded me of classic 60s
pop/rock and garage rock, but even those gradually disappeared. The
vocals were whiny and shouted tunelessly in the style of Frank Jürgen
Krüger (of Ideal)
and other German punks. (Why that style is beloved is beyond my
understanding.) Their lyrics might have been good, but I couldn't
tell, and I wasn't inspired to look them up.
[Black Heino.]
After
that disappointment, I was
impatient for Fehlfarben.
Thankfully they didn't keep me waiting too long, and they launched
right into "Hier und jetzt", the opener from Monarchie
und Alltag.
As expected, they played the whole thing start to finish, and then
they left the stage. They came right back out for a second set
consisting of much more recent compositions, and for the encore, they
offered
more of
the same plus
their first single, "Große Liebe".
As
a result of the format, it seemed as if I saw two different bands
with
the same members.
The first set was dynamic, varied, engrossing, and exciting despite
the age of the songs. There was an unavoidable hint of gimmickry due
to the premise, but the songs were still strong and largely relevant,
and the audience was into it. The second set and encore were subdued,
monotonic, and relatively tame. The band was still trying, but the
audience wasn't feeling it, and people steadily streamed out while
they were playing. The newer songs aren't bad at all, and lyrically
they still have plenty to say, but somehow it didn't translate well
on stage. The songs blended into one another and I had trouble
concentrating and understanding the words.
Although
the second half of the show wasn't as good as I
had
hoped, the first part didn't disappoint. It
was awesome to see the entirety of one of my
favorite
albums played live by most of the original band. Peter Hein, the
original vocalist who left after the debut album to work at Xerox for
twenty years, has been back in the band ever
since they reformed.
He danced around stage, playfully messed around with the other
members while they performed, tossed around balloons, and joked about
whatever was on his mind. His vocals were actually substantially more
powerful
than they were on the album (although
still not exactly trained or proficient by mainstream pop standards).
As a result, he changed the original melodies and cadences at will,
which was sometimes annoying but often a welcome improvement.
Three
other original members were also present: bassist Michael Kemner,
saxophonist/percussionist/keyboardist Frank Fenstermacher, and
synthesist Kurt Dahlke, aka
Pyrolator (although he only played on "Paul ist tot" on the
album). Unfortunately, drummer Uwe Bauer hasn't played regularly with
the band since 1991 and original guitarist Thomas Schwebel left the
band around
2006.
(The post-Hein additional guitarist Uwe Jahnke also left in 2014.) In
their places were longtime drummer Saskia von Klitzing and relative
newcomer Thomas Schneider on guitar. They were both capable
replacements that played the original parts with deft skill.
Other
than Hein's vocal alterations, most of the songs were played very
similarly to the original versions. The exceptions were the three
most beloved songs: "Militürk", "Ein Jahr", and
"Paul ist tot". "Militürk" was extended and
just as extreme as ever. It's admittedly quite strange to hear the
crowd chant along to "Deutschland, Deutschland, alles ist
vorbei" ("Germany, Germany, it's all over"). How do I
interpret the remark from one of the elder punks in front of me to
his comrade that the lyric suited the present day just as well?
"Ein
Jahr" was also somewhat extended and rearranged, starting with
the drums and then bass instead of the distinctive guitar riff. As if
designed to prove the allegations of the band being a one-hit wonder,
the audience response was conspicuously drastically more
enthusaistic.
The entire crowd tried to dance or sway to the mock-disco beat, and
the sound of their singalong was louder than Hein. Something about it
felt forced. Perhaps the band's claim that they never liked the song
was true. The performance
didn't quite live up to the studio version.
The
album closer "Paul ist tot" was the other highlight. It
wasn't until recently that I finally began to understand the song;
until then, I'd never been able to figure out why German fans would
often cite that as one of their favorites. Again, the audience sang
along with the despondent lyrics, even when Hein forgot a line. The
band
extended the song about as far as it could go, and they made it work.
Hein wandered off stage after he finished his part, but most of the
band kept going. Von Klitzing eventually left too, but since the rest
of the band kept going, she came back and drove them to a finish.
Even then, Schneider
kept
hammering away at his guitar until he too grew tired.
I
was a bit disappointed that Fehlfarben
didn't play anything from the other albums released during their
initial incarnation in the early 80s. However, of the musicians on
stage, only Kemner played on 33
Tage in Ketten
(1981)
and none of them played on Glut
und Asche
(1983)!
That
said,
they did play "Große Liebe", their first single that
preceded even Monarchie
und Alltag
in 1980. It was originally recorded by S.Y.P.H. under the title
"Industriemädchen" and presumably brought to Fehlfarben by
Schwebel, who was an
original member of both bands and wrote the lyrics to it. The
industrial love song was just as ironic and
appropriate as
ever. It
brought the show to an end on a (relatively) high note.
[Fehlfarben.]
The
concert
gave me a wild
assortment
of conflicting feelings. The
original album is a classic, and the band can still do a solid
rendition of it. However, there was still a lingering feeling of
being pandered to. I liked that the band adapted and extended some of
the songs from the album, but "Ein Jahr" didn't quite work,
and it took a few songs for the mix to sound right. Hein's vocals
were an interesting change, but he forgot some of the lyrics and took
a playful, uncommitted stance. And after they finished the album, the
rest of the show just couldn't live
up to it.
The words are perhaps the most important part, but they were often
indiscernible.
The band is still relevant, but they are aging and their energy
seemed to wane. The audience followed suit – or maybe it was the
other way around.
It
was a weird show, especially since they played basically the same
show last year. It's
hard to blame them, since this show was sold out, but the artistic
merit is questionable. For better or worse, Fehlfarben fell
in the trap of having released an album that captured the voice and
spirit of a particular generation in a particular time and place.
Judging by the sales numbers and the audience reaction, nothing else
they do can quite reproduce that magic, no matter how hard they try.
Scores:
Black Heino: D-
Fehlfarben: C+
[This
is a terrible photo, but I took in a rush because the slideshow in
the back was displaying
the album cover. It rotated through a set of something like a hundred
photos with
similar elements of historical bleakness and commercialism.]
P.S.
The only other review I've found so far of the show (in German, of
course) is from the Berliner
Morgenpost. It's a bit harsh but not far off from what I
observed.
P.P.S.
The Berliner
Zeitung has a review of last year's show (again in German) that
also has some elements in common, although it says very little about
the actual performance.
