Skinny Puppy - Otto von Schirach

Prelude: Having just survived some special adventures with my car on Dutch highways I was more than just happy when I saw the ride offer on my hometown board. SKINNY PUPPY, idols of the 80’s… dunno when I saw them the last time performing live, must have been ages ago. Anyway, since I can’t attend any of the summer festivals I have to catch the bands in between, especially such ones that generally tour rarely in our latitudes and just come over the pond for the festivals. SKINNY PUPPY is such band and Utrecht in around the same distance as Amsterdam. Hehe… it’s quasi like checking out the distance from the “outside” ;)

Many thanks to Mr. Beutolomäus Sack, who managed to squeeze five (5!!!) Skuppy-freaks into his bubble car, driving them more than 200 km to Utrecht. Arriving on time we collectively got felled by the parking charge at Utrecht’s Old Town. Instead of hourly purchasing a part of our parking lot for 3.85 Euro we went for the evening ticket (from 7pm to 1am) for 13,50 Euro, which is a little cheaper than the hourly tax. Utrecht has a great Old Town and all these canals, definitely worthwhile a look, but this charge I call pilferage. Way too exaggerated… tststs…

The Club: The Tivoli emerges as a huge and roomy hall. Looked like an old warehousing with high ceilings and long corridors. The ground was declining towards the stage so that also the last rows had a good sight onto stage.
Since there was no photo pit I immediately settled down in the first row, provided with beer (boah! I wasn’t the one to drive tonight? *g*) and waiting for what has to come…

:: pics ::

… and the thing creeping over was called • OTTO VON SCHIRACH • striking down everyone. No idea how to describe the following... Ok, a lonely laptop on a small lonely table protected by a plastic dog with glowing red eyes. This dog alone already looked more than just moronic... Well, this scenario isn’t unusual. I know many electro/Industrial artists working like that on stage. As far as good. A black-hooded single person was scurrying around, plugging in the last cables... AND THEN... suddenly, like being stinged, this person jumped up and disrobed himself, unleashing what was shrouded upon approx. 400 people: OTTO VON SCHIRACH. Dressed like a black’n’silver Superman this moronic man was feakin’ out on stage like an insane: jumping, running, ranting, twiddling the knobs and worming out hyper-fast and wild sound orgies ranging anywhere between Techno, Industrial and Black Metal. Singing was so ultra distorted; every old school black metal gurgler would have gone green with envy. This entire scenery was soooo flashy, gross, sick, bizarre, spacy and beyond of anything that everyone was starring at the stage with big eyes. OTTO VON SCHIRACH didn’t speak, no announcements, instead he was fighting a banana biting massive furball that was holding a ghetto blaster on a stick. Battling… he did it with an extremely kitschy light sword…
Maybe I should now mention that OTTO VON SCHIRACH isn’t such unknown… erm… musician. He also worked with Skinny Puppy…

The half hour for the change-over wasn’t really necessary since all the stuff was already built up. But everybody was thankful for this little break to recover. Reflecting on what was closing in the last 30 minutes many people just looked around questioningly; not knowing what to think about, how to categorize what was seen and experienced…

Lights went off and under generally showed enthusiasm • SKINNY PUPPY • entered the stage. Well… means… cEvin was – as usual – entrenching himself behind his high-built synths. Same goes for the live drummer, who was only to see when he stood up and was drumming while standing. Ogre even didn’t show up and stayed behind a screen exercising himself in Chinese shadow plays for the first three tracks (thank the wang no one cared about the announced 3 song rule to take photos… it would have been a disaster…). SKINNY PUPPY kicked off with the very old song Anger from the 87 album Cleanse Fold & Manipulate. They even went back to the debut EP Remission (‘84) but ignored the 85’s Bites and 90’s Last Rites. Besides they include everything else except for the fact that they disregarded the “common best-of-list”. Of course most songs (4) came from the duo’s current album Mythmaker and of course, the white screen wasn’t there just to look good ;) It was the basis for Ogre’s blood spitting and bloody messes. This screen could have been sold afterwards as art… ;) Sound was just moderate and Ogre every now and then giving signs to the techs for changes. I missed the guitar but the performance… was intensive as fuck! Ogre really knows how to present himself best suiting to the musical concept. In between Orgre was flagging and disappeared after almost every track behind the screen (jetlag, too drunk or stoned?) but that didn’t do any harm on the show and fans didn’t take it amiss in any way.
After having acted expectant during the first three songs the feedback became more and more enthusiastic with every new song, what in turn animated the band to put more and more energy into their show. At the end both sides couldn’t get enough from each other, was the applause almost frenetically. And that got rewarded with 2 encores. So! I absolutely loved this show! Just great! Awesome! I know... many people said afterwards that it was once of the worst SKINNY PUPPY shows ever. Well… can’t say anything about this, I didn’t saw them that often.
Setlist: Anger, Ugli, Dogshit, Tormentor, PolitikiL, Rodent, Pedafly, Worlock, I'mmortal, Dig It, Amnesia, Hardset Head, Fascist Jockitch, haZe // Far Too Frail, Blue Serge

Upshot: OTTO VON SCHIRACH was at least good enough for one laugh and is generally best suited to scare people off (musically) ;) SKINNY PUPPY was just great, as already mentioned. Just wonder how a so called legendary show of them must turn out… However, the trip to Utrecht was definitely worth the endeavors. It was cramped *lol* but it has made lotsa fun. Especially the “conservations” sitting in a threesome in the back of a Nissan Micra (me in the middle with the two guys to the left and right ;)) like: “You’re in?”… “from your side I mean?”… Asking to the other side: “you found the other one? It’s in too?”… A question from the front: “how are the legs?” Answer: “Legs? What legs?”…etc. ya know *lol* Yes, it was a great evening and definitely not the last time I was at the Tivoli ;)