Messed!Up
How many punkrock bands have their own worldwide fanclubs and their own four-day festival to celebrate the memory of the band? As far as I know, just one. While super acts like Slipknot have Knotfest, Ozzy Osbourne had Ozzfest, and Paramore had Parahoy, none of these megabands can compete with what happens in Hamburg once a year since 2004 when heaps crazy Turbonegro fans – Turbojugends – meet up for several days of shenanigans. Unlike most bands’ fans, Tubojugend has a ‘uniform’: denim jackets with the Turbojugend logo on the back, sailor hat, and city of origin (to have an icebreaker when you meet new people, someone said) – because Turbojugends exist in all parts of the world. That’s unique! No bands I know of can measure up to such a standard.
During the band’s almost 30 years in the scene, although with a new frontman after original frontman Hank von Helvete left for a solo career (and sadly passed away a few years ago), an amazing fan movement has formed around the Deathpunker with the Turbojugend, a movement comparable to the worldwide Kiss Army.
Weltturbojugendtage is more than music. In fact, the music part of the festivals started every day at 6 pm at Molotow but the party started around noon when all Turbojugends gathered for day activities – mini-golf, Mexicaner tasting, punkrock karaoke, sexy sailorette photoshoot etc. – around St. Pauli under the influence of (too) many beers. It was easy to understand why it felt like the party was at its peak when the doors to Molotow opened at 6 pm. Unfortunately – or maybe luckily (?) – some of us have day jobs and couldn’t join which probably made it possible to attend the festival the first two nights as well. Our photographer joined the shenanigans every day and after what he told me, my day would have been over by 3 pm if I would’ve covered the daytime activities as well. The overall resilience in terms of beer intake was quite impressive.
I arrived at Molotow just a few minutes before the first gig started, and quite soon I realized what the festival is about – having fun and paying respect to the bands on stage even if you haven’t listened to them before. Dutch band Skroetbalg opened up the first night and set the tone for what was representing the whole festival: full steam punkrock machine! In punkrock bands don’t waste time on slow songs or too long songs, it’s music made to be rowdy. In fact, I’m quite sure that punkrock bands invite a crowd, let people start a moshpit and crowdsurf, and then write music that fits with chaos on the floor. On the downside is that many bands have problems ‘diversifying’ their music and smaller bands sound pretty much the same through all songs. It’s fun music when you’re at the venue and are part of the chaotic atmosphere, but it rarely works out on a full album. But that’s where the bigger bands in the scene differ because they write melodies and not only compose music for moshpits.
One of these bigger bands, which our babysitting (we know someone who was crying at home the whole festival) punkrock photographer forced me to buy records from, was Grindhouse. I haven’t really listened to them before until the babysitting photographer (we won’t mention him by name due to the bitter situation) went through their whole discography one night to get us ready (this was before he abruptly realized he couldn’t attend the festival) for the festival, and I had some expectations as their latest album Sex Punk Power wasn’t that bad. And what can go wrong when the frontman appears in too small speedos/underwear and a red cape – nothing! But the crowd wasn’t really game for rowdiness. My thought was that a full day of party has taken its toll and people just wanted to go to bed, thus very few tried to fire up a moshpit during the show. However, Grindhouse did a fine resurrection job and caused some heat at Molotow – it was quite hot outside meaning around 40 degrees inside Molotow – and after the gig people started to recharge with beer again. Just in time for the night’s headliner, The Real McKenzies, the ‘real’ peak of day 1 occurred.
The Real McKenzies are a relentless touring machine. With twelve albums under their belt, since the release of their last album Beer and Loathing in 2020, they are constantly on the road for an endless ceilidh. The lead singer is Paul McKenzie – a strapping lad with his knee-high boots, black denim jacket, and highlands hat – and he’s the only original member of the group that’s left, speaking of which he decided to start off their set by confirming to us what a Scotsman traditionally wears under his kilt, which is nothing, no lie. Bass player Troy Zak in particular likes to act out, being the one to mock Paul’s age and answer back when asked to do something. It’s all in good fun of course and adds a great dynamic to the set. There wasn’t a single song in their set that didn’t get me dancing.
The band has a particular style that pleasantly blends the instruments and traditions (bagpipes, kilts, tattoos and electric guitar) of Celtic rock and Scottish culture. It’s the bagpipes on stage that’s one of the particular attractions of the musical frenzy of these Canadian (Yes, they’re Canadians) Guinness lovers.
On their albums, The Real McKenzies are capable of musical subtlety. They sometimes use acoustic instruments to play ballads or old folk songs, along with the faster, louder stuff. Live, they are a full-bore punk band with two electric guitars, bass, drums, and of course, bagpipes. This is where I must admit that I’m not overly knowledgeable on much of The Real McKenzies music, I know a couple of songs and I’ve always enjoyed listening to them but have never fully been on board the McKenzies bandwagon. I now am after witnessing an incredible live performance. I don’t think I’ve seen many more entertaining live shows this year.
The Real McKenzies must be seen live to be truly appreciated. Paul and the boys always deliver a no-holds-barred performance. It’s nice to see young spikes and studs punks in Turbojugend jackets dancing and singing next to pot-bellied middle-aged men in kilts. Paul suddenly reassures us “We are not a Punk Band!!!! It’s a label we’ve been stuck on!! We are a Celtic Rock Band! And not at all brawlers!!! There is a spirit of camaraderie within the group, very anchored and which motivates us every evening, to give the best of ourselves on stage. We don’t have any fucking hierarchy, because everyone is just as important as each other”. It feels like a musical celebration and it’s fun to watch.
That was the first night of Weltturbojugendtage 2022. The party continued while those of us that have to get up early the next day for some hard labor, had to leave. But the real party isn’t until tomorrow anyway!
Day 2 arrived and just knowing I was off work for a weekend got me into a party mood in less than a gin & tonic. I was also looking forward to Friday night a bit extra as friends’ bands from where I grew up – in Gothenburg, Sweden – were to play at the festival and as soon as I had entered Molotow I ended up in a beer battle with Scumbag Millionaire and The Chuck Norris Experiment. I should’ve understood the implications of heavy beer drinking this early in the night but for some reason, my brain’s warning system was out of order.
It was also a full house this night as all Turbojugends had arrived in Hamburg and as I was interested in finding out where people came from – at my first WTJT in 2019 there were people from Colombia and Japan – I peeped at people’s jackets to find out more and counted it to eight countries, not as many as in 2019 but it wasn’t long ago we had a pandemic and on top of that, the world economy had seen better days and people from faraway countries may not have the money to travel to Hamburg at this point. But it was a lot of people wherever you went at Molotyow. Luckily, the bigger bands played outdoors in the backyard because indoors we’ve reached a sauna-like state.
My first gig of the night was Scumbag Millionaire. The lands entered the stage and kicked off the night with “Gotta Move”, followed by “Inferno”, and from that point, the show moved on in a furious tempo. It’s punkrock – or action rock as they call it – at its best and they show off all the ingredients for a great live show. Even better, they look punkrock which is even more important. And on top of that, they’re just so damn nice to talk to. I was even more happy to see that they could pull quite a big crowd this early in the night but it was obvious that people were at Molotow to have fun and pay tribute to all the bands that performed, and that’s kind of unique in a day and age when lots of people skip the support acts/smaller bands and miss the opportunity to discover greatness.
Now, here’s the problem; after the show I ended up in the green room with the band and the Swedes of The Chuck Norris Experiment, and this is where the night starts to get a bit fuzzy (and as I remember it, really fun). It felt like two minutes but was actually three hours between Scumbag Millionaire and The Chuck Norris Experiment, but I guess beer tends to make time slip by unnoticed.
The Chuck Norris Experiment closed the night with a hell of a show. People were engaged in moshpits and crowdsurfing while frontman Chuck Ransom fired everyone up and bassist Chuck Dakota gave people the evil eye. CNE also gained quite a reputation in Germany through the years which probably made it easier to start the riots although the heaps of beers that were sold this night were helpful in every way. Even I, who stopped doing moshpit runs six years ago due to an injury that led to permanent Achilles tendinitis, was caught up by the atmosphere and got a few punches before I returned to my corner again. When CNE burst out into the encore and played Turbonegro’s epic hit song “I Got Erection” I had to hold on to the DJ booth or I would have died when the moshpit turned into a wall of death. That was just an amazing end to the second night at the festival.
Now, I was really – really – looking forward to the last day as one of my absolute favorite punk bands, Bad Nerves, was about to perform and I had an interview booked, but being the lucky man who deflected every attempt from people to infect me with covid during the pandemic years has its price: I woke up feeling battered and bruised on Saturday morning and thought it was because of unexpected moshpit engagement from last night but as the day unfolded it got worse and a quick test later told me I had covid. Anyhow, I rarely thank the organizers directly but this was just so awesome. Again, I’m not a huge punkrock fan but what isn’t there to love when it comes to Turbojugend.
Thank you Arne, I will make sure to be back next year!
PHOTO GALLERY: Kevin Winiker
