Messed!Up
The story of Giant Rooks is a tale about a band quickly rising through the ranks from playing small venues to arenas in a very short time. Giant Rooks is something as unusual as a German band (yes, they’re German – directed to friends who claim they’re a UK band) with a UK sound and English lyrics. My experience from living in Germany for the last seven years is that it’s not common at all considering how big the music industry is and how many bands sing in German, and it’s certainly not common that ‘UK-influenced’ bands reach out to a German crowd the way Giant Rooks have (yes, I have heaps of cases of similar bands that got ghosted because they were singing in English).
My ‘relationship’ with Giant Rooks started when I was on a business trip in the UK, to London, and listened to the radio while taking the subway to Holborn station. While preparing for one of my lectures in business economics, “Wild Stare” popped up on the radio, a really catchy indie pop tune and still their biggest hit. Like most people I thought Giant Rooks were the next rising stars in the British scene but little did I know that the boys originated from the mid-sized German city Hamm close to Dortmund. Six months after that first discovery, the pandemic arrived – and Giant Rooks released their banger-filled masterpiece of a debut album, ROOKERY. With that in mind, Giant Rooks have made it through one of the toughest periods in human history brilliantly, coming out on the other side as a band with a worldwide fanbase.
After a few songs by opening act Oliver Keane, Giant Rooks started their show by typing messages on a digital board to get people in the right mood for the band’s arrival. Let’s say that it resonated well with the young audience onsite. I guess one of the reasons they’re popular, save for their fantastic records, is that they tap into the expectations of today’s youth. That’s the recipe for success for all bands out there.
The show opens up with “For You” the opener of their recently released second album How Have You Been?, and from this point we walk down banger lane. That’s what Giant Rooks do, high-quality anthemic indie pop songs far up on the banger scale. And they don’t just have two or three of those, their whole albums are anthemic.
Obviously, it’s a night to celebrate the release of their second album – I counted it to nine songs off How Have You Been? – but squeezed in between new songs and frontman Frederik Rabe’s bantering with the fans, there’s time for their older hits, like “New Estate” and “Heat Up” (I’m not sure if they played “Mia & Keira” off the New Estate EP while I snuck out for the toilet or if it was me humming it on the toilet). But the focus was on the How Have You Been? album; “Under Your Wings”, “Bedroom Exile”, “Pink Skies”, and “Fight Club” – major songs off the latest album – all turned up before the brilliant “Somebody Like You” ended the first act of the night, before the encore.
However, what makes Giant Rooks one of those rare bands with stadium potential is how they pull off their show. They know how to charm their fans, and Rabe is a truly amazing and charismatic frontman – like when he borrowed a fan’s mobile phone to shoot a selfie – that every band with higher goals needs. He’s the equivalent of Editors’ Tom Smith or Cage the Elephant’s Matt Shulz. That’s nothing but the star quality you need to take the step to stadium shows.
The show ends with an encore and their two major hits, “Wild Stare” and, my favorite, “Watershed”, and I honestly don’t see anything stopping Giant Rooks from being the next big German music export. They already have a huge fanbase abroad – just look at the venues they’ll play at the upcoming UK tour, they’re at O2 level wherever they go – and as long as they continue writing banger songs they’ll continue on the same trajectory as bands as Editors.
Dudes, I’m super impressed with what you have achieved in such a short time and the quality of your music. Keep it coming! I’ll keep coming to your shows.
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Photos: Katrin Arfmann
