Messed!Up
Let’s get one thing clear: I’m not a fan of DJ live shows. In fact, I find them quite boring although I have to admit I’ve been to DJ festivals (in particular Let It Roll) a few times, but it’s really not the way I want to experience a live show. So why do I end up at a Marc Rebillet gig, a man doing a DJ set at one of Hamburg’s biggest Open Air venues? Well, Marc Rebillet is a world-class entertainer and his gigs are about 50% stand-up comedy, 30% bantering, and 20% DJing. Where else can you find tantalizing live looping and beat-making that’s simultaneously the most raunchy and entertaining experience you’ve yet to see?
While most people would know his music from YouTube livestreams, Rebillet has also toured extensively across the world playing and live-streaming everywhere from cafes to theatres, and he has created a trademark with his brown bathrobe that usually flies off somewhere halfway through his gigs. It wasn’t a surprise that every second person at Stadtpark Open Air was wearing bathrobes as I entered the gates. It just confirms that he has a massive world-wide fanbase.
Tonight, however, there’s no bathrobe, Rebillet runs onstage only in underwear and shoes and starts kicking and screaming like a maniac while people in the crowd turn crazy. Like a caged beast, he darted from each side of the stage, riling up the crowd with little more than the cheeky look in his eye. His hundreds of fans went mental for any pose or blue-steel face he made. The stage itself was adorned with inflatable stuff that later was thrown out in the audience to stir up the madness (people at gigs always love to play with inflatables). It’s unhinged, genuine, captivating, and hilarious at the same time – you never know what to expect!
Jumping into beat-making, Rebillet layered snares, hats, and percussion for many bars, teasing us before finally punching us in the face with a kickass bass, accompanied by pyrotechnics, pushing the crowd into an immediate up-tempo tech house groove. After a few minutes looping a simple bongo drum and a fat bass to ease fans into the show, it takes off with the music being constantly interrupted by random screams, witty quips, crowd fanfares, and Rebillet running out on scene extending into the crowd. Mixing one beat into the next, with random stops to say something out of pocket and hilarious, the energy built in those first few minutes managed to power a crowd of crazed fans for a full 90 minutes. With his trusty loop station and strict ‘no setlist’ approach, he acts out hilarious skits, comes up with absurd and often explicit melodies, and interacts with fans all on the fly. And it’s these improvisational skills where his real talent shows, to come up with a melody from nothing and build songs on a few beats and vocal samples.
The highlight of the night is when he brings up a young German boy onstage, in a bathrobe of course, who doesn’t speak or understand much English (with some hilarious misunderstandings), but who screams like he never screamed before and makes ‘noises’ – there’s no better way to explain it – that Rebillet samples and adds to a techno beat. Just imagine seeing a grown-up (well…) man running from one side to the other in his underwear and throwing inflatables into the audience screaming ‘Fuck you’ while a young boy in a bathrobe jumps up and down screaming at the top of his lungs. In any normal case, someone would have been locked up for disorderly conduct (although we’re not sure about who) for a few months, but not at Stadtpark Open Air in Hamburg. It’s probably the most hilarious moment I’ve experienced this year, and it all happens while loud techno music is played combined with the sampled boy’s screaming, and imitated by the audience. It’s just madness! It’s like a scene from the Lars von Trier movie The Idiots!
Closing the 90-minute gig, Rebillet announced the show had entered its encore, and he moved away from the improvised fun to play some classics. Fans were treated to live renditions of “Girls Club” and “Flamingo”, and Stadtpark surged with energy for these last tracks, allowing the show to wrap up on a high note.
It’s hard not to compare him to Weird Al Jankovic but with the slight difference that Rebillet is armed with a keyboard and a loop machine. Just like Weird Al it’s all improvised, he makes it up on stage as the show moves forward. Is he Weird Al for the Gen Z’s? When do we get the movie (just like Weird Al did)?
For anyone out there who hasn’t been to a Marc Rebillet show yet, it’s well spent money (although he told us he stole our money and would buy ‘stuff’ for it), and you will get an unforgettable concert/stand-up experience to tell your kids about in the future.
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Photos: Richie Racoon
