Messed!Up
The venerable Ox Fanzine invited all the Ruhrpott punks and genre-adjacent music lovers to its very own mini-festival at Don’t Panic. Though one of the five bands (Death by Horse) had to cancel due to illness, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable evening with remarkable momentum.
Wick Bambix kicked things off with her acoustic guitar, but not completely solo (as I had anticipated), rather supported by a second guitarist and drummer. This gave the set more depth without losing its intimate atmosphere. The mix of solo songs and a few pieces from her former band Bambix made for a warm, almost sentimental start to the evening. Her comment that she preferred to play first, followed by bands like Agnostic Front, because otherwise the energy level would be strangely distributed, proved to be quite accurate as the evening progressed.
With SYFF, the mood changed abruptly. From the first note, the aforementioned energy level was bombastically high – a complete contrast to Wick’s acoustic punk. Wild hardcore attacks, constant movement, the singer jumping through the audience, and the guitarists shredding their instruments lying down on stage: an intense, sweat-inducing demolition. For me personally, it was a highlight after I had unfortunately missed them last year at Weltturbojugendtage.
Bronko then surprised the audience with feminist, anti-capitalist garage punk songs that were raw and direct. A real new discovery (at least for me) and, surprisingly, the audience went even more wild than before. I’d like to see them go on tour with Baboon Show soon – that would be a match made in punk rock heaven!
Closing out the evening, Kontrolle finally provided a successful finale with their wavy, dark post-punk. Instead of moshing, people started dancing in front of the stage – providing an atmospheric end to a varied and thoroughly successful concert evening.
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Photographer and writer: Christian Berg
