ordered my ticket for their show here in glasgow, nov 28.
anyone know what to expect?
i’ve got their first album, live sky tour and second nature.
i think they’ve just released xxy (20 years best of/mixes 2cd set)
I have all their albums and have seen them five times live during the last ten years.
Last time I saw them live was last Saterday. Here what I can remember from the setlist:
Jimmy
Envoyé
Skinflower
Child In A Tree
Kissing The Sun
Supersonic
Speed Of Night
L’Amourir
Charlotte
Did You Miss Me
They played also 5 brand new songs. They sounded more in the style of Only Heaven than Second Nature, what is a good thing, at least for me. A great show anyway (I was never disappointed by them live).
The real new album (not the Best Of that was released this week) should come out at the beginning of 2006.
But you should definitely try to get L’eau Rouge, TV Sky and Only Heaven in the meantime…
Same thing here. I saw them during Sphinctour in '96 and I really couldn’t get into them even though my brother-in-law told me they would be good. There was very little “live” about the whole thing other than really dramatic singing amid a million flashing lights.[:(]
Come on! This is so wrong! The guy on the keyboards (Al Comet) does really play live…
Below is a live report I found somewhere (from a concert they did in 2000), that gives a nice taste of what their concerts are.
But at the end everyone has his own opinion.
PS: Their name comes from a Swans song (ex-member of the Swans and Wiseblood, Roli Mosiman was their producer during years) and the singer, Franz Treichler, produced among others two albums for the band Treponem Pal (two of them were part of Ministry during the Lolapalooza '92 tour)…
"There are many reasons to love The Young Gods: they have continued to create cutting edge music throughout their 15 year existence; they politely refuse to follow traditional song structures (not for them the verse-chorus-verse approach); they are unencumbered by language (their repertoire spans French, English and the odd bit of German, yet they have still had a phenomenal impact on the English-speaking music world); and they have no desire whatsoever to sound like any other band on the planet.
Swathed in blue light, the three Young Gods take the stage to the sound of a new song, a tightly-wound ambient piece punctuated with the odd burst of metallic clanking. Singer Franz Treichler stands front and centre, eyes shut, clinging to the microphone like it’s a departing lover. It’s a hypnotic start and serves to encapsulate the Young Gods’ live performance - captivating, mesmerising, and (maybe on account of the French accents) very sensual.
New single “Lucidogen” gets the crowd moving, before “Kissing The Sun” initiates a mass slamming session, its layers of electronically-processed guitars providing the ultimate 21st century mosh material. “We’re going to play some new stuff now”, mumbles Franz, before the group unleash a series of increasingly stunning new songs. It’s a bit like Michelangelo saying he’s "slapped some paint’ onto the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The new material has all the trademark Young Gods elements: trance-inducing electronics mixed with bizarre noises and almost sexual vocal delivery, but with one exception - the drums. Whereas former drummer Use Hiestand was pretty talented (listen to their version of Kurt Weill’s "Mackie Messer’), new boy Bernard Trontin is a veritable tour de force - he spends half the time drumming standing up, punctuating frenetic rhythms with virtuoso crashes of symbol. One of the new songs in particular sounds incredible - mixing liquid beats with tribal drumming - the new album is going to be special.
The rest of the set is made up of late period material - “The Night Dance”, an ecstatically-received “Skinflowers” (with the first verse strummed by Franz on acoustic guitar), the noisy middle bit of “Moon Revolutions” - and very first single “Envoyé” (during which Franz leaps into the crowd and emerges grinning and shoeless).
The band leave the stage with the audience clamouring for more. It’s not long before they re-appear to give us what we want, launching into the rumble-heavy “Strangel”, before taking the energy level down again with “Speed Of Light” and finishing off with “Dame Chance”. They disappear. The crowd goes mad again. And they reemerge to play another encore!
The sound of crashing waves heralds Kurt Weill’s haunting “September Song”, delivered with equal parts tenderness and intensity, before they appease the hecklers by playing the awesome "L’Amouri@’. During the rousing vocal crescendo, someone jumps onstage and kisses Franz, swiftly followed by a few more admirers, and he actually looks embarrassed at the adulation. They finish up with the trip-hop of “Donnez Les Esprits” and disappear for good. No more songs, but then it’s not as if we haven’t have value for money tonight.
As ever, The Young Gods succeed in being hypnotic and heavy, melodic and noisy, familiar yet utterly unique. They didn’t play “Gasoline Man”, “Longue Route” or the incredible “TV Sky” (stormers, all), but they still deliver a performance with the power to climb inside your head and shake your entire body into a pulverising trance."
Funny, but the first time I saw them live was in 95 and they weren’t crap… on the contrary (and I was not the only at the concert to think this).
Anyway, it’s strange to think that people into industrial music think that a band without a real guitar player, but with a guy on synths and samplers doing the main musical part (using samples yes, rolling tapes no), is crap.
I’m curious to know what such people might think of Scorn, for example…