In Barcelona, in the month of October, several concerts that interest you can coincide on the same day. But what happened this Thursday, when Einstürzende Neubauten and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds overlapped, goes down in the annals of concert bad blood. Not even Primavera in its worst moments.
That’s why Blixa Bargeld can’t help but thank us, with a bit of sarcasm and without saying a word, for having come to see them and having made “a difficult decision.” I catch myself shouting: “Not so difficult!”, although my voice doesn’t reach him (spoiler: okay, I confess: I had tickets and a flight to see Nick in Lisbon).
The point is that the Apolo registers a very good entrance to see the Germans: people in black, old and new school sinisters… In front of a bright yellow fabric, like the cover of ‘Rampen apm (alien pop music)’, Blixa He acts as a great magician, he enchants us with his excessive charisma that does not require special movements, only voice, screams and presence. In black, very elegant, with long hair and reflective eye shadow that would look terrible on any other mortal but that looks spectacular on him. The rest of the Neubauten go more unnoticed, but they play incredible. From my position I can’t see if they have a lot of junk this time. I only glimpse a shopping cart that Blixa reports has been accompanying them since 1996 and some tubes.
The concert is mainly based on their last two albums, ‘Rampen’ and ‘Alles in Allem’. Furthermore, it is unusually calm, atmospheric and bright. Not just musically: the lights are especially bright tonight. Also the songs are quite faithful to the originals on the albums. They open with ‘Pestalozzi’ and ‘Ist ist’. We have to wait for the fourth song, ‘Grazer Damm’, to see Blixa throw knives (towards the ground), which make a magical sound (how well she throws them!).
‘Sabrina’ is one of the few concessions to the past. Blixa occasionally tells us stories, like when they went to a world’s fair in Vancouver and some organizer demanded their presence. They played between Indians from northern Canada and Yossou N’Dou. Blixa was given a trilobite. This to sing, of course, ‘Trilobiten’, which looks great with the harmonica. But he also knows how to get emotional. Before playing ‘Gesundbrunnen’ he explains to us that “my boy turned 16 two weeks ago. She was born as a daughter. “Now he is my son.”
After almost an hour and a half of concert Einstürzende Neubauten leave the stage to return almost immediately. And they return with none other than ‘Ten Grand Goldie’, which I sing and dance like there was no tomorrow and we go a little crazy with ‘Besser isses’ and the calm but sarcastic ‘Everything Will Be Fine’. There is a last encore with ‘Susej’. And it ends. It has been two hours that have passed in a flash, enchanted by the magician Blixa and his henchmen. A particularly smooth and intense concert. For a theoretically dark group, tonight at the Apolo they filled us with joy and happiness.
