That's EIN-shtur-tsen-deh NOI-bow-ten, in case you were wondering.

Blixa Bargeld provided not only a great vocal performance, but also presented us with a good commentary throughout the show. He apologized for the amount of German that we had to listen to, pointed out a couple of technical failures in the production, and showed himself to be in very good humour. Barefooted, and in a nice three piece suit, Bargeld showed that he's able to belt it out when needed. There are a number of loud screams in Neubauten recordings that I always assumed were generated by instrumentation or with the aid of electronics. Turns out that these were simply the amplified voice of the singer, screaming.

They opened up with "Ich Gehe Jetzt" (I'm Going Now) from their new album Perpetuum Mobile. This is one of my personal favorite pieces off the latest album, and it was a very good starting point for the night - not too quiet to be overpowered by the audience, and not too loud to overpower the audience. They played another shortly thereafter in "Selbsportrait mit Kater" (Self-portrait With Hangover); an excellent leadoff to the show.

While all of the on-stage performers were, technically, percussion at some point in the show, though that's not necessarily their primary credited instrument. Alex Hacke provided bass and played a number of home-made devices from scrap metal to gas canister to vibrating sex toy. Guitarist Jochen Arbeit also made interesting use of a vibrator on his strings in addition to performing on percussion when needed.

Rudolph Moser was responsible for many of the large PVC pipe instruments, alternatively beating or blowing air into them. Also seen behind his mostly-metal drum kit, beating on folded metal snare drum. Providing tour support on synthesizer was the Australian synthesizer pioneer Ash Wednesday, who has toured with the band since 1997.

One of the most interesting pieces of instrumentation that was seen on stage was the revolving Aircake that is pictured on the front of Perpetuum Mobile (View here). Picture a Styrofoam sandwich of cut off plastic bottles and tin cans, rotating on a turntable, into which Percussionist Andrew Chudy would blow air from his compressor hose. Power drills and electric razors were applied to metal rods, and large hand-crafted metal and string instruments were alternately beaten or strummed to amazing effect.

Bargeld plays a radio at a couple of points during the show, tuning into whatever happened to be available on the dial. He also made use of the motors on the air compressors to provide an amplified hum that was not at all what I'd have expected. Very "Revolution #9" without being annoying. Much of the interesting pieces I witnessed were of the "That's how they made that sound!" variety.

Introducing a song that they haven't played in some time; "Neun Arme", Bargeld's commentary was interrupted by an audience member that was apparently lost, yelling out that Bargeld forgot his sandals. The song itself is a rather disturbing piece with the heartbeat track providing a beat behind everything else. Exceptional live track, especially when you're standing right in front of the speaker stack, feeling each pulse of the heart as if it were two stories high and right there in front of you.

"...21 years ago, we have recorded a piece of music that was based on a recording of my heart beat and as it was my condition at the time, I managed to squeeze in about double the amount of heartbeats in 24 hours than a normal person. I forgot my sandals? I haven't got any sandals... Anyway, that kind of makes this an up-tempo song so we have not really played this ever since we recorded it, so we just started doing this on this tour...," Bargeld said.

The band has run into their share of problems with corporations such as their former label Some Bizarre in Europe, and Clear Channel in North America. They're not shy about pointing this out, either.

"...Yes it's a complicated band with complicated ideas. Well, this piece on the new album is called 'Grundstuck' ... When we first attempted this one, we suddenly received a fax from our ex-record company who was threatening us - to sue us again. I'm talking about Some Bizarre that we have signed to in 1982 or '83. They have ripped us off, they have ripped everybody off. They never paid us in ... 21 years ... we just decided that okay, we are working on this floor piece, why not turn that into a hex?"

During the show, the entire main set was meant to be recorded and sold to fans who wanted to take a copy home with them; 50 CDs were produced for around $30 a piece. There was some sort of mix-up during the recording, which lead to the first four or five songs not being captured, which Bargeld mentioned around half way through the encore. Normally, they would stop recording the show before the encore so that they had time to press the CDs. Instead, they asked that everyone be patient after the show, as they were going to record the entire encore to make up for it, which was something they haven't done previously.

"I'm sorry to say that something with the recording went wrong. For that reason, we are in fact continuing to record now what is going on. Well, you know we're not Clear Channel. We're just ourselves, we're human and things go wrong with what we do, and we make the wrong going of what we do usually part of the concept [concert?] but I'm sorry, if the recording for us went wrong, that means simply that there is no recording; not for us, and not for you. Normally we would not record the show to the end in order to multiplicate it, and now we are recording the show to the very end so that you have something that is long enough and worth the money."

It was interesting that the entire audience call for encore was recorded on the CDs as part of this atonement for the bad recording. The call went on for over five minutes, without quieting or getting out of control. I've never seen anything like it, and it was very much a musical piece all to its self. The encore songs consisted of "Alles" and "Sabrina" from the album Silence is Sexy. "Ende Neu" from the album by the same name, and "Ein Leichtes Leises Sauseln" from Perpetuum Mobile. Excellent 30 minute summary of the band's work.

Backstage, I had a chance to speak with Bargeld for a short period of time. Not enough time to conduct a proper interview, but enough to elicit a couple of anecdotes regarding Customs. Apparently they have no end of trouble clearing customs due to the nature of their instrumentation. It also didn't hurt that their itinerary brought them up the East Coast from Washington, D.C. up into Canada for two days, and then back into the US for another two nights, before coming back up to play Vancouver.

Picture a trailer loaded full of their instruments... You know, assorted lengths of pipe, a load of crushed and tangled steel, aluminum, empty blue chemical barrels, large boxes of packing peanuts and assorted power tools. Customs agents expect to see more guitars and drums from bands, after all. The packing peanuts weren't used in their appearance in Vancouver, having been discarded on the last crossing to avoid the hassle. He described a customs agent digging around in a box of packing peanuts looking for whatever it was that the band was obviously shipping... I mean, who in their right mind would take huge boxes of packing peanuts across the border? People with something to hide, as far as Customs is concerned.

Over two hours of stage time, the show was very entertaining, very loud (no ringing in my ears afterward, however), and very fluid. I may have to attend their performance in Berlin this fall when they near completion of Phase II of neubauten.org.

Elsewhere

By Richard Murray
Photos : Richard Murray
Published : May 21, 2004.