Einstürzende Neubauten, Copenhagen, April 17th

I've seen Neubauten live two times before. Sadly, this was the not the best gig. Not even the second best. Still, when Neubauten is not up to their best, they're anyway so good it's scary.

Blixa Bargeld announced that there would first be one hour-long set of their greatest hits, and then another hour-long set of, err, their greatest hits. It was, after all, the 25th anniversary tour. They kicked it off with Yü-Gung (Fütter Mein Ego), from the album 1/2 Mensch and one of my absolute favourites, and I was in heaven. An industrial, avant-garde, dada, noise heaven.

The Neubauten was as always one mean machine, grinding and hammering out Haus der Lüge, Perpetuum Mobile, the truly beautiful Sabrina, Selbstporträt mit Kater and Sehnsucht. I, who discovered Neubauten at 15, was finally treated to Z.N.S. live, they got everyone to sing along to Was Ist Ist (several hundred people screaming "Was ist ist/Was nicht ist ist möglich!"), and ended the second set with the song meant to round off all concerts ever; Ende Neu.

Oh my fucking gods it was great.

Blixa seems to become more talkative every year - this time around he told the Kango hammer anecdote ("Andrew did some architectural criticism with power tools"), bantered a lot with Alexander Hacke and told the story about the film they wrote Sabrina for and how it turned out that the song wasn't used for it's original purpose (including a wonderful Blixa-comment on "a boy losing his virginity for the first time").

I'm fairly easy to please when it comes to Neubauten. Still, I've seen heroes of mine live before and become truly disappointed (a big fat fuck you to Lou 'I don't wanna be here but I'll do a bit of guitar wanking if you insist' Reed). The reason this isn't the best gig of theirs is probably that the audience wasn't all that responsive, dampening down the band the tiniest bit. It was still impressive, as concerts go.

And, woo absofuckinglutely hoo, I got my hands on a copy of their anniversary celebration book, No Beauty Without Danger by Max Dax and Robert Defcon. Out of 500 copies made, I actually own one.




Blixa!



Andrew Unruh plays the shopping cart


Photographs by wasteman_r, a terrible but enthusiastic photographer who was in charge of the camera because I am too small. Being a recognised fan I could get a photo pass, but I didn't dare get one and then show up with a tiny Minolta thingy among the well-equipped photographers.

If you're curious enough and don't know Neubauten, visit their web site.

On Copenhagen

On the importance of good shoes part I
When packing for a weekend in good old Copenhagen, to be followed directly by four days in Rome, it's important to remember a pair of good, comfortable shoes, because one will be walking a lot.

I brought my old well-worn Ecco sneakers. Then I got a nasty reminder of how well-worn shoes can suddenly turn into worn-out shoes.

wasteman_r and I arrived in Copenhagen Friday, April 14th. Saturday, April 15th we walked and walked and walked, until I discovered (the painful way) raw wounds on my right foot, on my heel and two of my toes. My good old shoes had, with extraordinary timing, started eating on my feet. After this discovery, he walked and walked while I limped and limped.

This led to me fucking up some bones in my right foot as well, because I placed my weight awkwardly on that foot in order to avoid rubbing the wounds more than absolutely necessary. This in its turn led to a more pronounced limping and more weight placed awkwardly on the left foot.

The big tendon in my left ankle, don't know it's name in English, is now inflamed and has been for two weeks...

On doing touristy things
I've been to Copenhagen more times than I can count. My father was Danish and when I was cuter and littler than I am now, we visited my aunt and my sleazy uncle in Copenhagen. When I grew less cute and little and started going to the Roskilde festival, I always spent time in Copenhagen before the festival, buying necesseties in Christiania and drinking in Nyhavn.

The thing is, except from a visit to Bakken when I was a child and few visits to Tivoli, I've never really done any touristy stuff in Copenhagen. When visiting aunty and icky uncle, we just looked at their aviaries and got bitten by their mean German Shepherd and such. When I turned 18, I just hit Pusher Street and the bars and might as well have been lighting up at home, except for the quality of what was smoked. I've never even visited Rundetårn.

This time around we were big time Tourists.

Thanks to my Foot Thing, I managed to talk Wasteman into going on a canal cruise - complete with multilingual and disinterested guide - so we looked at The Little Mermaid and The Black Diamond (but we've already been there, inside it and all, it's the library and we went there on a rainy day in '96 before going to Christiania) and the people enjoying the sun in Nyhavn and Christianshavn.

We also went shopping. Very, very tourist-ish, that. I bought a pair of shoes and Wasteman got a pair of pants, and everyone in the shops were Norwegian and it was all infinitely embarrassing. I felt less idiotic when it started raining and all the real tourists took shelter in doorways and stood around staring cow-like at the rain, not knowing what to do or where to go, while we slipped off the main shopping street and went to find a bar.

Incidentally, this particular bar visit landed me with a brand new addiction. It was a bit cold, so we had hot chocolate with Amaretto, which tasted absolutely wonderful and is highly recommended. The problem is, I've been drinking Amaretto on a far too regular basis since. This morning I craved a bit of Amaretto in my tea, but this was cruelly denied me by a slightly worried boyfriend.

On Sunday 17th, we went to Tivoli - we paid up to get in and sit around in the cafés and on the benches and look at things and at people and take exactly one trip with Ballongyngen. It was a good day. The Tivoli season started the day we arrived in Copenhagen, and it was the queen's birthday on Saturday, so we managed to pack quite a few ultra-Danish things into one weekend.

We looked at artworks displayed around the town. We strolled along Peblingesø. We contemplated visiting Rundetårn but put it off because I would have had to be carried down. We fussed with a city map and with our cameras. And all the time I felt like an imposter because Copenhagen is a town I know really, really well and acting like a tourist is something I have never done there before.

It was really, really fun.

On food
You can't go anywhere with Wasteman without having a disproportionate focus on food. He must suffer from some brain malfunction, because he seriously has problems thinking about or doing anything but eating. He must also suffer from some body malfunction, because he's skinny.

Travelling with Wasteman means endless perusal of café and restaurant menus, annoying dithering about where to eat because he doesn't want to miss any really good eating and instead be exposed to inferior food, fighting about where to eat because I grow weary of his inability to decide which place he wants to eat and resulting Ceaucescu decisions taken by me.

Things were also complicated because our favourite café in Copenhagen, Universitetscaféen, had closed.

We did, however, manage to find a new fave café - Skilpadden on Gråbrødretorv. Wonderful food. Nice place. And just across the square we found one hell of a restaurant - Philippe, where even I turned food obsessed for a little while. On Sunday we had dinner in a Tivoli restaurant, olde Danish inn style complete with energetic and incredibly nice and funny bar maid. And she wasn't joking when she asked if we wanted another serving of bacon and parsley sauce, there were more servings included in the (low) price, but at the point of asking we hadn't even managed to finish the first one. Danish food and generosity. Bless the Danes (and let's discuss their blatant racism some other time).

On the importance of good shoes part II
We went to see Einstürzende Neubauten live (see previous entry). On Sunday night, my consciousness spent most of the gig being 90 % ecstatic about the band and a nagging 10 % worrying about the increasing pain in my feet. And worrying about going to Rome on Monday. And hoping that it would be more work than touristiness in Rome.