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An exclusive reportage
by
Rene Christensen
Swedish Electronic Music Awards 1998 Gothenburg, Sweden Saturday, 4th of April, 1998 at Venue Kårhuskällaren (or just Kaarhuskallaren) * * * * * Performing bands Stage 1 Cat Rapes Dog Stage 2 Dresscode Stage 3 FKK Jugend |
| The trip
from Copenhagen to Gothenburg was a very quick one. I slept most of the way up there on
the train, due to the fact that I hadn't slept at all the night before. My friend Henrik
woke me up saying: "10 minutes until we arrive at Gothenburg Central Station René".
I looked outside the window and saw snow everywhere. "Welcome to Sweden" was my
first thought and the second one was "Damn, I should have worn my hiking boots!" First thing we had to do after we got off the train at 12.21 PM was to pick up our tickets for the show. We found the record shop at the station and collected the tickets that were waiting for us. At the same place we were approached by two young Swedes. It turned out to be two IRC'ers from Undernet #industrial (Polyfemos and Colpy) with whom I had talked about the SEMA event. Since neither Henrik nor I had ever been to Gothenburg before, it was a pleasant surprise to us. After a few hours of cd shopping we hooked up with more Swedish teenagers, and found a place where we could start drinking some of the fine Danish beer we had brought with us. Around 5.30 we walked down to the venue. A little crowd was standing outside, waiting to get in. The line moved pretty fast, giving us little time to finish the beers we had brought with us. The first 100 people who got in, would get a free Recoil promo cd sponsored by Mute. Unfortunately we weren't among those but we did get a compilation cd of bands, mainly of those that were to perform that night. The place had three floors. Upstairs held a cinema room where different Depeche Mode movies where shown. The ground floor had a big room where stage 1 was located. The major bands were going to perform there, and the various awards would be handed out in between shows. Downstairs had two rooms. Each with a stage. Stage 3 reserved for Mute covering bands. We found a place to sit in the hall with the big stage, listening to the DJ spinning records until Cat Rapes Dog went on at 7. They played a set that consisted of the good old hits and their new single "Motorman." The new lead singer Johan did a good job, so did the rest of the band. We got from them what we could expect with songs like "Moosehair Underwear" and "Trojan Whores". Full throttle but nothing ground breaking. A lot of time elapsed now, walking back and forth between the different rooms, dancing and drinking more beers. In The Nursery were set to perform already at 8.15, but we were told that they were stuck somewhere between Sheffield and Gothenburg, and were heavily delayed. The atmosphere was great, I think around 1000 people were gathered at the event. At around 11 the British band Komputer went on stage. They had a big screen behind them to back up the music. Images of old computer control rooms and futuristic b/w images from the movie Metropolis. Believe me, this band sounded completely like Kraftwerk. Quite amazing but after 3 or 4 songs it got kinda boring so we went downstairs to dance some more and found ourselves listening to this incredibly funny Depeche Mode cover band. 4 guys played a lot of the really old DM songs and everyone was dancing and loving every minute. When Covenant went on at around 0.30 we had to sit down and listen to it. A long day of walking around and consuming large quantities of various alcohol could no longer be ignored. A pity because the three guys did a fabulous job. A lot of the songs were taken from the new Europa release. The PA was running at max level and everyone were jumping around to songs like "Final Man," "Riot" and "Leviathan." Before they started playing, the band was given the award for best band of the year. Most deserving I must add. The big question after Covenant was: "Is In The Nursery going to perform?" I must admit that I didn't know what to expect from them since, I have none of their cd's. When the huge drums that are kinda the trademark of the band quickly were being set up on the stage we knew they hadn't let SEMA and their fans down. They began to play at around 1.45 and after the first song Dolores told us that if we had ever seen the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin, we knew what they had gone through to get to Gothenburg! During the next two songs it was quite clear that they hadn't done a proper sound check. One of the drummers obviously couldn't hear anything because he was out of sync with the rest of the band. We could see that the man behind the sound board was working like crazy to get it right, but apparently it didn't get any better. Suddenly the lights went on in the hall. At first we thought it was just some drunk idiot, who had pushed a light switch somewhere, but after a few minutes with no change, and upon several requests from the band to "kill the lights" we found out why. "Sorry but we are not allowed to play for you anymore. They've pulled the plug on us," Dolores proclaimed, visibly shaking her head in disbelief and disappointment. The place closed at 2.00 AM precisely. We couldn't believe what was happening right before us. Never had any of us witnessed such a shitty treatment of a band, and the people who had payed to see them! We left the place with a bad final impression of an event that would've been perfect if ITN hadn't been thrown off stage like that. We said goodbye to the crew of Swedes who had taken so good care of us during the day, and had shown us such great hospitality.
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