PART TWO: 
The Agra Market and Live Bands
(in order of appearance)
Cinema Strange
Funhouse
The Gathering
Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft

At the risk of stating the obvious, the Wave Gotik Treffen is not a conventional 'rock festival'. It's far more akin to a city-wide arts festival than the big-stage-in-a-field layout of British festivals like Reading, or continental events such as Eurorock. However, the principal focus of the WGT is live music, and that's why we're here on Friday afternoon at the Agra, the largest of the many venues across Leipzig which have turned themselves into festival locations for the four days of the WGT.

The Agra is a complex of several halls, normally used for trade exhibitions. As a matter of fact, the next event coming in after the WGT is a flower show. (I feel like I should make a frightfully witty comment at this point, but I just can't think of one. Feel free to add your own!) The two largest Agra halls - vast, echoing hangars into which you could probably fit several medium-size jet aircraft - are given over to the bands and the market. The market itself is a bit of a jaw-dropper - a huge area devoted to just about every manifestation of gothic fashion and culture. Traders have come from all over Europe to be here; this is the shop window of the European goth scene, a place where, it seems, any goth-related enterprise worth its salt must have some sort of presence.

'All over Europe', however, does not include the UK. I'm a little disappointed to find that the UK is not represented anywhere in this bustling bazaar of goth-commerce, and even the CD stalls (of which there are many) don't seem to stock UK artists. Hey, all you bands - yes, you, with that impressive-looking blurb on your CDs about 'worldwide distribution' - how come I can't buy your music at Europe's biggest goth festival? The small scale of the UK scene these days is an inescapable fact, but I don't see why that should mean we simply stop trying. Unfortunately, one of the principal impressions I gained from my visit to the Wave Gotik Treffen is how insignificant the UK scene really is in global terms these days. I was, of course, aware of this fact beforehand, but it gives me no pleasure to have it confirmed. The trouble is, I think many people on the UK scene today are quite content with this state of affairs. The small, cosy UK goth scene has become a comforting security blanket for too many bands, labels, and other scene-operators, who, it seems, just don't want even to try to conquer new territories. A stroll around the Agra market illustrates just how much goth stuff there is out there...and how little we in the UK have to do with it these days. But I digress. I digress, and I rant. A justifiable rant, I think, but even so...what the hell. It's time to party. Let's cut the crap, get the beers in, and get down the front for the first band of WGT 2003 - Cinema Strange.

The sunlight is streaming through the windows in the back wall of the Agra. In the civilized world, it's still only tea time. Which, perhaps, explains Cinema Strange's costumes. The two guitarists have dressed up like a couple of little old ladies at a tea dance, while the singer is either a sea cadet or a bellboy, I'm not sure which. There's also a drummer, a new addition since I last saw the band - he's hidden behind his kit, so I fear I can make no comment on his costume. I can, however, relay the reassuring news that he has a splendidly sensible hairstyle. The band take the stage to a roar of enthusiasm from the crowd, which, even this early in the day, is already several thousand strong. Cinema Strange obviously have a large and devoted fanbase in Germany, where the Deathrock thing seems to be the latest big sensation. Every third person in the crowd seems to be doing the big hair and ripped fishnets 'Batcave' style. It's an odd sensation for me. Here, in this big tin shed, somewhere in Germany in 2003, it's London, 1981 as far as this audience is concerned.

By their props ye shall know them. Cinema Strange are accompanied on stage by a motley assortment of inflatable dolls and decapitated soft toys. This is either an artistic statement on the loss of innocence...or maybe the band are just messing about. As ever with Cinema Strange, you're never quite sure. And then they crank up their angular art-rock, and away they go. It's a driving, physical set - Cinema Strange might indulge in all manner of arty weirdness, but somewhere underneath it all they're still a Rock Band. Their music touches all sorts of bases - post-punk, post-modern, post-early-for-Christmas - but, dammit, it's still good old abrasive, freaked out rock, and you can still mosh to it if the fancy takes you.

Cinema Strange shamelessly ham it up for the cameras and the diehard fans at the front alike. They make a point of coming right to the front of the stage (something which, I must note in passing, few other bands do), hanging over the monitors, striking poses, grinning and gurning into a hundred eager lenses. The crowd go appropriately wild. I'm reminded, ironically, of the time I saw the Virgin Prunes come out in frocks and smear tomato ketchup over themselves one night at the Lyceum, some time in the early '80s. I was 18 years old and very impressionable, and I thought it was great. Unfortunately, most of the audience at that gig were there to see the headliners, Theatre Of Hate, and were outraged. The Prunes got bottled off. Compare and contrast with the storms of adulation which greet every move Cinema Strange make - it's taken 20 years, but this kind of freaky punky-arty-rocky weirdness has finally found its audience.
 

FUNHOUSE AT WERK II

As soon as Cinema Strange come off stage, it's a mad dash to the tram stop to grab a number 11 to Werk II, another venue a few miles down the road. 'Follow me!' says Alan, a veteran of many previous WGTs. 'I'm good at barging through crowds!' We're on a mission (ha!) to see Funhouse, whose set is timed to start soon after Cinema Strange are scheduled to finish. With so many different bands playing in assorted locations all over town, this kind of frantic sprint between venues is inevitable if you have a varied list of 'must-see' bands. At the tram stop we meet some people from Philadelphia, who are freaking out because they've lost their friend who's got their tickets. 'English-speaking people!' they cry with relief. Bluffing my way along, I give them some vital tram-route information, trying to disguise the fact that I only got into town 24 hours ago myself, and I'm only one page ahead of them in the tram timetable.

Werk II is a rather cool factory building which has been converted into a performance space. The old-fashioned industrial ambience - all red brick and hefty wrought iron beams - lends itself very well to the gothic festival experience. Through an industrial roller shutter door, and there's the stage. Funhouse are already on, barrelling through a typically boisterous set of good-time blastorama goth 'n' roll. The line-up has changed since I last saw the band (which was, as it happens, at a gig I promoted in London). There's a new guitarist, who remains a mysterious half-glimpsed shape in the lights and the smoke, but the band's basic approach - simply to get out there and *rock* - is the same as ever. Down the front, I run into Martina, an old friend of Nemesis Promotions. The old-skool crew are in the house tonight! She pulls me into a good photography position; being a traditionally reserved Englishman, I was politely hanging back on the fringes of the crowd. Right up against the barrier, it's possible to get the full effect of the Funhouse show. It's good rollicking stuff, although because most of the stage lighting is behind the band, rather than on the band, Funhouse appear as blurred shapes in the rock 'n' roll swirl. In these conditions of limited visibility, the interaction between band and audience which I recall from their London gigs - swapping jokes and friendly insults with the front row - doesn't happen here. But it's a damn fine show even so. Definitely worth the tram ride. The band certainly haven't lost any of their gung-ho enthusiasm for the rockin' experience, and it's good to see this kind of no-shit full-on performance. We need more of this stuff! But wait a minute - no songs about Mike's ex-wife? Surely not!

After Funhouse, the next band on stage is In Strict Confidence, who I saw only recently at the Gotham all-dayer in London. I'm tempted to stick around and see what this band is *really* like, since their London set was bedevilled with technical problems and had to be cut short - and, in any case, the band were struggling with an audience more interested in seeing the headliners, The Damned. Under those circumstances, their show quite understandably wasn't up to the usual standard. The surge of people coming in to the venue suggests that In Strict Confidence have a big following here in Germany, and I imagine, being on home turf, as it were, they must have played a much more impressive set. Alas, I didn't see it. We decide to jump a tram back to the Agra, and catch up with the goings-on there.
 

THE GATHERING AND DAF AT THE AGRA

Back at the Agra, we arrive when Silencio are on stage, a band nobody seems to have heard of. So, we hang out in what I suppose you'd call the food court - an area between the venue itself and the adjacent campsite, where stalls selling all manner of food - from wurst to fruit, confectionery to pizza - have set themselves up. This area is, more or less, the social crossroads of the WGT. Hang around here long enough and you'll meet everyone you know at the festival. We run into Petit Scarabee, DJ at the Edinburgh club Finsternis (her flyers, incidentally, are the only UK-scene publicity bumph I see throughout the entire four days of the festival - where was everyone else?), Isabelle, singer with The Breath Of Life, and Thomas, who's here in his capacity of sound engineer for Ikon and Faith & The Muse. I'm amused to find one of the stalls is selling something called 'krapfenbackerei', which is probably a fine traditional German foodstuff, but with a name like that I'm not surprised it hasn't made much headway in English-speaking countries.

And then we decide to venture into the big tin shed of the Agra, and see The Gathering. Not, as it turns out, such a great idea. What happened to The Gathering? They used to be good!

Brief history: The Gathering started out as a full-on metal band, then sharpened up their style and became a taut, pithy alternative rock group, and in this incarnation were actually rather cool. But now...what's gone wrong? The band have turned into purveyors of bland MOR coffee-table rock. They appear on stage decked out in casual leisure wear and baggy blue jeans, and all their songs have turned into mid-tempo snooze-athons (the gaps between the beats are so long I genuinely don't know how the drummer stays awake) with Cher-style power-ballad vocals. The singer simply cannot deliver a line without extending it into a pointless bout of showing off: 'Wooah-oh! Waaaahhh-oooh-oh! Wooh-yeaaaahhh-ohh!' Curiously enough, she does all this while wearing a fixed grin. Her mouth never seems to move in relation to the sounds she's singing - the effect is rather akin to a ventriloquism act, although I wouldn't like to suggest who's the dummy.

Meanwhile, the bassist headbangs ludicrously (it's as if nobody's told him the band don't do that metal stuff any more) while the guitarist just stands there doing his Very Serious Musician thing. The crowd lap it up. Every song is greeted with massive cheers. Even the singer's thank-yous between the songs - naturally, she over-extends even these simple phrases: 'Danke schooooonnnn!' - receive huge roars of appreciation. I'm forced to the conclusion that I just don't have the Gathering gene, or something - at any rate, I'm just bored by it all. I stand off to one side, watching the audience going apeshit, and I feel utterly bemused. What is it they're hearing that I'm not hearing? The only spark of interest in the entire set comes when the guitarist coaxes a brief squawk out of a theremin, as a climax to one of the songs. But it *is* just a brief squawk, a little novelty noise - the theremin is never used to any greater extent. Well, of course not. Why, if The Gathering started doing things like that, they'd be in danger of becoming interesting, and that's clearly against band policy these days.

There are many inexplicable things about the Wave Gotik Treffen, and the presence of The Gathering at the festival is just one of them. What a load of krapfenbackerei.

Fortunately, the evening is just about to take a turn for the better. Putting DAF on directly after The Gathering seems a bit like following Pat Benatar with Cabaret Voltaire, and in truth I wasn't expecting too much from this bunch of '80s-vintage electro-heads. Sure, they had their day, but wasn't their day back in 1984 or thereabouts? Then again, maybe DAF's time has come again. The band's name (in full, it's Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft) has a decidedly ironic and contemporary ring these days, what with Donald Rumsfeld issuing threats to Germany like a spoilt kid who can't understand why everybody doesn't want to join his gang. In any case, once on stage, DAF demolish my doubts and simply rip the place up. My photos do no justice whatsoever to a storming high-energy set. The set-up is a minimal triangle - a drummer on a big rock kit, Robert Gorl on keyboards, Gabi Delgado fronting the whole thing with such barely-repressed energy it's almost frightening. Striding from side to side of the stage, stopping, turning, pacing back again as if constrained by an invisible force field, throwing his arms wide and doing the old hand/staple/forehead as if at a loss to comprehend the mad world he sees before him, tipping water over his head, a silver stream glinting in the lights...don't ask me how, but he fills the vast tin shed of the Agra with his presence.

The crowd respond with a show of crazed moshing which is only slightly less frightening than Gabi Delgado's intense performance. I'm at the front, attempting to stay on my feet - there's a girl just ahead of me who turns and frowns with frosty disapproval every time the seething crowd shoves me forward, and I unintentionally jostle her. I feel like saying, 'Look, dear, don't frown at *me*! In case you hadn't noticed, I've got five thousand lunatic DAF-fans going absolutely mental right behind me!' Honestly, kids today. Give 'em a good mosh and they don't know what to do with it. 'Der Mussolini' provokes the crowd to even greater frenzies. It's quite something to look out over the crowd and see the entire place moving, right the way to the back. But the highlight of the set comes right at the end, and paradoxically it isn't a frantic mosh-track. Quite the reverse: courageously, DAF elect to end their set with a downbeat, almost slow motion take on 'Alles Ist Gut', drenching the song with a bleak sadness which is quite at odds with the up-and-at-'em feel of the set as a whole. This, of course, amounts to a telling touch of irony, for alles ist obviously *not* gut in the world today. Sending the crowd away with that cautionary shot across the bows after such a manic performance is a brave move, and demonstrates that DAF are confident they can take their audience with them, to the highs and the lows alike. An astonishing performance, and as I wander away through the thinning crowd I realise that DAF have just made the likes of VNV Nation look like the woefully amateurish bumblers that they are. And they didn't say 'Put your hands in the air!' once!

It's now the early hours of the morning, and the live music has ended for the night. There are clubs all over Leipzig catering for the real diehards who want to keep the party going, but we're heading out for the faithful number 11 tram to go back to the hotel. A few hours sleep, and then we'll start all over again. This was just the first day. There's more to come...