Monster Magnet Live In Germany
When I wrote about our September trip to Spain with our friends, Andy and Haley, I mentioned upon leaving that Anna would be going back to Singapore, but I would have another post for this trip as I would be continuing on, joining the other two in Germany. The reason for this was simple; I have been to a ton of concerts over the years and have seen most of my favourite bands live, but there was one glaring hole in that list when it comes to bands that are still active and that was Monster Magnet. I’ve loved these guys for as long as I can remember, Andy is a fan too, but for some reason or another I had never had the chance to see them live. That was until I saw this announcement at the start of July so I contacted him immediately and bought us some tickets for only €40.00 each:
Right place, right time
For their 35th anniversary tour, Monster Magnet would be playing shows across Europe including two days for a festival in Spain while we were around. The first show was in Bilbao and while still in Basque Country, it was the day we were driving to the winery that Anna had already booked for us to stay and the second date was in Madrid the following day so that wasn’t feasible either. Fortunately Andy and Hayley live Wiesbaden in Germany so I could stay with them for a few nights and Andy and I would take the train and catch them playing in Köln (Cologne).
Some symmetry would’ve been a nice touch
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Both Anna and myself had stayed at the Airport Hotel in Barcelona, she would be flying back to Singapore while I would be going to Frankfurt, Germany. The flight went fine, but for some reason a couple of parents had given their child a packet of stickers on the plane and watched as he stuck them all over the back of the tray table in front of him and later when I was getting off the plane I saw the same child had more stickers stuck to his eyelids now. Oh well, not my problem, but what was my problem was that I was now in Frankfurt. Anyone who has read posts on this blog that are based in Germany would know how much I hate the airport there, it is one of the worst in any major city that I’ve ever been to, but I guess that’s what you get in a shithole like Frankfurt.
Luckily I would be out of there as soon as possible and Andy would be whisking me back to civilisation and their new home in Wiesbaden. They drive a Mini Clubman and I need to say that for what is marketed as a small car, these things have the heaviest doors on them! Anyway, we made the 40-minute drive through beautiful countryside and past a field where their psychopathic dog disappeared recently when he it sprinted after a hare into the distance, fortunately to be found again after a lengthy search, and soon we were driving down their extraordinarily steep driveway. Obviously the couple and their dogs are still settling into their new abode and not a lot of stuff opens in Germany on a Sunday so they cooked some sausages for dinner, Andy badly slicing his thumb on a rather sharp knife while trying to get the plastic off a dishwasher tablet soon after so we just kicked back and chatted for the night.
Monday, September 30, 2024
Today was the day Andy would show me around Wiesbaden:
Wiesbaden is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is Germany’s 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden forms a conurbation with a population of around 500,000 with the neighbouring city of Mainz.
Wiesbaden is one of the oldest spa towns in Europe. Its name translates to “meadow baths”, and there are 15 mineral springs—14 of which are hot springs—in the city centre.
I’m not much of a spa person and the town isn’t particularly a hive of activity, but it’s a beautiful place so we did a bit of shopping before heading home and tackling the driveway again in order to power up for that night’s activities.
One of their dogs and some scenes around Wiesbaden:
I was here for music so even though the show I had come for was the following day, we figured we’d check out the local Wiesbaden punk scene first and that led to us hanging out as the oldest people in an indoor skatepark that evening until the venue finally opened. The skatepark was pretty cool, reminding us of the kinds of places we would go when we were young, despite the fact that I can’t skate and while there we decided to go through all of the graffiti and stickers until we found what is at every skatepark and what all of the cool kids had drawn on their folder or pencil case back in school – That weird, pointed yet rectangular capital ‘S’ (or possibly figure 8). You’ll know the one when you see it.
To be fair, I love Joy Division and this song
We found the ‘S’ and when the venue opened it was exactly what we were expecting a Monday night punk show in a small German city to be, a tiny room with eight people in the crowd and a couple behind the merch table. One thing that did strike us though was that a punk band from Sydney that I never particularly liked, but made it pretty big in Australia back in the ’90s and early 2000s, Frenzal Rhomb, were playing the following month. That meant that either this place can actually pull a crowd or Frenzal are getting desperate. Anyway, the first band, The Corps, weren’t too bad, however, the real fun was had watching the crowd; there was one kid trying to open up a pit in front of the stage, running end to end and doing spinning heel kicks despite there being nobody in his immediate vicinity to join in and another girl standing up the back near us dancing in a similar style to Ian Curtis of Joy Division in the video for She’s Lost Control (above, right, but check the link for the video if you don’t know it, it’s a great song).
When The Corps were done the guys behind the merch desk cleared out so we figured that their job was done and they were going home, but we had assumed incorrectly because they made up half of the next act, a hardcore band called The Last Mile. A handful more people had arrived, giving the singer an audience in front of which he got a bit preachy, feeling the need to share his opinions frequently between songs, but there were a couple of times when Andy and myself had felt seen. Kris Kristofferson had passed away the previous day and the singer went into a rant about how important Kristofferson was to music in general and how much of a fan he was, despite appearing like he had probably just jumped on the bandwagon yesterday. While this was happening I felt a need to step back into the shadows in case he singled me out whilst decked out in my brown cords and a Kenny Rogers shirt and mistaking the image for Kristofferson himself. Another occasion came when he was telling the kids to embrace their youth and stand up to adults and authority. Myself, Andy, and possibly the Last Mile singer were easily the oldest people in the room by about a quarter of a century so we stayed up the back once more until he was off his high horse.
It turned out to be a pretty fun night, here are some scenes from the Monday night Wiesbaden punk and hardcore scene, in one of which a shadow has made Andy look like Post Malone next to me:
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
The day was here, we would be making our way up to Köln for Monster Magnet, but there was one small concern; It turned out that they had to finish the show after only 20 minutes the previous night in Paris due to singer Dave Wyndorf having a “mystery illness”, but apparently he is suffering from hypothyroidism. He’s not a young man anymore and he’s had more than his share of demons in the past so we just had to hope that tonight’s show would still go ahead.
We caught our train from Frankfurt to Köln and when we checked into our rooms mine looked like a wellness centre or possibly even a birthing clinic, resplendent with a full-wall image of a grasshopper in a wheat field and a picture of stacked flat stones arranged at sunrise in the desert printed on the inside of the toilet seat. Upon unpacking it had occured to me that there were a few things that I had forgotten for the trip so I found a small mall, picked up what i needed, and then met up with Andy for some food and pre-gig drinks
Before I continue, take a moment to embrace some of the elements of my seemingly yoga retreat-inspired inner city German hotel room:
We ate in a tiny takeaway joint and then found a small pub for some beers before the show. I’ve mentioned in the past how difficult it can be to spark up a conversation with someone in a pub in Germany, but that wouldn’t be the case on this occasion, even despite an obvious language barrier. This bar only had a handful of people in it, one of whom was a pretty drunk older man who couldn’t seem to get enough of our company. The pub served beers in what seemed like 200 ml (6.75 fl. oz.) test tubes and each time we ordered some he insisted on paying and then laughing and speaking to us loudly in German, us trying to figure out what he was saying and vice versa. This continued until it was time to leave so we gave the woman behind the bar some euros to buy him a few more beers.
I had been checking all day for notifications about the show being cancelled, but there was nothing even remotely hinting that it had so once again the perpetually unreliable Google Maps gave us the most ridiculous route to get to the venue, but we finally made it and it was immediately clear upon entering that this was going to be a big night. Unlike the time Anna and I saw Primus in Köln back in 2015, there was a support band so we had time to spare and that meant I was going to pay a visit to the merch table. In typical style I bought a fair bit of stuff — two t-shirts, a poster, and a drumhead signed by drummer Bob Pantella — but it was all a bit too much to carry the whole night when I also had a beer in my hand, but luckily the support band, whoever they were, sold tote bags so I got one, checked my stuff in with my jacket and my problem was solved. The arena had an outdoor area where everyone was smoking just inside the main entrance before entering the indoor section and both inside and out one thing soon became abundantly clear; people attending this show were enormous! Most were our age or older and I have played basketball at a pretty high level, but even I don’t think I’ve seen this many people towering over me before, there had to be minimum 10 guys that were at least 6’10” (208 cm) including a couple of seven footers! In fact, standing near us most of the night were a group of four guys and I was the same height or maybe slightly shorter than the smallest one in the group and there was always a guy outside who was pushing 60 that absolutely towered over me.
Anyway, before long Monster Magnet hit the stage and to be honest it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I knew Dave Wyndorf had been ill the previous night and he is pretty out of shape these days (Andy told me that when he saw them over a decade ago, Wyndorf came out in a brown velour tracksuit and resembled the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons), but we definitely weren’t expecting him to be seated the entire show. It wasn’t like he was in a lounge chair or anything, more of a barstool with a hand-operated effects board by his side, as opposed to an effects pedal, some in the crowd seeming a little concerned. Now we just had to hope that he could last the entire night, and indeed he did.
Despite having a seated frontman the rest of the band were on fire, pretty much playing only older stuff in a show that lasted about 90 minutes. A while after they were done and Andy and myself were standing with some others chatting by the bar, rhythm guitarist Garrett Sweeney and guitarist Phil Caivano came over and hung out with us for a bit, a cool end to a great night.
Setlist from the show:
- [Intro] The Diamond Mine
- Superjudge
- Tractor
- Dopes to Infinity
- Look to Your Orb for the Warning
- Negasonic Teenage Warhead
- Zodiac Lung
- Ego, the Living Planet
- Bummer
- Spine of God
Encore:
- Space Lord
Looking back on a night for which I’ve been waiting decades:
I also managed to do a low-quality audio recording of almost the entire show, but I had trouble with my phone so it only starts about halfway through Superjudge. Also, besides it being muffled in parts from putting my phone in my pocket and taking it out again, plus the usual chatter that you’ll hear over the top of a recording such as this, there was a point during an exceptionally long rendition of Spine of God that I was absolutely busting for a piss and couldn’t hold it any longer, but forgot to press pause when I went, however, at least you can tell I washed my hands afterwards:
We checked out of our hotels, made our way over to take a train back to the disgusting Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, and then back to Andy and Hayley’s to kick back for the rest of the day, me needing to rearrange and repack all of my luggage to fit in everything that I had bought in Spain and Germany over the past fortnight, but I somehow managed to make it work. For a final German meal we tackled their driveway once again to go to a restaurant in another town that specialises in extra large food and when we got inside these were portions that would make even Americans gasp. After watching a kid about 10-years old finish a stein we decided that we may be out of our league here and decided to skip the 30 cm (12″) diameter burger, the 3 kg (6.6 lb) schnitzel, the 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) rump steak, or even just the 600 gm (1.3 lb) sausage, me just opting for some ribs while they both ordered something sensible as well, before heading back to have a relatively early night so I could catch three different flights beginning the following day back to Singapore.
My final meal in Germany to wrap up an awesome two-week getaway:
A big shout out to Andy and Hayley for putting me up at your new place so we could go to the show after spending an awesome week with you in Spain as well, you guys are champions!
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