Monday, 8 August 2011

Current 93 @ Katowickie Centrum Kultury, Katowice





On 4th of August I saw Current 93 for the second time. Getting to Katowice on time cost us special effort, we set off at 6am to get to the other end of Poland on time, but it was well worth it! The supporting band called The Trembling Bells made me doubt for a moment in the sense of my coming there, I just couldn't press my hands to my ears hard enough not to hear the horrid vocals of the lead singer, but I survived and after a short break David and his companions appeared on stage and my weariness was gone in an instant, excitement replaced irritation and fatigue.




To everybody's surprise the performance started with Rivers of Babylon by Boney M, making those gathered cheerful and merry only to break this illusion of comfort with terrible, distorted sounds of a big blast - Lars von Trier Melancholia immediately sprang to mind, the image being supported by a projection of stars barely noticeably moving towards each other to form earth and then explode and go their separate ways.




The band (can I call them that way?) played mostly the songs from their new album, giving a performance of truly spiritual kind. The poorly lit stage brought about a sort of intimate atmosphere. The venue, which I didn't like at first that much (too, too formal for my taste), turned to be a godsend cause for the first time in my life I heard any of my favourite artists play in a room with absolutely perfect acoustics which enabled you to hear every single sound. Unfortunately I'm not able to give any details of the songs performed as I don't know their previous album well enough to track the titles and I heard the new one only after their performance but it seems to me they played mostly the new songs with Black Ships and Lucifer over London being exceptions.



Solemn as the performance was, it was by no means pompous, David displayed a wonderful sense of humour, his self-ironic comments sent the audience roaring with laughter (like calling his first-row dressed-up fans groupies who can't even sing six six, six). They received a standing ovation and we received a couple of encores. The concert was definitely a memorable event, partly because of the music, but also it was so, so nice to find myself among all those weirdos again, and well, leave home for a couple of days.



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