2-5 June, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany

words by: Stefan “Stiff” Yordanov, photo: Milena Krumova

 

I wish I could skip the introduction on what is Wave Gotik Treffen (WGT), why it is unique in each and every possible aspect that can occur to you and what the hell makes it so important inside and outside its own community. I wish I could go straight to the emotional experience we (yours dearly and the photographer Milena Krumova) had during this amazing adventure and I am aware that most of you know the basic information, but still there are some facts that will definitely facilitate your further reading and make you a little more comfortable with this very report, so I finally I decided to contribute to your full comprehension and understanding of the event. 

 

 

WGT has quite a history if you think about it, to be precise it’s 25 years, which explains to a large extent the cultural phenomenon it has become today. In 1992 two Gothic people from Leipzig had an unusual idea: They didn’t want to create yet another dark music festival but rather a supra-regional gathering of like-minded fellows for relaxed meeting, chatting and celebrating. 2000 dark souls attended the event, but hardly anyone imagined at that time that only a few years later WGT would become the largest meeting of gothic people in the world with over 200 bands performing on more than 50 locations scattered over the city.

 

Leipzig with its impressive architecture, brilliantly balanced between the finesse of Renaissance, the drama of Baroque and the asymetric details of Art Nouveau is possibly the best setting for an event like this. And it’s not only concerts we are talking about here, but fetish parties, readings, expositions, museums, markets, victorian picnics, pagan villages, playwrights, performances and even a kindergarten for the little ones.

 

 

Gothic culture continues to be a paradigm of everything, but through the years it has assimilated many other parallel subcultures such as punk, dark wave, death rock, EBM, industrial, post-punk, steam punk and neofolk. This plethora of subgenres reflects directly into the variety of fans, their outfits and attitude. Today WGT is a different animal from what I remember from my last visit in 2001. This congregation has preserved its roots, but expanded its horizons and has become even more magnetic and influential. 

 

Leipzig’s inhabitants have put aside their prejudices long time ago and now more than 20 000 exotic, sometimes scary creatures return home every year.

 

 

 

It would have been totally boring if everything went according to the plan, that’s why our bus from Berlin to Leipzig is late and we miss the opportunity to witness the performance of AEON SABLE, which is one of the most interesting psychedelic goth bands playing the first night, but we manage to get to Agra Park in time to have a quick look at the gothic market with all the rare records, high heel shoes, dresses and everything and then go straight to the DEVILMENT gig. 

 

 

Naturally, many of us make subconscious connections between DEVILMENT and Dani Filth, but all similarities with CRADLE OF FILTH end up with the typical shrieks he is well known of. DEVILMENT live are very interesting band with an occult pulsation, vibrating somewhere between the savage rituals of the ancient European tribes and the decadent beauty of Romanticism. Beyond any doubt it’s Dani Finch’s creation that makes the original trademark and the heritage speaks of itself, although Filth is exceptionally proffessional in execution of the material, especially at the end of the set with outbursts such as 'Under The Thunder' and 'Full Dark, No Stars'.

After the gig we are heading for Agra Cafe to have a little break. People are going in and out in every possible direction. Some of them look like they are dressed for a Victorian funeral, others are completely clad in leather and latex and there are some that seem to have escaped from a Tim Burton movie.

 

 

The white bar, the red curtains and the echo of the rhythm of 'Bela Lugosi’s Dead' by BAUHAUS makes you feel like you want to take a deeper dive into the sexy atmosphere of this weird, decadent universe of characters that are completely alien to the outside world. 

 

 

AMANDA PALMER surely hasn’t abandoned her own description of her music, Brechtian punk cabaret (and we know that Brecht is a German poet and director from the beginning of the past century who influenced a lot of important figures such as Dario Fo and Jean-Luc Godard)– it’s a phrase she invented to prevent the press from putting DRESDEN DOLLS into the gothic bandwagon. 

 

 

We catch the tram number 11 long past midninght and finally get back to our headquarters to catch some sleep and get ready for the second day of our stay. 

 

 

It’s rainy today in Leipzig and it’s definitely not a blessing for all those who decided to get properly dressed for the festival. Soon it’s starts pouring and we decide to spenf a good part of the day to make some good pictures in the down-town of the city. The sky is pale and grey, but the sun still tries to shine through the clouds as we seek for shelter in a booze store and buy some whiskey to keep us warm for a while. Then we go to see the ROTTING CHRIST and AMORPHIS gigs in a hall, situated in an almost desert industrial part of the city. 

 

 

The first ones are traditionally great despite the audience which seem to be uninterested, but still in the middle of the set we get a great circle pit and our photographer somehow manages to put to shame all these metalheads around us. Absolutely impeccable in their performance, ROTTING CHRIST, led by the visionary values of Sakis take us for a walk through the history of the band, but surprisingly (at least for two of us) they spare us from the mighty power of  the hymn 'Non Serviam'.

 

This phrase, so much related to Lucifer’s refusal to serve to God, would have been shouted here, in the heart of this modern version of Milton’s Paradise Lost, but we need to swallow the lack of it unfortunately. AMORPHIS on the other hand have never been my favourites, but no one can deny that their stage presence is always great. They have so many songs from different periods (and I mean really different), but they manage to perform all of them seamlessly. 

 

 

We never really stick to our initial plan, but still our desire to visit as many places as we can leads us to Noel’s Ballroom, where there’s a party dedicated to THE CURE. They sell Newcastle Brown Ale here and and there are people doing their stuff everywhere in the bar, but the DJ set is actually in a small hall inside and is really great as you can hear not only the hits like 'Lovesong', but also some B sides and re-mixes.

 

Then we leave to go to another cult place called Darkflower and they grret us with 'Pet Sematary' by THE RAMONES, but only a few steps there’s a door to another place, where large sofas, blasphemous icons and EBM are welcoming us to stay for another couple of hours contemplating the past day. 

 

Tonight we go to see THE 69 EYES, THE MISSION and SKINNY PUPPY in Agra Park. THE 69 EYES is my personal rediscovery. I have listened to songs such as 'The Chair' and 'Never Say Die' for years now, but live these guys are nailing it. They have this post punk vibe that makes the whole show a little bit rougher and groovier than the studio versions. 'Feel Berlin', 'Gothic Girl' and 'Lost Boys' were absolutely great.

 

 

 

And I can not skip the little BAUHAUS pun they made, but several shots of absinth later and in a full house THE MISSION fucking killed it as there has to a picture of this band against the word “class” in dictionaries. There were people climbing on the shoulders of other people to sing 'Deliverance' and Wayne Hussey sipping red wine and performing “Marian” was just fantastic. 

 

 

SKINNY PUPPY make me feel like I am in an animal house and this feeling hardly needs an explanation. You can see 'Assimilate' and 'Dogshit' in YouTube and you will understand what I mean. It’s a parallel reality taken out of Blade Runner or some of Clive Barker’s novels, I really don’t know… Strange creatures walk the stage stabbing each other with knives and gigantic syringes under the cold green and blue light coming from above. This post apocalyptic nightmare leaves us speechless.

 

We are leaving after midnight again. We catch the tram 11 again and can hardly communicate with each other, as the impressions are too strong to be talked about. It is a different world of beautiful extremities and aeshthetic contradictions that we are leaving behind and we will need some time to digest the things we just witnessed. Our adaptation will be slow and less painful, because we are heading for Berlin to spend some time in the decline of Kreuzberg with its delicious vegan food, flamboyant gay bars and 50’s spirit of places like Wild At Heart, which I guess is a subject of a different piece.