© copyright 2003/2006 Written by Thijs copyright

 

Bands:        Sons of the Rain & Unheilig

Date:           24-03-2006

Location:    Goudvishal, Arnhem

 

Unheilig coming to Holland, that’s a rarity. So I didn’t change my mind for a moment and reserved some tickets. I convinced my girlfriend that it was music she also would like and went to Arnhem.

The Goudvishal is a very small building with room for 250 people. Luckily for me it wasn’t that crowded. There were only a few people, 90 or 100 max. I realized that Unheilig isn’t as popular here in The Netherlands as they are in Germany. The band makes a mixture between synthpop and gothic rock. Many people know this combination from Terminal Choice, but Unheilig is less evil and the music is smoother than Terminal Choice.

 

Sons of the Rain

The night opened with an industrial act from our own land: Sons of the Rain. An opening by an industrial act frightened me a bit, because it isn’t the same style as the more poppy songs of Unheilig. And unfortunately I was right. We were treated on a dose of noise, with a man grunting and yelling above grinding guitars.

The stage was a bit too small for the guys so they had to stand still the whole time. The sound wasn’t very good either, therefore I couldn’t hear more than noise filling my head. I wasn’t in the mood for this kind of music so I concentrated mostly on taking pictures, which turned out to be very bad by the way.

Okay, the part with the fire sparks on the oil drum was nice for once, but after the 5th time I had seen it.

Maybe by noisy-industrial-act-standards the guys of Sons of the Rain aren’t that bad, but for the most of the Unheilig audience it was not amusing. Too bad…

 

Unheilig

The back of the stage was filled with a lot of candles and a flag of a clock was hanging in front of the wall. This looked nicer and more interesting than the oil drums of Sons of the Rain.

Unheilig is one man who calls himself Der Graff. Live Der Graff gets help from a guitar player and a keyboard player. Those two only make music and don’t contribute to the show. Well… except for standing and playing (with the movements that come with that). The main attraction on stage is Der Graff himself.

Fortunately he knows exactly how to play with the audience. He has great facial expressions and moves in really weird (kind of scary) ways. He’s really trying hard to look evil. The funny thing is that the lyrics aren’t evil at all. But never mind that. It’s fun to watch him anyway.

The songs varied from the first albums to his latest work of art, Moderne Zeiten. The albums will sometimes get a little boring, but the live show obviously doesn’t have that problem because of the movements of Der Graff.

The sound was really good and the show worked out really well. Unfortunately we had to leave earlier because of the last train leaving. Luckily Unheilig was playing the encore already when we left.