OrderChaos Fest 15&16 July 2009 live report

Day 1

I literally waited a long time for this show. With a delay of “only” 2 hours the show started at 10 pm with 747. Unfortunately, Nivelu’ 4 weren’t able to play because they were short on a drumer, from what I understood. 747 greeted us with a “good morning!” and their “Parfum de vedeta” hit, dedicated to all the bimbos. Their frontman, Mircea, is quite the character, a very energic fellow who knows how to communicate with the public. Even though they play a brand of pop punk that alternates soft passages with pogo-raising material, they kinda strike me as a paradox with style but with no exceptional personality. Their songs are catchy and have been proven to work well on the audience. Highlight of their performance, the last song got everybody dancing and singing “Nimeni nu-i mai emo decat mine!” (“Nobody’s more emo than me!”). I guess that the sense of humour is the only thing ska in 747’s music. After half an hour of pop punk and a small break, at one quarter to 11 pm Ska fara Trompete began their first show ever in Bucharest. For some reason, there were less people in the audience, but that didn’t bring these guys down. Their female vocalist had some problems with the volume at first, but she soon grew into her voice. The one thing I liked about Ska fara Trompete was that they had guts, charm and they were very melodic. They kinda butchered the Fool’s Garden (“Lemon Tree”) cover, but they made up for it with “Should I stay or Should I Go”. Their best feature is their lead singer, who, as I mentioned before, is a girl. She has a strong voice that’s just perfect for punk. At one point the lights went out but the show kept on going. Ska fara Trompete made the best of a worst situation and just kept on playing in the dark while everybody was chanting “Da-te-n plm ca dorm!” ("Fuck off, I'm sleeping!"). I don’t know if it was just me but the whole place had “Beer-drunk and ska punk” written all over it. After the blackout they managed to get the lights back on so we could enjoy P.O.Box. Third time in Romania, first time in Bucharest, this french band showed us what ska punk means. Noisy, trompet-fueled, fast music played in a very aggressive and energic manner. The audience, or what was left of it anyway was having a blast. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay until the end because it was too freakin’ hot (suffocation is not the way I want to go), but I’m sure P.O.Box finished Day 1 admirably.
During the concert there was an incident outside the club. Some wankers picked on two of the guys from a band that was supposed to play the next day. Luckily noone was seriously injured but the wankers gave our hungarian guests a hard time by cutting up their tires. Well, welcome to Romania kids, land of the hobos, home of the wankers.

Day 2

Waiting 2 hours for the show to start makes you wonder why do they bother printing an hour on the poster in the first place. Maybe because even 2 hours away from the designated start time there are only 5 people in front of the stage. Stoned Addams began playing their dirty mangy punk at 8.45 pm. They sounded pretty decent, considering they haven’t been rehearsing for a month. Their songs are all the same and they rely on the fact that playing fast will make them aggressive, but that’s not always the way to go. They had some problems synchronizing during “Disgrace” (what were the odds, huh?!), but that was pro’ly because they couldn’t hear themselves in the monitors. After their 15 minutes of fame (or is it shame?) Stoned Addams left the stage leaving me thinking of the good old days when they did an amazing show in Hanu cu Tei. Coercion followed right up playing for a shockingly small group of people. I apreciate the mohawks on these guys and their professionalism; too bad they played in front of 10 people. It was a really sad sight. Sound was pretty awful too, I couldn’t hear any of the solo’s. Coercion introduced a new song about the concept of freedom from the police point of view. They ended the set with their cover of Agnostic Front’s “Gotta Go” which stired up a small yet violent moshpit. But the best was still to come. Plan Beer couldn’t make it to the show. 10 pm, Libido Wins introduced themselves, frontman saying that they come from a small country (Hungary) and that he doesn’t want to get beat up again-apparently he was one of the guys that got roughed up outside the club the previous night. Sorry ‘bout that mates. Their 20 minute set can be described as noisy epileptic rabid koala’s bouncing of the walls. Their frontman was all over the place, screaming his little lungs out, dragging everybody into this massive moshpit that eventually ended up crashing on the stage. Following Libido Wins, Nothing kept the pace up in the same manner, with the singer in the audience, with the exception that this guy couldn’t keep his pants on. From then on it was underwear hardcore. Apparently pants are optional when you’re playing HC punk. I tell you, when you’re on the side of this type of massacre and your only concern is not getting kicked in the face by all the people that are running and jumping around, 45 minutes of hungarian hardcore punk fly right by. These two bands (Libido Wins and Nothing) made a fine transition from what was before to what was to come. Dead Vows took the stage at 11 pm and began teaching us what swedish hardcore is all about. Raw, feisty, but well adjusted, they were by far the best sounding thing on the stage that night. Well, them and Kingdom of course. Showing us the best they had, glowing with devotion (common glow in the HC scene- or is it the sweat?!), Dead Vows performed “They are Predatory” and “We’re All Judas” among other songs, leaving the public well prepared for Kingdom, who followed them up at 23.40, after a 20 minute break. This female fronted vegan straight edge hardcore band (huh?!) came all the way from the U.S. I don’t know if it was worth is for them but for the people they played for at OrderChaos it was sure worth it. This was the only concert where I saw a really fat guy crowdsurfing. So I guess veggies do make you strong. Or maybe it was all that adrenaline from watching Davin perform. For such a delicate and sweet little thing, she sure puts on a hell of a show. I couldn’t believe that strong and growly voice was coming from her little body. Nevertheless, it’s a real treat to watch her perform. Kigdom played some serious angry hardcore accompanied by short speeches about veganism, about how nazis don’t belong in this world, about the freedom of sexual choice. Fans were wild so they asked for an encore. The show ended at a quarter past midnight and I think it’s safe to say that everyone had a good time, even though the sound wasn’t all that good or the audience all that numerous.
We look forward to many hardcore concerts of this caliber.