02.05.2002 - Karlsruhe, Ex-Steffi

Review by Uli Schmid

A PUNKY NIGHT IN KARLSRUHE
Two days before the gig in Karlsruhe I thought that I might be able to catch this one, with this town not being too far away and the address of the venue being mentioned on the website (I found the street "Schwarzwaldstrasse" on a map, so I knew I'd be able to get there). The weather forecast for Thursday said it was going to rain all day, but in fact it didn't. Once I got into my car and started the drive to the motorway though, the first small raindrops appeared on my windscreen...
The rain got worse while getting closer to Karlsruhe, but it was still okay as there wasn't too much traffic. When I arrived in Karlsruhe, the first street I came across was Schwarzwaldstr., I drove it up and down until I saw a big old house which was sprayed over and over with graffiti, I knew this had to be the venue! So I found myself a parking lot near the train station and went over to the venue. (Yes, it was still raining a bit.)
I was way too soon, as I walked upstairs into a room full of punks sitting around tables, I was told by a friendly girl, that doors opening time for the gig was at 9pm. Still about half an hour, so I decided to take a little walk instead of sitting down among these complete strangers. Outside it was raining harder now (of course), so I went to the train station and looked for a toilet, in the end I used the one in McDonald's - you wouldn't believe what was roaring out of the speakers there - punk rock!! (Okay, it was some cheap pop punk like Green Day or so, but this in a McD's gave me a very strange feeling!!)
As it was still raining outside I sat in my car for a few minutes and then returned to the venue. Again, I went to the upstairs room, but later I found out that there was another entrance for the gig. But that didn't matter, because after I sat down for about two minutes, T.V. came into the room and we said hello and talked for quite a while. Two nice guys came up to chat to us, one of them has been an Adverts fan since the 70's and now was about so see his first T.V. gig!
T.V. told me that the support band would start about 10.30pm, so I knew I wouldn't be getting home before 2am, but who cares...

Later we went downstairs into a smelly cellar where the gig would happen, it  turned out to be a good place for such a gig. We watched the support band "Teenkrieg"  who looked quite young, they played energetic punkrock, not very original, but  okay.  T.V. hit the stage close to midnight, from the first song ("The Future  Used To Be Better") on there were people singing along and screaming a  lot! What I did not like was that many were talking between the songs instead  of listening to what T.V. had to say about the lyrics, but apart from that they  were a great crowd! Girls were dancing and cheering in front of the stage, I  bet T.V. enjoyed this one too. He played lots of classics and some new songs  as usual. For the first encore he asked Teenkrieg to return to the stage and  they performed some songs together. It went very well, especially considering  that it was their first time on stage together with T.V. (they had practised  the songs before and then played them once with T.V. at the soundcheck)! Of  course these included his punk hits "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" and "Bored  Teenagers" but also "Only One Flavour", "My String Will  Snap" and "Lord's Prayer" (by the way, T.V. told me that he didn't  like the Lords of the New Church's version of that song very much, because they  changed his lyrics to please their American producer).  On his own again, T.V. performed some more encores, including "One Chord  Wonders", "Useless", "Luxury In Exile" and finally  "Runaway Train Driver".  T.V. said on stage that he would be returning to Karlsruhe if possible (I'll  try to be there as well)!  As it was late of course, I said goodbye to T.V. very quickly and went to my  car (you guessed it, it was still raining), it was 1.45am, so I got home after  3am. On the motorway the rain was pouring down, I thought to myself "I'm  a runaway rain-driver"...  However, in my hometown it hadn't rained that much, as the roads there were  dry when I finally arrived. I was already looking forward to the gig in Stuttgart  two days later, but that's another story!