24.06.2001, Munich, Substanz

Review by Uli Schmid:

T.V. Smith (support: Basic Session X), Munich, Substanz, 24th June 2001

 As I hadn't managed to get to any gigs of the first part of T.V.'s tour of  Germany, of course I had to drive to Munich for this one as it was the only  gig  in the south of Germany.Good thing that it was a Sunday so the motorway wasn't    as crowded with lorries and cars as on weekdays.  At about 6 pm I picked up my mate Wolfgang. He bought some T.V. Smith CD's after  

 I played my copy of "Generation Y" to him. As he played them quite  often, he  said it was kind of a "duty" for him to join me on this trip! So we  drove from  our hometown (near Ulm) to Munich, where we arrived at 7.30 pm, we had no  problem finding the street where the club "Substanz" is placed.  When we entered the venue it turned out to be one of these half pub / half music    club types of places, which had a nice atmosphere for a gig like this.  T.V. Smith was sitting at the bar, so we said hello and I introduced Wolfgang  to  him.

(I have known T.V. since '99 when I first met him at a London gig.)  Garden Gang singer PamP and his girlfriend Andi passed by, so we said hello  to  them as well (I knew them from T.V.'s German gigs in September 2000)...  Wolfgang and me sat down next to Tim and chatted for a while about some punk    personalities like Charlie Harper and Brian James. He also told us how the  recent gigs had been going and that he seems to be getting more attention in    Germany through the "Useless" CD with Die Toten Hosen (which can't  be bad)!  There weren't many people in the club yet, but later on something you could  call  a "crowd" had gathered. So the support band "Basic Session X"  started their gig  with acoustic songs (played on guitar, bass, accordeon - occasionally with  trumpet or keyboards). 

At first the audience seemed a bit too cool for my  liking, so when T.V. started I had a bit of doubt if the gig would turn out  so  well, but three songs into the set all my doubts had completely vanished!! "Immortal Rich" was the third song (following "Atlantic Tunnel"  and "No Time To  Be 21"), can anybody tell me why this can't be a major hit single? From  this  song forward everything just clicked, T.V. put across more energy than many    5-piece bands!! I can't remember the exact order in which the songs were played,    but I can tell you there were a lot from "Generation Y" (e.g. "This  Year Next  Year", "What If?" and "Happy Homeland") and many more  of my favourites like "The  Future Used To Be Better" and also a few new songs which aren't released  yet  (one song was performed in German: "Es stört mich nicht").

As  usual he explained  the contents of most songs in German language. Before he played "Only One    Flavour" he told us that he did a video for this song together with Die  Toten  Hosen and there was a competition on a video channel, which T.V. lost against  DJ  Bobo and the Spice Girls, much to everyone's surprise, ha ha... (By the way,    T.V. calls them "Scheiss Girls"!)  Of course he played a lot of songs which are featured on "Useless".  He told us  some people seem to think that all of his records are useless (which only goes    to show there are some people who don't know anything about good music with  good  lyrics)! It seemed to me that there were many listeners who've heard the  "Useless" CD in Munich, as they were cheering a lot whenever he played  one of  these songs; especially "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" (of course) received  a lot of  applause. Before this song he performed his punkrock poem (which is called "My    Punkrock Poem"!).  The end of the regular set was a fast "Runaway Train Driver".

Of course  we were  calling for encores, so T.V. asked Basic Session X to join him onstage for a    three-language-version of "Eurodisneyland Tomorrow" (in English, German  and  Spanish)! After this we still didn't have enough, T.V. said he had a day off  the  next day, so he had no trouble at all in playing a bit longer (only WE might    have to work on Monday morning)...  Someone called for "One Chord Wonders", T.V. said he has so many songs,  he had  forgotten to include this one! So after a beautiful version of "Useless"  (the  song), PamP joined T.V. on backing vocals for the final "One Chord Wonders".

 It was a great gig, well worth the drive to Munich! Let's hope T.V. will come    back soon!

 Ulrich