[Live Report] Night Beats, Weird Owls @ Karlsruhe, 23/11/2012

While I'm living in Karlsruhe for a month and a half now, I haven’t attended a lot of gigs besides a few local bands (Astrokraut was one of them, you should check them out). So Night Beats' gig was a hell of a chance to start getting things moving. I first listened to Night Beats last April when I decided to make a special radio show dedicated to 2012’s Austin Psych Fest (which you can check right here) where among other cool bands Night Beats were part of it too. 

I was really amazed about how close these guys' music is to good old Texas' psych/garage’s scene and especially to 13th Floor Elevators. Anyway long story short, I was listening to them in a regular basis and finally last Friday I had the chance to catch them live…

The gig was held in a really cool place here in Karlsruhe (probably the best one) called Alte Hackerei. Located in an area that used to be slaughterhouses, it’s a small, “punkish” (and most significantly, smoking allowed) club with a DIY feeling all over it, enough to travel you to other times and places. So it was the best one for the deal. 

Weird Owls, a local German band, opened the gig. I think that four guys wearing some carnival owl masks and playing some less-psych/more punk, straight-forward garage was more than a well-fitted opening. I enjoyed their full of energy performance while I was drinking a few beers and getting warmed up for what's was coming up next.

After a while it was time for Night Beats. I had already drunk enough beers in order to enjoy them in the best possible way and when “Puppet On A String” kicked in… I was living in a better world. It’s one of the songs you wish to go on for an hour or so. What I like in Night Beats is the generous psych dose they inject in their music and when it comes to live performances I believe it’s even more intense. 

All three of them were playing with soul, passion and cojones. Strings were flying, drums were being smashed, amps were screaming and I had one of the best times in my new environment. "War Games", "Hallucinojenny", "The Other Side", "Ain't A Ghost"  just to name few of the songs... Their setlist was a great one (although I missed "Dial 666") and performed in the best possible smoked-up way in my opinion.

I doubt that I liked Night Beats’ live performance so much because I had a lot of time to attend a gig. But it’s the fact that it had all the prerequisites for being an amazing live. Guitar, bass, drums, simple high-voltage music with soul, a lot of psychedelic twists and a noisy explosion of 60's pure rock 'n' roll simplicity. What more can you ask for an awesome Friday night...

by Thanos
Credits and thanks to Thomas Reimann for providing me the photos, originally posted in his photography related website