Two evenings full of music: the “Europavox Festival” took place in Vienna’s WUK and delighted us with a number of highlights!
The Europavox Festival has been taking place almost every year in Vienna’s WUK since 2016 (of course no event took place during the pandemic) and has since tried to bring the Austrian audience closer to musicians who might otherwise not have found their way to Vienna. and in 2023 the line up actually sounded really exciting, which of course made me want to attend the spectacle!
Friday evening started with the band “mnnqnsfrom France, who brought a wonderful mix of music with them: they were at home somewhere between dark experimental rock, post-punk, psychedelic and electronica and you could see it. Long hair, leather jackets, leather boots, striped pants – I was thrilled by the band’s performance and sound. No wonder that the atmosphere was incredibly good right from the start and the room kept filling up. The light show also went very well with the music of “mnnqns”! and I just thought to myself: usually the best comes last, was it different this time?
„pom pomI had already seen it myself in 2018 and was incredibly excited back then. Of course, my expectation was that it would be like that again. But this time I didn’t understand why with the group and especially the singer. Her voice squeaked somewhat unpleasantly and I actually didn’t particularly like her outfit – somehow it looked like she had just picked something out of her closet.
And this time I couldn’t do as much with the music – was it because I still had the previous band in my head? Anyway – of course I have to give credit to her jumping around and her poses. She was a whirlwind and underlined every note with a movement and I liked that. And one or two songs were quite okay – but this time there were some important components missing for me and that wow effect. maybe next time – with a better outfit and more hits!
The third and penultimate band of the evening were “lucy kruger & the lost boys“. They belted out wonderfully dark songs at us and weren’t afraid of big gestures and a lot of drama. It was wonderful to see emotions like that in a performance.
Over time, the whole undertaking perhaps became a bit too devastating. I had to get some fresh air to think clearly, otherwise “Lucy Kruger & the Lost Boys” might actually have caused me to dissolve into streams of tears and question my entire life.
The last band on the first evening was the British “shame” on the stage. I had also been able to see this band live once and was excited to see what the performance would be like this time. But after just a few minutes of playing it was clear: “Shame” are the absolute highlight!
Singer Charlie Steen was a typical frontman: completely wild, full of energy and of course setting the tone! From the very beginning he was always present with and, above all, on the audience, crowd surfing of course! he really did everything in his power to make this show unforgettable.
By the way, the music from “Shame” sounded really melodic this time – I remembered the group as being particularly brutal and screaming. But they actually focused their energies in exactly the right directions and delivered a really top concert experience, even if you couldn’t do much with their genre mix of post-punk, alternative and indie. In any case, Charlie Steen’s crowd surfing ran throughout the entire set and in combination with his tendency to go crazy, I found it really entertaining. and the music really grabbed me this time – good thing and thank you, Shame!
On the next day of the festival I was incredibly tired but also very expectant. Since the line-up the day before was very good, I thought it would definitely continue like that. The person who came up with the line up must have thought something about it.
Anyway, I was back in wuk on time and ready for the first band.”island room“. The singer of the Belgian band was a real bundle of energy, dancing so hard that her legs were somewhere and shaking her head several times so that her hair just flapped around.
“Ada Oda” really offered a lot on stage: distorted music, nerdy band members and the front woman Victoria Barracato, who didn’t miss the opportunity to visit the crowd and perform in their midst. All of this was of course very impressive, and yet the music didn’t really carry me away. Was it the tiredness, or did I really not like it enough?
it continued with “koi koi“ from Serbia – I actually found the group’s music, which was something between indie rock, psychedelic and art rock, very well done. The performance was also better than I thought – singer Marko Grabez certainly tried to give a lot. Only: with some songs it wasn’t really possible to give much, because the guitar still had to be played. Therefore, gestures had to be avoided from time to time.
But I have to admit: I didn’t see everything – I kept going to the outside area of the wuk because my tiredness wanted to get the better of me with great regularity. Luckily the air waft in between woke me up a bit.
Despite being tired, I wanted to at least wait until I stopped from the performance of “the haunted youth” keep up. When the psychedelic pop band from Belgium came on stage and played the first songs, some of the sounds reminded me a bit of the 1975, but more for underground listeners. but of course also to bands like slowdive and beach house.
The smoky voice of singer Joachim Lovens buzzed around in the violet and blue-green light and created a lot of atmosphere and space to float along, relax and think further. The majority of the audience did exactly that, let themselves fall and be carried away by the beautiful The Haunted Youth tunes. But in the end I was perhaps too tired to really lean in; in the end I found myself at the back, with the hesitant rockers.
In any case, this tiredness was also the reason that I headed home after “The Haunted Youth”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything with the last band of the evening, “Bipolar Feminine”, and all previous attempts to get the band through live failed. Plus, the Glastonbury Festival ticket was on sale the next morning… and I had to focus all my energy on it.
Be that as it may, I didn’t see the big highlights on the second evening, but this incredible show from “Shame” on the first evening lingered in my mind for a long time. The “europavox festival” is always a good idea, no matter the location – discovering music is simply the best!
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