PPOT: Live at The Gathering, Hamar, Norway, 2004. April 10.
===========================================================
There I was in the den upstairs in my Las Vegas home at noon watching the
webcast of the Press Play On Tape concert that happened thousands of
kilometers away at The Gathering in Hamar, Norway. Isn't technology great?
First of all, kudos to the webcast team: the 260 kbps feed had pretty good
video quality, it got choppy only during the very beginning of the concert and
one more time in the middle of it, but only for a few seconds. The audio was
so great it was blasting out of my speakers at almost full volume.
Also kudos to whoever directed the live feed: the camera work was awesome, the
cuts were great, just perfect for such a rock concert. I was highly impressed.
The only thing I missed from the webcast was the crowd noise mixed in with the
on-stage audio. If there was any at all - because especially at the beginning
the audience seemed eerily unenthusiastic. This might've been due to PPOT
themselves, as they looked a bit more flat than at the last BIT Live concert
in Brighton. Maybe because of their formal outfits that was more befitting a
symphonic orchestra than a rock band. It made sense, because their entrance
tune was a symphonic rendition of Warhawk, but later on the outfits just
became a bit bizarre...
As usual, the concert build-up was the infamous "Comic Bakery boy band"
videoclip. Then they came on stage and started off with Warhawk, continued
with the great Tiger Mission, then came the HypaBall-Mission AD mix, then Auf
Wiedersehen Monty, all pretty much straight from their albums. As usual, the
concert was interspersed with some original Commodore ads, and even one Atari
ad made it in there.
I have to note at this point that one of their keyboardists (Andre?) have made
an unusually high number of rather audible mistakes during his solo pieces
during these first few songs. Granted, he didn't have an easy job, but he
should definitely find some pre-concert activity to warm up and shake off his
nervousness. Later on he got a lot better, it was just these first few songs
where at times I was really bothered by his playing.
Anyway, before Wizball Søren, the drummer, came out and made a funny speech
showing off "future technology" (imagine we're in the '80s now), which became
a nice little plug for their sponsor, Siemens Mobile, because he played the
Commando tune on the mobile phone.
Wizball yet again was a funny piece with Søren la-la-ing the lead, and
I think it was this tune that finally got the crowd going.
The next piece was a nice surprise: it was a direct cover of Kraftwerk's "The
Model", but with their own funny C64-related lyrics sang by Søren with a funny
German accent. This piece would've been more effective in their red Kraftwerk
style outfits...
From here on the music became a bit disappointing for me: their live
rendition of the Rambo loader was relatively weak. Antiriad, the next piece,
is something I never really cared for too much. After that Arkanoid was
actually pretty good, but too short.
On Nemesis Andre finally came alive, unfortunately his great piano playing got
muffled by the periodic loud guitar hits. Regardless, like on their Run/Stop
Restore album Nemesis came out as a very nice rock ballad, although I think it
was too long for a live concert in front of a seemingly non-C64-aware
audience. (It seems like we are getting old and the audience is getting
younger...)
Their cover of Ark Pandora with lyrics was nice, but I'd rather not comment on
the singer.
This tune in general seemed a bit too fast for the band - they
need to slow it down, or at least practice it more.
Another surprise followed: Monkey Island from the Amiga! I believe this marks
the first ever time that PPOT played an Amiga cover. Nicely done!
So was Master of Magic and Bionic Commando, both basically straight off
their albums. This latter one also gave the band a much deserved little break
during DHS's rendition.
The next to last piece was their absolutely awesome rendition of Crazy Comets,
and the concert ended with Phantom of the Asteroid. Yes, the singing was
there, and what totally awesome singing, too! I really, really liked it!
But of course, the audience wanted more (or rather, PPOT made the audience
want more
), so then came yet another surprise: a rather technoish tune that
I think might be PPOT's own composition! It came out pretty good. (BTW, guys,
here's an idea: as an encore, play a medley of the tunes that was played
previously during the concert!)
And it didn't end here: the techno-piece was followed by Thrust and Monty on
the Run, both of which ended the concert with a great bang.
All in all, despite the somewhat shaky start, I quite enjoyed this concert!
A solid 90 minutes of performance from the great C64 tribute band. Thanks,
guys!