Viva Music at Wave Gotik Treffen 2009

WGT 2009 — GENERAL INFORMATION

WAVE GOTIK TREFFEN (18^th edi­tion), the largest alter­na­tive fes­ti­val in the world, took place between May 29 and June 01, 2009 in Leipzig, Ger­many. Check out the WGT Web­site for full details.

For many years the Tre­f­fen was cel­e­brated as the largest gath­er­ing of the “dark fam­ily” in the world. All over the city more than 190 bands, projects and sin­gle artists per­formed on about 20 stages. The events took place for instance in the vaults of the Moritzbastei, in the splen­did neoan­tique cupola hall of the Volkspalast, in the crypt of the Völk­er­schlacht­denkmal, a famous mon­u­ment of the bat­tle of 1813, as well as in large con­cert halls. The peo­ple from Leipzig are famil­iar with the Tre­f­fen after 17 years — the Gothic guests are welcome.

WGT (LEIPZIG) ATMOSPHERE

I will write more about what I felt and under­stood from my trip to Ger­many, and less about the live con­certs I attended. Too over­whelm­ing the feel­ing of see­ing Melotron live (again) was, so I will just men­tion a few things instead of thor­oughly review­ing the con­certs. I took pics though, and the most impres­sive will fol­low my text.

The most fas­ci­nat­ing thing dur­ing the Wave Gotik Tre­f­fen is the unique atmos­phere that cov­ers the whole city. Once a year about twenty thou­sand Goth­ics come home: to the Wave Gotik Tre­f­fen. Gothic fans from all over the world gather in East­ern Ger­many, turn­ing Leipzig into a black cel­e­bra­tion. I can­not describe the feel­ing one has when in the street, walk­ing in Leipzig — the huge build­ing city with an indus­trial atmos­phere so suited for the Gotik Tre­f­fen. You see the straight, strik­ing, per­fect fig­ures of peo­ple dressed in either black or very flu­o­res­cent green or pink. Most of the par­tic­i­pants wear black, only sil­ver jew­elry and a lot off acces­sories. Women wear very high heeled shoes and some­how man­age to wear them with such ele­gance that you may just die of envy…The pho­tos of Gothic fans are a far bet­ter proof, and although I would love to put all my admi­ra­tion for these spe­cial peo­ple in my descrip­tion, words are far behind.

The expe­ri­ences you have in a life time are the source of either fast or slow paced learn­ing. In my case, the Wave Gotik Tre­f­fen expe­ri­ence was fast, enrich­ing and reward­ing. I had the chance to bet­ter under­stand why Roma­nia is still a coun­try under devel­op­ment (to put it mildly) and how far behind we are in terms of respect for oth­ers and joy of living.

WGT ORGANIZATION

The first thing that comes to my mind and def­i­nitely worth men­tion­ing is the exquis­ite orga­ni­za­tion of the WGT. Mr. Cor­nelius Brach was of great assis­tance prepar­ing the photo passes for the Roman­ian group for the 4 fes­ti­val days. The pass allows a jour­nal­ist to eas­ily access the con­cert venues and take pho­tos of any band dur­ing the first 3 songs of each live con­cert. Film­ing is totally for­bid­den, and still the secu­rity staff are very respect­ful when they tell you to stop film­ing. I own a nice Nikon D90 and I thought I could also film a lit­tle. Not a chance.

GERMAN HOSPITALITY

Now, from the way peo­ple were direct­ing us to the ticket point and park­ing lot, the way they were show­ing every­body around to the way every­one sits in line and waits (for food, beer, tick­ets or just to get into the con­cert halls) I was totally impressed with the Ger­mans. They all seem to cal­cu­late way in advance how to orga­nize their time and energy in order to find the best and fastest solu­tions to every­thing. As I was walk­ing around in the Agra and Kohlra­bizir­cus, I noticed that peo­ple don’t bump into each other, that there is always space between you and every­one else, and that if you need help, there is always some­body there to assist you. Ger­man Gothic fans are nice and they like show­ing hospitality.

PARTICIPANTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

It was a very nice sur­prise to hear French, Span­ish, Roman­ian and Eng­lish spo­ken at the WGT, apart from Ger­man that seems to be a must have pre­req­ui­site at a Gothic fes­ti­val. I have to admit though, that when it comes to the indi­vid­u­als at the WGT it is very hard to tell who is from where, as every­one is just dressed up head to toes, acts accord­ingly and speaks as they were part of a the­ater play.

MAPS AND DIRECTIONS

We couldn’t find a detailed map of Leipzig cov­er­ing the WGT, not even at the Agra area (at least for the mar­ket, food courts, camp­ing and main con­cert venues that lie here). I got my hands on a map, but it was not detailed enough. The sched­ule printed on the back, though, (includ­ing the start and end times of each band’s per­for­mance) was very detailed. But, hey, who needs a map? Once you plan to attend the WGT you should also plan on get­ting infor­ma­tion from very nice peo­ple. Leipzig is a very friendly town, with large streets and build­ings that you can eas­ily rec­og­nize and use as future reference.

AGRA

The Agra area is a huge, clean and well orga­nized fes­ti­val space, includ­ing num­ber­less music are­nas and smaller halls, dis­cos, food (Ger­man bratwurst for 2,50–3,50 Eur), drinks, park­ing (15 Eur/day). I fig­ured out on the sec­ond day spent in the Agra that a glass of juice does not cost 4 Euro. Lit­er­ally the glass costs 2 Euro and the drink inside another 2 Euro. Once you are done with the liq­uid in the glass, you can go back to the counter and they give you the 2 Euro back in exchange of the glass. Of course, there were no glasses, tis­sues or any other left­overs from everybody’s din­ner on the ground. It seems that peo­ple in Ger­many have more trash cans than we do ;). A fes­ti­val ticket to the WGT (includ­ing any con­cert you may want to attend in any arena of hall in Leipzig — 190 bands plus) costs 60 Eur in pre­sale and 80 Eur if you pur­chase it at the ticket desk.

MELOTRON AT THE WGT 2009

After a high qual­ity lineup among which Min­erve, Frozen Plasma and Soli­tary Exper­i­ments, the last band that we saw on May 31 in Kohlra­bi­cir­cus was Melotron. As we also had the plea­sure to see Melotron live in Bucharest in Spice Club on Jan­u­ary 24, 2009 it was a real plea­sure to see them again. Andy, Edgar and Hilde were dressed in red and white as usual, and man­aged to keep the thou­sands of peo­ple who came to see them happy. The setlist was made up of their most pop­u­lar songs and I have to con­fess that I could sing along with­out a prob­lem! No, I don’t speak Ger­man, but Melotron’s music sinks in so smoothly that I started learn­ing the lyrics in no time.

Setlist:

1. Aufer­ste­hung
2. Das Herz
3. Gib mir alles
4. Arro­ganz der Liebe
5. New Song
6. Men­schen­fresser
7. Maschi­nen aus Stahl
8. Der Anfang
9. Tanz mit dem Teufel
10. Nur Leben
11. Liebe ist Notwehr
12. Wohin
13. Kein Prob­lem
14. Brüder
15. Wün­sch mich nicht zurück

I am def­i­nitely going to attend the WGT every year.

Asso­ci­ated gal­leries: Par­tic­i­pants * Soli­tary Exper­i­ments * Melotron * Frozen Plasma

Source: Viva Music

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