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Living in Adelaide sucks, mainly due to the fact that majority of overseas (and sometimes even Aussie) bands completely exclude us off their tour schedule. No one likes to find out that their favourite band is heading to Oz, but that you’re going to have to fork out more money to travel to Melbourne if you want to see them. On Sunday night however I started to really understand why bands reject the South Aussie capital.

Crazy German band Caliban did play an awesome show, lead vocalist Andreas Dörner managed to scream his guts out without losing his voice, which never ceases to amaze me with hardcore bands. Each member of the band (bar the drummer offcourse) continuously travelled around the stage shouting orders at the crowd in an effort to get them more fired up and aggressive.

The band clearly wanted more of a reaction out of the crowd and they just weren’t receiving. There were some loyal fans right in front of the stage that shouted along to every song and threw their fists into the air and maybe even head banged along to the rhythm, but other than that everyone remained stationary. Andreas tried to get audience participation by splitting the crowd in half and then telling the people on both sides to run and smash into the other side on his count. Guitarist Marc Görtz also tried in vain to start a whirlpool in the crowd but soon admitted defeat.

At one point Andreas told everyone to crash into each other when drummer Patrick GrÏ‹n said “Go!” but the crowd found it hard to follow these simple rules so the band had no choice but to stop playing and give the instructions a second time.

On top of all that Caliban where cursed with one technical problem after another throughout the night. First Marc’s guitar wasn’t working, then Andreas had problems with the volume of his microphone, then Patrick was having troubles with his drums. Andreas apologised immensely to the audience for each delay but by the end of the show he could no longer mask his disappointment with Fowlers and their technicians.

Earlier on in the night Melbourne’s Her Nightmare had better luck with their onstage performance. Looking rather casual in a golf cap and tracky dacks singer Bania is certainly one guy that you don’t want to mess with; for he is just a huge as his voice. The band played a solid show receiving plenty of support from the crowd who obviously frequent Her Nightmares gigs. Although they may have only played a short show with a small audience this Aussie band was probably the stand out band of the night.

Don’t get me wrong, Caliban rocked out hard in their blood stained shirts and makeup but with the many sound problems they had, the crowd began to feel deflated and discouraged.

Overall the night was good but not great and various things contributed to this. Firstly: the crowd or lack there of, which could be explained by number two: the impracticalness of having a gig on a Sunday night. Thirdly: the numerous unexplainable and completely irritating technical problems that ruined the night.

If I was Caliban I would think twice before returning to Adelaide, but offcourse I hope that they do for the small pocket of loyal fans who tried their hardest.

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