One more year, one more WGT splendid experience behind us! But the memories are still fresh and vibrant in our minds.
This year WGT started with a special treat on May the 12th with a grand opening party at AbenteuerReich Belantis – an amusement park in the south of Leipzig, which we sadly missed due to our indeed long travel from London by car, and kids, don’t try this at home! 😉 We arrived pretty late in the evening after 13 hours’ drive, so we decided not to jump into our catsuits to join the party; instead we went to our beds hoping the next day we’d be fresh enough to enjoy the shows!
Friday
We arrived to Agra pretty early to pick up our press passes and had a nice chat with Cornelius, indeed a pleasurable one. Usually at that time people are taking a stroll and chilling at Agra and you can always admire someone’s costume, have a snack and plan your schedule further.
As we wanted to enjoy some Agra experience we took it easy and headed to Volkspalast; a breath-taking venue with such an exquisite interior for the Dernière Volonté show. They played some treats for us, such as: “La Sentence est la Mème”, “Le quai de la gare”, “Au Travers Des Lauriers” and many more.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
But we rushed to Kohlrabizirkus to see one of our favourite choices this year: Haujobb. We enjoyed them both sound-wise and visually as Myer brought a lot of the dynamic to the stage and they had a great supporting light show. Some of the songs we could hear there were: “Eye Over You”, “Dream Aid”, “Penetration”, “The Noise Institute”, “Renegades of Noise” but the guys did not leave us without a special treat as De Meyer appeared on stage to sing “We Must Wait”.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
We decided not to wait for Project Pitchfork this time, but there was a line of people wanting to see them that we thought was a few kilometres long! Instead we headed to Agra for Peter Murphy but as we had enough time, we decided to check on Nouvelle Vague.
As we are not particularly keen on their sound and cover versions, I really was there merely to shoot a show, but somehow could never connect to the cover versions they do, so I mostly ignored the music as I treasure the originals far more than their soft versions. Even though they are a huge name, I somehow felt they did not belong to Agra hall in prime time on Friday. But those are my personal thoughts; hopefully the crowd could enjoy them more than I did.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
Then it was already time for the legend: Mr. Peter Murphy! Agra was packed like we all wanted the same thing and Peter was brilliant. How can one resist his charisma on stage, his vocal expression, his so adorable postures?! And indeed I got some great pics from Mr. Murphy even though the photo pit was full as expected. And we enjoyed the Bauhaus repertoire that included “Double Dare”, “She’s In Parties”, “Hollow Hills”, “The Passion of Lovers”, “Dark Entries” and of course “Telegram Sam” and “Ziggy Stardust”.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
Saturday
On Saturday we decided to do something more than seeing the shows only, so we went to the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum of Leipzig (Museum for town history) for an exhibition about 25 years of WGT. We could see a great photo gallery that took us to the early days of WGT, as well as an extensive exhibition of lavish costumes, shoes and accessories, even some fetish gadgets and a lot of interesting people who visited too.
Musically, we opened the day with Spetsnaz, as we really wanted to see Pontus and Stefan on stage again. We danced hard to “ManGod”, “Free Fall, Apathy”, “Nothing but black” and really soaked up that Pontus stage energy.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
We were super eager to see the old veterans of electronic music, Portion Control. Even though this was the first time we see them live and I am not familiar with their work too much, I must really say that after their gig I went to the Agra market place and bought myself the only Portion Control cd that I could find. The guys were brilliant and they got me interested in their work.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
Then it was time for our dear Claus and Kurt of Leaether Strip and oh, Claus moved like Andy Bell on stage. However, we were not there to enjoy his moves but to hear what we came there for: “Fit For Flogging”, “Civil Disobedience”, “Nothing Seen, Nothing Done”, “Adrenaline Rush” and many other hit songs and what really melted me like cheese on a frying pan was their magnificent and forever legendary cover of “Sex Dwarf.”
Pics by Marija Buljeta
And soon came time for Die Krupps, as this day was all Agra day as far as the line-up was concerned. Oh we really did enjoy the spectacular show, both musically and visually; always so energetic and we shook to the sounds of their hits like “Fatherland”, “To the Hilt”, “Hi Tech Low Life”, “Schmutzfabrik” and “Der Amboss”.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
Sunday
Sunday for us started with the brilliant show from Dirk Ivens. As far as my personal taste is concerned, I consider his performance the dearest of all shows this year. One man, so much! Even though it is hard to pull it off even performing as a duo on stage and get that aesthetic appealing show, it is no problem at all for Dirk being alone on a stage. That man really has the sound he creates in his blood stream and so much to show and transfer to the audience; the transfer of his energy to the crowd was amazing and what Dirk can do, many would not dare. Dirk played a mix of Dive, Klink and Absolute body control repertoire but we could even hear Block 57. It was so great to hear “There’s No Hope”, “Take your dreams away”, “There’s nothing Real”, “Moving hands”, “Sidewalk Sinner” and sorry all, Dirk won on my top list of WGT gigs this year.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
I managed to get to the end of Solar Fake show running fast to Kohlrabizirkus and weather did us no favours that day, but I was there just in time for Mesh. I was lucky to be able to shoot at the very moment they played one of my favourites as the second song they played was “You didn’t want me”, and we could hear some more hits from them as “I don’t think they know”, “People like me”, “Not prepared” and many more.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
But I had to meet some friends as fun is as well important part of WGT experience, so instead of shooting one promised gig, I went to meet my friends at the Lacrimosa show. Lacrimosa was somehow always off my musical radar, but they threw an impressive show on stage, and they played for almost two hours; waiting for PIL was indeed a long one. However I took an advantage of shooting the Lacrimosa show and the rest of my friends enjoyed their hits like: “Ich bin der brennende Komet”, “Stolzes Herz”, “Alleine zu zweit”, “Alles Lüge”.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
And really a lot of us waited for that late hour of 1 AM to see PIL! We could enjoy “The Order of Death”, “Religion”, “This is Not a Love song”, “Know Now”, “Open Up” and many more. Indeed Agra was full as it seemed everyone really wanted to see these legends.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
Monday
Monday was a special day for me as I had the opportunity to see Machinista live. I met John and Rickhard a bit earlier and we managed to do a quick photoshoot, and it was great to hang out with these two sweethearts and my wish to see them play soon came true. Even though they played at Moritzbastei, that is a smaller venue, it was packed and I think some real Machinista fans came to see them.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
As I hold their two albums very dear to my heart I was lucky to hear some of my favourite songs, such as “Picture Frame Eternity”, “Take Comfort in being sad”, “Summersault” and “We are rockets”. And although John had a cold, the crowd really supported him as we sang along and they managed to provide a truly wonderful live show. I hope to see them more around in future as at WGT they proved they belonged to such a festival and have devoted fans already.
Pics by Xavier Marquis
In the meantime my husband was enjoying Neuroticfish at Agra who are a real hit factory and made Agra dance to “Silence”, “The bomb”, “Wake me up”, “Velocity”, “Suffocating Right”, “They’re coming to take me away”, “A Greater good” and I will hopefully catch them pretty soon myself again.
Pics by Xavier Marquis
However I managed to catch the second half of Velvet Acid Christ and enjoyed the magnificent show with “Fun with Drugs”, “Futile”, “Dial8”, “Slut” and the stunning Wumpscut cover of “Is it you?”.
The last show we saw was the one from Aesthetic Perfection and their stage performance was indeed flawless. The catwalk was built especially for their show that proved to be great for taking pictures and movement on the stage and video wall had cleverly chosen projections and they made sure the crowd had so much fun both listening and seeing them live. They gave us hits as: “Antibody”, “Big Bad Wolf”, “Devotion”, “The new black”, “The ones”, “Inhuman” and many more to enjoy.
Pics by Marija Buljeta
Too tired to wait for Agonize and due to our early travelling time tomorrow, we headed to our hotel and sadly had to part with WGT and Leipzig too soon, but hopefully we are back again next year as it is indeed one truly great experience and for all those who still have not visited the festival, one great recommendation! Sadly as we mostly visited gigs, we did not have enough time to socialize and check on all additional programmes and events that WGT offers, but coming from two music enthusiasts, not so surprising!
Text by Marija Buljeta & Agyar. Pics by Marija Buljeta.
Neuroticfish and Velvet Acid Christ pics by Xavier Marquis
Enjoy some atmosphere from Dirk’s gig with Dive’s “Sidewalk Sinner”!
