deadra lives in a really small town in Styria, where they have about five houses*, a gas station, five billion cows* and a club. This club is really pretty awesome, especially for this town. They regularly have [good! and cheap!] concerts there and when deadra told me that this year, they’d have the Cold War Kids, it was so on! Especially since the festivals this year were all kind of disappointing.

*Numbers might be exaggerated.

Their support was Bilderbuch, an up and coming Austrian indie/punk rock band.

When we arrived Bilderbuch were already playing. Which, as it turns out, was quite a blessing because I thought that they sucked. It was not only that I didn’t like the music, but there was very little interaction with the audience, except for three girls, who I suspect were either paid to be there or relatives or girlfriends of the band members.

Add to that that I hardly understood a word they were singing (and not because they sang in hard core dialect or something, the mics were obviously not well calibrated) and what I understood was headwall-worthy. And the music itself was less music than noise in my ears.

Anyway, as you probably can gather, I was less than impressed. [I have to admit that in the meantime they’ve released their first single Calypso and it sounds a lot better coming from the studio than on stage. Still not my thing but not as abysmal as I thought when I saw them live.]

Then we had to wait a ridiculously long time for them to change the stage and prepare everything for the Cold War Kids. But at least it was worth it since their mics were properly calibrated and all.

Before I say anything about the concert, let me say that I really, really loved [in the sense of knowing all the songs by heart and adoring the album to pieces] Robbers and Cowards, their first album. And that their new album Loyalty to Loyalty doesn’t do that much for me. Where there were tendencies to use disharmonies in Robbers and Cowards, in Loyalty to Loyalty it seemed to have grown to tendencies to have harmonies, sometimes. Maybe I’m conservative in my musical taste and I definitely don’t know enough about music theory to appreciate experimental stuff, but I do like songs to have choruses and stuff. And that was a little bit missing in Loyalty to Loyalty.

That said, of course I knew that the tour the Cold War Kids were on was the tour to Loyalty to Loyalty but I thought that they’d also play stuff from Robbers and Cowards and I do like some stuff from Loyalty to Loyalty. [In fact, the more I listen to it, the more I like it. So, it’s one of those albums.]

Anyways, I have to say that the concert was rather disappointing. First and foremost they didn’t even play a whole hour. And people? THAT IS NOT OKAY. It took me longer to get to the place than they played.

And then they only played one song as an encore, which is not a whole lot considering that the concert was so short already.

They did play most of my favourites from Robbers and Cowards – We Used to Vacation, Hospital Beds and Saint John – but weirdly enough they didn’t play their biggest hit, Hang Me Up to Dry.

Well, what was pretty cool to watch is that everyone of them, except the drummer, played at least two different instruments (I think it was more like five per person). Very impressive.

If they ever play again in Austria, I will think twice about whether I go to their concert or not. [But knowing me, I think I will go… I’m just a very forgiving person.]