Before Death In June took the stage, we watched the
supporting act, Glimmer Void, a band from Greece with 10-year life.The 7 members of
the band filled the stage for about half
an hour playing neofolk melodies with ethereal female vocals .
After Glimmer void ,the scenery for DEATH IN
JUNE live was erected.Hanging behind the instruments was a large blue flag with
stars(perhaps the stars from usa flag) and the menacing Totenkopf-6, the skull-and-bones
insignia borrowed from the Third Reich and earlier genocidal regimes . Similar symbols
covered portions of smaller flags draped in front of Douglas’ drum kitt. It
would be remiss of me at this point not to briefly address the issue of fascism
which has bedevilled Pearce throughout his career.I
neither know nor care what Pearce’s political views are.They are irrelevant to
the way in which I respond to the music of DEATH IN JUNE.
While waiting for Death In June, a man take the
stage, dressed in military camouflage clothes. He started to play the piano. I
immediately recognized the touch and the harmonies of Miro Snejdr, the Croatian
pianist who played on Death In June's album "Peaceful Snow" (2010).
Alone on the keyboards, Snejdr played a number of long improvisations with
Death In June tunes mixed with melodies from Spitting At Pigeons, his solo
project.The atmosphere in the hall was very quiet. Some people were a bit hypnotized by the romantic sound of the piano, others found it boring but all were expecting DEATH IN JUNE performance.
After 30 minutes or
so of piano instrumentals, Douglas P. joined Snejdr on stage to start the Death
In June concert. He was also dressed in camouflage clothes and was wearing his notorious
cracked white mask. Snejdr stood up, took his accordion and accompanied Douglas
P. for different versions of classic DEATH IN JUNE songs.I found the ‘accordion’
versions interesting but not as good as the original versions.
The intimidating
Venetian mask is worn for the first few songs, while he and Murphy hammer out
colossal martial rhythms on the drums.Douglas P.with his glasses now together with Jon Murphy and started the third
part of the show . There were samples of voices and noises playing in the
background and Douglas P. played complex drums patterns while singing at the
same time.Jon Murphy was in excellent form playing percussion. The music was martial percussion from two snare
drum kits, cymbals, chimes and maracas, some sambles and eventually the night
became more 'human' with acoustic folk
in the biggest part of the concert.We heard a 'best of' concert with a lot
of favourite songs such as :little Black Angel,Symbols of the Sun, All Pigs
Must Die, Ku Ku Ku ,But, What Ends When Symbols Shatter?, Rose Clouds of
Holocaust, Luther’s Army and so on…. Hearing all these songs together led me to
reflect on how deeply these songs have dyed my soul after listening to most of
them for well over a decade. Perhaps, I got bored in several moments ,but the playlist brought a lot of memories to me .In conclusion,although some songs were not played as I expected
and despite the monotony of stage
presence,we lived nostalgic moments for
about 1h.50 min.
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