CrashDïet, Shiraz Lane, King Zebra
Sala Caracol, Madrid (ES)
25th May 2022
Promoted by Madness Live
The golden age of glam & sleaze rock may have officially been the eighties, but there are a handful of bands capable of convincing you that such age is now. CrashDïet is one of them. After the “Rust” tour being cancelled due to the heinous pandemic in 2020, the release of “Automaton” late last month provided a payback in spades.
The doors opened about 15 minutes after scheduled, but King Zebra got on stage at the announced time (19:30). Not sure of how many people knew the Swiss – I didn’t and yet I found myself singing along the catchy choruses of songs such as “We’re The Survivors” or “Under Destruction”, so maybe the words also got easily into other people’s brains – but everybody seemed real happy to see them. Thundermother’s Guernica Mancini wasn’t at the show, but King Zebra played “Wall Of Confusion” just the same and singer Eric St. Michaels was clearly proud of having such collaboration in the band’s discography. It was “Firewalker”, however – a song “very popular on Spotify” – that raised the spirits of the crowd a bit higher than they already were.
https://www.facebook.com/KINGZEBRA.band
Shiraz Lane, on the other hand, had a lot of enthusiastic fans waiting for them. What a roar exploded at Sala Caracol when they hit the stage! They haven’t released a full-length album since “Carnival Days”, back in 2018, but its follow-up should be out soon, as a few new songs are already rolling on YouTube. One of them, “Disconnect From The Matrix”, was posted two days after this show but the Finns already graced us with it. Such a fiery performance from all members, but it was obviously singer Hannes Kett who had the chance to dance and jump around more, as well as bond with the audience with heartfelt speeches. When announcing the last song – which got a loud “NO!” in response, especially when Hannes said they had to play the following night for “your friends in Barcelona” (I wonder if there’s any country with no rivalry between its major cities…) – he said we must remember that love is the most important thing, more than ever. Then their own version of Savage Garden’s “To The Moon And Back” was on and in the last moments of it, Hannes went into the crowd to sing among us.
https://www.facebook.com/ShirazLane
I believe Gabriel Keyes was somewhat sick, or at least tired. Wait, let me rephrase it – his voice might have been tired, ‘cause the way he rocked that stage through and through was evidence of a powerful energy. It was the first time I was seeing him live, but I’d seen videos – including the Quarantine Thrills – so I know what his voice is capable of outside a recording studio. Changing the higher pitches into lower ones in order to not go out of tune was a bit disappointing at first, but eventually I got used to it and had to appreciate the effort (one CrashDïet gig cancelled was enough in my book). I’m still bummed that they didn’t play “Shine On”, though, as it’s probably my favorite song out of “Automaton” and I know they had played it in the previous dates of the tour. But listening to so many “oldies” such as “Tikket”, “It’s A Miracle” (dedicated to all of us, for being there after all the world’s been through in the past couple of years), “Breakin’ The Chainz” and “Queen Of Obscene” (yes, and “Riot In Everyone”, of course, but that one is mandatory) certainly made up for the absence of my most recent fav track. Curiously enough, despite being the “Automaton Tour”, they’ve only played two songs off it – “Together Whatever”,which opened the show and made everyone go wild right from the start, and later on “No Man’s Land”. And from “Rust”, the first album featuring Gabriel, only “Reptile” came up. It’s great to see he feels so comfortable singing all those songs he didn’t originally record – they’re CrashDïet songs and he’s their current (hopefully last!) lead singer. Period!
More or less in the middle of the show, he stepped off stage (maybe to rest his voice?) and let guitarist Martin Sweet sing a Nirvana song (“Territorial Pissings”). What an unexpected blast, and I don’t even like Nirvana that much! What I wasn’t expecting either was to see both King Zebra and Shiraz Lane members getting on stage and singing “Generation Wild” at the end of the show That’s the kind of thing that usually happens when wrapping up tours so it’s quite an understatement to say I was really glad that these bands don’t go by “the usual”.
https://www.facebook.com/realcrashdiet
Text & photos by Renata “Pieni” Lino
Valkyrian Music 