Very entertaining they were too, seeing the singer jumping, and prancing about dressed up like a Barbie doll, while the rest of the band members played their instruments with a meaner attitude about their appearance. Although it does have to be said that they all looked like they were enjoying themselves, and the singer showed her thanks to the crowd by saying thank you in French, and German! (She may have said it some other languages but I forget now!)
The Vandals : After the usual 1/2hr wait the Vandals came on stage. I had never heard of this band, but was very pleasantly surprised, because they play very tongue in cheek, almost "piss-take" punk songs, or just about nothing in particular of any relevance! As the following "almost quote" demonstrates, after introducing most of the songs with "this is a song about a girl" or "this is a song about food!
singer: As you can see, we only know about 2 things girls and food, actually, we know about 1 more thing diarrhoea. (now remember this gig is in Zurich Switzerland, where the main language is German.) Hey who here likes diarrhoea?
This was said with great enthusiasm, as if the singer had just asked, who likes beer. The majority of the Swiss crowd obviously thought Diarrhoea must be something pretty cool, so started cheering, and shouting, much to the delight of the band, who were (as was I) almost wetting themselves with laughter!
That was one of the highlights, the other one was when the guitarist took off his shirt, jumped on top of the speakers , pulled his shorts up as high as possible, and started singing the Spice Girls' Wannabe!
The Offspring:I was very impressed by the Offspring's
performance, partially because I've always thought they were
a bit average, and didn't live up to the media hype, but live
they put on a good show, with a lot of energy!
Actually to be honest at first it looked as if the singer was
feeling tired since his voice didn't seem to have as much energy
as it does on CD, but after a few songs he seemed to find his
voice and passion again.
It was also good to hear songs from all of their albums,
and not just the new material, for example "Come Out and Play"
and see the "Bez"
like character say "You gotta keep 'em separated.". He was also
quite amusing to watch in other tracks where he just has the
odd line, or shakes maracas, since when he's not doing that he
runs and jumps about, and seems to have a genuinely good time!
Another thing that was interesting was the pause for stage diving!
Yes I know it sounds stupid, but the band stopped playing, and let
a handful of members of the audience onto the stage, and then
got them to stand on the speakers, and dive off! Hmmn, kind of
seems to defeat the object, organised stage-diving, but the kids
(of which there were loads, I'm 21 and I felt old!) seemed to like
it!
Not much else to say really. I'm glad I went, it was a good gig,
but now I've seen them I wouldn't bother going to see them again
for a while, and I wouldn't travel any great distance to see them
either!