KILLING KIND TOUR REVIEW

Overkill Tour reviews for Killing Kind '96

by Hakon Grav

After a break of almost nine months, it was time to see the mighty Overkill live again, as they returned to Europe in November, after all the US dates. Supporting the band this time were Canada’s old heroes ANVIL, who really did a cool job, and I enjoyed every show they played. STAHLHAMMER from Austria were opening, and what can I say about these guys? Groovy hard-core isn’t really my cup of tea at all, but their singer had a really strong voice (too bad he didn’t show it off too often!), and they did a superb cover of Pink Floyd’s "Another Brick in The Wall".
But, let’s get on to the Overkill-shows! After having opened this European leg in Tallinn, Estonia, Overkill played two shows in Sweden (Gothenburg and Bollnäs), and one in Copenhagen, Denmark before hitting the road in Germany. First show was in
Hamburg, Venue: "Markthalle" (November 5th)

A rainy and cold day as hell in Hamburg, the venue was cool, the band played well, but the audience was kind of strange. I mean, Hamburg is one of Germany’s biggest cities, and I guess the number of fans in the venue tonight was only around 250-300 people. I guess the promotion-campaign for the show started quite late - there wasn’t too many posters put up around, either. I think this really sucks - when you take out a band like Overkill on tour, you should give them what they deserve - and they certainly don’t deserve to be jerked off by lazy concert-promoters! Anyway, the show was ok, and I almost died when they played "FEEL THE FIRE"!!!!!!!! Yepp, they’re doing it live again, and they also included the mighty "I Hate" again, and for the first time in Europe - the huge "Drunken Wisdom".

Next day, and moving on to FRANKFURT, for a show in the classic "Batschkapp"-venue. I had only been to this place once earlier - drunk on a kind-of rock-disco, but the rumors were that this place was really killer. And the rumors were solid and true, indeed! The place looked crowded, and the band played as hell - maybe the best Overkill-show I’ve ever seen. Everything was godlike, and it struck me how fuckin` tight the new line-up sounds. Joe and Sebastian have really fitted into the glove, and all of the five individuals are together really delivering the goods.

BOCHUM, Venue: "Zeche", (November 7th)

This venue was included on Overkill’s first tour of Europe in `86, and they also played here on the tour in February. Again, the guys delivered a very strong show, and lightguy Rick (who also worked with the band on the tours in the past), made some really cool stuff tonight. Rick’s work was kind of obstacled because of some small clubs with little lightning-rigs, but in Bochum, and also in Cologne, he did a killer job. Stahlhammer did OK on most of the dates I saw, and were fairly accepted by Overkill’s fans. Anvil got solid response night after night, by the way. But Bochum didn’t like Stahlhammer very much - people were shouting for Overkill, and they got what they wanted, when "Time to Kill" detonated through the PA. The set-list had gone through some changes since the last tour, about half of the songs were kept, but altered, and another eight (nine?) songs were given a chance on this tour. The mix was better, I think. Only three new songs, but that was OK, as long as they threw in "Feel The Fire", "I Hate" and "Drunken Wisdom" again. "In Union We Stand" was also heavily chanted every night, as it was on the last tour. After the show we celebrated Sebastian’s birthday - happy birthday, Seb.!!!!

Osnabrück Venue: "Hyde Park" (November 8th)

Cool venue! The "Hyde Park" used to be the name of an old circus in the city of Osnabrück, and today’s Hyde Park is a wooden house, built like an...yeah, circus tent. Again a strong show, but some technical difficulties during the show made it a tough task sometimes. Also, the security was kind of rough, but they settled down after a while, after having been yelled at by the tour-manager.

Berlin Venue: "Trash" (November 9th)

Saturdays are supposed to be the best day of the week, right? And a overkill-show on a Saturday- can things be better? Supposingly not, but this day was a disaster. The Spinal Tap-syndrome struck the tour again, having a local promoter offering overkill the shittiest club I’ve ever seen, apart from the "L`Arapaho" in Paris. The venue was two stairs up, but the lift didn’t work, so the crew had to carry the stuff up the stairs! There were hardly any lights, and the PA was crap as well. The club was situated in Berlin’s worst neighborhood, so in one word - Berlin was TRASH! Overkill nevertheless, did what they could in order to save the day, and opened the show in true heroic style, working their asses off. But the audience in Berlin only wanted to mosh and stagedive, from a stage that was smaller than your average kitchen-floor. Of course, the band got disturbed: several feet got into Bobby’s mouth instead of flying out in the audience (Bobby responded with laughter instead of wrath through the microphone: "I can see you’re having fun, Berlin- but it’s not so easy to sing with a pair of feet in my mouth!!"). Some minutes later, DD was next, and someone stepped on his bass-cable, so his bass went out. He had to change from the "spider-bass" to a regular bass-guitar - now that was strange - seeing DD play another kind of bass! Well, a not so fantastic day went over in history, and the next day offered a great reward for having survived the ghetto in Berlin, as the next show was to take place in

Cologne "Live Music Hall" (November 10th)

This was a cool place, I have to say! A HUGE stage, great PA, great lighting-rig, great food, that’s the way to treat Overkill when they’re in town - thanks, Live Music Hall! A very good show tonight - all bands were hailed by the Cologne-audience, and Anvil had the crowd raging after only one song. You could really see what a great time Lips had on stage on this tour, and the really cool thing is, that Sebastian did Anvil’s sound on these concerts in Germany! Overkill did a superb job again, and as this was my last gig on this tour, I sucked every minute dry of Overkill tonight. Only one thing went shit - Joe’s guitar-sound fell out of the PA during the last song of the main set, but the techs had it going again for the encores.
Well, six fantastic shows were over, and I had to prepare for a wonderful train-journey (again...) back to Norway. In February I had a 34-hour long lasting thrill from Paris to Trondheim, this time I was `lucky`, and entered my flat in Trondheim almost excactly 24 hours after my departure from Germany. The band moved on to Italy, Austria and France, before flying back home for some time off.
I hope many more of you had the chance to see great Overkill-shows this year, and those of you who didn’t get the chance this time around - look forward to the next tour!!! This was the ultimate high for me this year - a lot of my friends don’t get it, that I travel long distances to see Overkill. Well, tell you what - Kiss played Oslo this weekend, but who cares? Six Overkill-shows make up for 10 Kiss-shows!