Live Report From Faust In Athens

Krautrock is a music style that includes fans from various sub-genres such as post rock, industrial, punk, noise, electronica, progressive rock, heavy metal. So the announcement of FAUST in Athens draw the attention of various people that share the same interest of minimalistic music but under different musical forms. Among the audience you could see long hair, skin heads, clean & cut persons, almost all the youth subcultures, of course the term youth refers to the “mind” because the age is another factor… There were “young” guys aged 18 – 65 in the live venue, so it was an all ages event.

The support band, Nechayevschina was playing an interesting mix of stoner and post rock, instrumental music with many guitar effects that made their music trip a psychedelic one…Regardless of their age, it seemed that they had a great view about the status of good music.

It was the second time that Faust arrives in Greece and this time they brought all the strange stuff along: drillers, chainsaw, and sewing machine! The show started with JHP playing an intro with his acoustic guitar and then the rest of the band followed with the electric energy of the famous Faust songs. This event was a mix of a concert and a performance: all the members of the band had different roles and were using different machines. The industrial concept of the band needed all the members do something different in order to emphasize on the concept, so Jean-Herve was using a chainsaw to create the word “Live” in a material and Zappi was using a cutting machine to cut metal! There was also one Greek lady that was using her sewing machine and a Greek technician that was trying to cut wood! Amazing ideas and of course out of the box philosophy about art… There were times that along with the guitar solo, you could hear a cutting machine solo too! The keyboardist was a painter so in the middle of the concert she stopped playing and brought an enormous canvas under the stage and started painting live!!!

We all lived a special night and remembered original hits of the band but under a different” music philosophy” that requires an open mind and out of the box point of view. It is true than when an artist reproduces the sound of the album can’t do it 100% on stage because an album is a result of more persons than the band: sound engineer, producer, studio technicians, etc. So the smartest thing is to perform the original sound of the album with the help of different things such as the machines that Faust used. So we had an experience of hearing original compositions covered by the same band, but with a different philosophy. What’s next? I had a discussion with Jean-Herve before the show and he told me that except music, machines and painting they’re thinking of using the human body as an extra to their show!!! I’m looking forward to it…

Jean-Hervé Peron dressed in workman uniform..