By Jase Walker
Electric Callboy are a group that’s gone from relatively small to selling out some of the most premier venues in the ÜK almost overnight thanks to the unbelievable success of their singles leading up to ‘Tekkno’. To say I’ve been excited for this show is a bit of an understatement; what was already a pretty awesome set at Slam Dunk this year was but a small taste of the set length that they’re due to play tonight.
With them for this mammoth tour as well is annisokay, a similarly party themed electronic metalcore group so we’ve got a pretty high energy party on our hands tonight. The crowd’s already going a bit bonkers with the crowd loudly cheering people attacking a blown up condom with a blow up sheep, and then cheering louder when a second blown up condom appeared.
annisokay are opting for an introduction track of Limp Bizkit’s ‘Rollin’, all the while several blown up condoms are now floating about down the front. annisokay kicks off and it immediately stands out to me that the bass drum is way too loud and is smothering the guitars and bass which is extremely frustrating. It’s improving steadily as the set goes on but it’s like everything else is being brought up to the drums level instead of meeting in the middle and easing off how strong the bass drum is.
Other than that though the actual stage lighting that’s supporting the band as they play is pretty outstanding, extremely dynamic, good use of complementary colours while tall LED light towers move between flashes or solid clashing colours. Admittedly I wasn’t expecting a cover of Slipknot’s ‘Duality’ from these, bit of a curve ball that’s clearly a hit with the crowd. I don’t really think the vocals are quite cutting it unfortunately, the cleans seem off-key and even the uncleans don’t quite hit the mark.
I’ll give them credit that the audience is pretty into them and they’re connecting well with people mind, getting a good response to the “sit down and jump up” antics that have become quite common at shows recently. It’s a bit of a shame because I quite enjoy annisokay’s recorded stuff but the fact that the drums are just so overpoweringly loud is really getting in the way of me enjoying this set. Considering a lot of metalcore adjacent stuff relies heavily on riffy guitar playing, when I can barely pick out what the guitarist is doing from the constant booming of the bass drum and toms then I can’t really get into it. Admittedly it sounded a lot better towards the end of the set but a bit late to keep my attention held so I’m a bit disappointed by this sadly.
After a brief break and some choice ‘bangers in the intermission music, it’s time for Electric Callboy opening with their massive ‘Pump It’ dressed in their ’80s fitness get ups. Whatever drum sound issues were plaguing Annisokay are now gone and we’ve got a massive party on our hands now. Pints are flying everywhere constantly, even the two-pinters!
Keeping the energy going with ‘Arrow of Love’ before explaining why Nico is wearing large over ear headphone monitors due to the issues that delayed the tour. After ‘The Scene’, someone in the audience somewhere starts madly throwing out tons of glow sticks in random directions. The lighting use is interestingly less busy than I thought it would be, opting for uses of solid neon colours and various shapes and patterns on the stacks of horizontal light bars behind the band.
I can see the front area of the crowd getting a bit more rowdy from my sound desk perch to the tune of ‘MC Thunder II’ and its fun and bouncy chorus. The slow build up to ‘Hypa Hypa’, the song that saw their popularity absolutely explode after becoming a viral sensation sees the entire crowd singing the main melody to it and going absolutely nuts! Getting people to kneel down for ‘Best Day’, you can hear some groaning as people go down (I know I do, these knees are creaky) but it does well to get people bouncing! Would you also believe this is the second time this year I’ve seen wigs being thrown around in the pit down the front? Definitely one of the weirder things I’ve seen.
One of their weirder tracks, ‘Hurrikan’ is also one of my favourites, they ask the audience if they’ve heard of German Schlager, so it starts with a really typical Eurobeat song with them singing in German before devolving into blast beats and screaming and it lasts about a minute and a half – perfect.
As we draw towards the end of the set we reach the “finish” of ‘MC Thunder’, the entire crowd goes absolutely mental for it! Oh God, they’re doing the eight jumps to the left and right again… I remember getting caught out by that at Slam Dunk! Our encore finale brings us through three absolutely massive ‘bangers one after the other: ‘Mindreader’, ‘Spaceman’ and finally ‘We Got The Moves’ also including wearing the music video outfits as well, brilliant.
Seeing the popularity of Electric Callboy skyrocket has been incredible, they go hard as fuck, they’re just that little bit goofy, but they put out bangers and don’t take themselves seriously at all. This set was most definitely worth the wait!
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.