Читать книгу HIT THE STAGE - Tim Hackemack - Страница 7

My first punk concert took place at J.U.K.S. in Emsdetten. On stage were two bands, Geistige Verunreinigung and Dritte Wahl. I wasn’t sure how the people and the bands would treat me. The worry of not being accepted, as I had experienced before, outweighed my anticipation. So, I entered the youth club rather cautiously. After a while I got into a conversation with an older, long-haired guy who bought me a beer and just wanted to chat. I don’t remember how I found out that it was Busch’n from Dritte Wahl, but by this I was blown away. The guy in front of me had released albums, contributed to cool samplers and still found it normal to chat with the punk kid from provincial backwater Nordwalde. We talked for a long time and then he took his bass, went on stage and played all the great songs. In retrospect, the whole thing seems unreal to me, but I remember it as a great moment.

So I kept going to concerts, sometimes more often, sometimes less. I’ve always avoided festivals and large venues, up to 300 people is about the size in which I feel comfortable. This way, I wouldn’t be able to see Dritte Wahl today, but I’d happily make an exception for the boys.

What required a lot of research in these days is quite simple now. Every day there are gigs somewhere, you just have to go. Ten years ago, I was out and about every weekend, today it has become less. But I also drive further away if I really want to see a band.

Since 2012 I’ve been taking pictures at concerts every now and then. Over time this resulted in a small collection of photos, and I’d like to present some of them here.

I managed to photograph bands like Dritte Wahl, Rantanplan, Slime or Agnostic Front a lot of times and had many pictures to choose from. For The Veggers, The Manges or Kevin Seconds there was only one concert each. I was still able to capture what was essential for me. With some bands I had communication problems, but these also could be overcome. The result is 30 bands and solo artists from many different countries and I’m very proud to have each one in this book.

Covid 19 happened in the last few months of working on this book. Shows that I still wanted to photograph and even whole tours got canceled. I stopped working on the book, hoping that in a few weeks things would return to normal and I’d be able to finish everything according to my own demands. This didn’t happen and I had to make a decision. I could either publish the book half-finished and accept the presentation of a few bands with a line-up that was out of date at the time of publication. Another option would have been to wait until I have all the photos completed. I’d have to wait for the end of a pandemic that no one can predict. The decision was easy. My chosen solution, however, was initially difficult for me. In my first two books I only published my own pictures. I was proud of that and always mentioned it. Now I had to ask other photographers for help. It cost me quite an effort but it was a very good decision. So, I can publish the book in almost the desired form. A big thank you goes to Kevin Winiker, Christian Thiele and Jörg Baumgarten. You are great guys.

So, what else will happen now? Hopefully we’ll learn something from our abstinence. We learn a new respect for creative people, understand how much work is put into organizing concerts or how much effort it is to play and tour with a band. We are relearning the value of music as something that shows us a way out of everyday life. Instead of going to the psychologist every week, we all go to our local record store and listen to any new record that looks interesting. We start long discussions with the sellers in the record store. You can chat with them while they work, because they’re not bus drivers. Then we take a nice record home and listen to it straight away. We meet up with friends and tell them about the new discovery. Optimally make them a new mixtape every now and then. We all cancel our Spotify contracts, although you can no longer hear everything you want, because music is worth a lot to us, far more than 0.4 cents per stream. We also no longer complain miserably about a concert with three bands for twelve euros admission, we don’t beg the bands for guest list places. From now on we do everything better, or at least we try, okay?

Münster, 09/21/2020