The finals of the 27th OXMOX band contest with 10 finalists presented a varied range spanning from pop to rock to electronic, moderated from the golden Gniechel ("Die Goldene Gniechel Show"). For the uninitiated: The OXMOX is a Hamburg city magazine founded in 1966; and every year they organize a band contest, which involves hundreds of bands from mainly North Germany. The Hamburg "Markthalle" hall was very well filled.
The Bands in order of appearance:
[:smu:t] The indie-rock band from Hamburg with German lyrics were dedicated to the challenging task of opening the show. The audience first had to be drawn from all the corners of the hall. With "Ahoy!" shouting the band tried to motivate in a local Hanseatic way and rocked with a lot of devotion until everybody got it: the contest had begun.
Pure Tonic This was the fundament for the band Pure Tonic from Bremervörde, who raised the energy to the next level with traditional, wild hard rock and with their strong roaring singer. They reached the third place.
Drag Strip The five boys from Hamburg can not really be called a fresh act, because the band exists since more than ten years. They name their music style "Boostrock", which belongs to the big happy family of varied harder rock with metal influences. With talent for showbiz, stood particulary the singer in the foreground.
Get The Last Clap The rock line became now wider extended by reggae, rap and lots of partying. 6 boys and 1 girl sang, danced, played and thus contributed their good humor to the audience, who delighted elected them to the second place.
Kery Fay The native Ukrainian Kery Fay filled with five other musicians and two dancers completely the stage and presented very professionally pop and soul music presenting with much commitment her body-hugging appeal. This show brought a well-styled glamour to the event.
Rabaukendisko With Christoph&Christopher from Grevesmühlen entered electropop with German lyrics the stage. The instruments found their place on an ironing board, partially supported by bass and electric guitar. Catchy danceable sound between Kraftwerk and a piece of Neue Deutsche Welle. 2010 already named as the best newcomer band from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Their recipe worked fine, too, on the dance-hungry audience in Hamburg and won the first price.
Vakuumulator Electronics continued. Similarly like Rabaukendisko this project worked with electronic rhythm loops and exciting rhythm programs, but much more psychedelic and supported by an excellent fitting electric guitar that enriched rocking variations. Neither additionally a very rewarding and sometimes melancholic e-violin joined the action. The audience was spellbound by so much atmosphere and kept some distance from the stage. It was felt at once that here no contest winner was born, however, but a music was played that was marked by great originality and imagination. The band offered a very specific musical, spherical world with thoughtful lyrics sometimes in rap style.
Schreiber Back to Rock. Well outgoing melodic German rock, performed by the dynamic playing band of Christian Schreiber from Bad Segeberg, who was cheered on by a good fan base. For them Schreiber was the real Number One, of course. Raw, committed and sincere. Schreiber tried to motivate not only his fans, but also the audience, who had moved back to the rear two-thirds of the hall, but that was not so easy, because they were the fans of all the other acts, which mainly come for their favorites and were therefore more focused on hard rock and electro.
Jan Pape Band And it continues with catchy German Rock: Jan Pape can be described almost as an old warhorse of entertainment, in any case, in his native city Pinneberg. Since 1991, to this time with the band "Royal Kings Of Space", he looks back on more experience than most of the participants. One of his musicians had broke a hand and could not appear; in his place a painted cardboard figure stood on the stage, that did its best to stir up the vibe, and a whole horde of girls boarded the stage and danced to their own Jan Pape party.
Groovespire Groovespire were the last contest participant half an hour before midnight. They played before an audience which lost most of the energy in the nine previous concerts, nevertheless still celebrated with good mood. The gentleman with hat and strange painted face was rocking his electric guitar very beautiful; finally again a portion of Mother's handmade rock'n'roll.
Nixuntertreiben While the jury retired to evaluate the ballots of the public vote and also to find a jury decision, the special guest, previous year's winner 2011, played an Elektro-Rap/Hip-Hop performance. They made with full effort, but - as mentioned - the audience was now arrived slowly at the limit of capacity and really just waiting on one.
Die Siegerehrung All the bands came together on the stage and the award ceremony was conducted by the tireless Gniechel. The Schreiber-fans voted to choirs, but it was not their favorite, but to the pleasant surprise of the winners and their fans 1. Rabaukendisko, 2. Get The Last Clap und 3. Pure Tonic, which was rewarded each with different prices. But in the end there were only winners, because who has been there, had spent a great evening with a lot of eclectic bands. Thank you, Oxmox!
