Kraftklub in Munich: A deep German feeling – Munich
Finally, the K. And what a K. A monstrous K, a shining K. It shines through the zenith like an apparition of Mary. Seventy-six minutes, seventy-six eternal minutes they let pass until power club her K, her cipher, with all pathos, all egocentricity, descending from the hall ceiling. Too early would have been clumsy, too late vain, too often tragic. But if you hit the moment for such a big gesture like the band did at the Zenith, it’s powerful. The Klodert on to the first bars of “Karl-Marx-Stadt”, the anti-hymn to their hometown. a love hate, stretching from their indie rock beginnings on “With K” to the darker pop pieces on their current album “Kargo” runs through.
Because like hardly any other guitar band of the post-reunification period, Kraftklub set to music a deeply German feeling about which perplexed West Germans often wonder on state election evenings: the “drift”, the so-called “shift to the right” in the “new” federal states. When there were racist attacks in downtown Chemnitz in late summer 2018, Kraftklub also showed a counter-demonstration, the “We are more concert” on September 3rd. On “Kargo” they process the song “4. September” the euphoria of those days, the impotence afterwards, the hardship of Realpolitik.
The fact that Kraftklub are among the progressive voices that this country needs in 2022 can also be observed again in the Zenith. Even at the risk of upsetting the mood in the hall and ruining a successful concert, singer Felix Kummer can’t help himself about the current debate about climate activism to talk pissed off. He understands the young people who get stuck. And as the fantastic entertainer that he is, he brings back those who might think differently with an anecdote. There is no right to a schnitzel every day, he read on a sign at a demonstration. What if a right to schnitzel? And would that mean that you had the right every other day? He has to laugh. And then the audience can too. But only briefly.