So, how's the state of New Zealand rock? For a city the size of Berlin, the only band playing during our visit whom we'd previously heard of were surprisingly Antipodean rockers the Datsuns. Never really caught onto them after a couple of short and indistinctly noisy Reading Festival viewings, but we're here, they're here, so why not?
So we headed over to this South-East Berlin venue (an odd place, resembling a run down school hall, with a gravelled outside garden) in a dodgy looking part of town which spooked Rachel a little but was no real bother, hitting the gig just after 9 and finding support Johnossi already on. This Swedish 2-piece were however poor - either clumsily noisy or dustily quiet, they fell midway between Winnebago Deal and Grant Lee Buffalo, and neither worked! We mainly sat out their set in the lobby, trying to puzzle out why the barman had given us plastic red discs with our drinks - they turned out to be deposits for the glasses. Strange, these Germans...
Took a position toward the back, stage right, for the Datsuns entrance just after 10.15. Coming on with a mass of hair and a whirl of flashing and clashing guitars, they were straight into their hard and heavy upbeat, fast-paced rock. This set the tone for the first part of the set; an increasing moshpit greeted this Ramones-meets-Motorhead riff-heavy material. The Datsuns are, however, a band of 3 parts, and then veered towards some ugly grungy Deep Purple-esque HM doodling, before returning to Listenable City with a Stones-like blues rock strut, with best known number "Harmonic Generator". Overall, they left a favourable impression, certainly better than their Reading performances, but we didn't stay for the encores as tiredness set in. So the Datsuns secured runner-up spot for this short Berlin trip, but Band of the Berlin Weekend were De Fotos!
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