This gig was an unlikely treat in the musical hell that is Romania. found out about it while staying in Brasov in Transylvania. The modern world with computers everywhere is brilliant when it allows Marty Thau of Red Star Records to find someone to review one of his bands when they get asked to play in Bucharest.
I was that man and am thankful to Marty for helping to set this up and putting me in contact with Richard Citroen of Lola Dutronic who although he couldn't make this gig himself, made sure I had enough information to find the Control Club and made sure the club's manager Victor knew we were coming.
Well having walked from our hotel dodging all the holes in the pavements and roads down to the old down we had dinner just off of Lipscani before walking along Regina Elisabeta to find Caleo Victoria. This allowed me to find the little side street featuring the Control Club without any problems. We arrived very early and on finding the very cool main bar was already very smoky we went and sat in the beer garden by a wood burning heater with our beers and listened to the minimal electronica the DJ was playing to set the scene.
When we eventually went into the venue proper, the door girl went to fetch Victor who sorted out our guest list places. As we were Lola Dutronic's entire guest list he also told us they were either in the smoky bar or the beer garden and we went and found them to introduce ourselves and have a chat with Stef and Dirk who were a little anxious about the set up that didn't include a sound man or hardly any effects for them to use. OOPS.
Still we finally made it into the gig room and it was a real nice place with Doric style columns with gold leaf on the edges; a stage at one end and a bar at the other and a DJ onstage (either Ben Mono or Morden Vast) who was playing some pretty cool 70's and 80's disco tunes with a light and slide show that covered the stage. He was mixing the tunes together nicely while the crowd in the club lined the walls in real wallflower style with hardly anyone dancing.
20 minutes before LOLA DUTRONIC came on, Victor came to make sure we were in the main room in time for them and to make sure we were having a good time, what a cool dude. Well after a 5 minute break between the end of the DJ set and the start of Lola Dutronic's set (during which half the audience departed to the other bar) they opened with Keep Your Dreams. It sounded cool and Dirk's keyboards seemed to be working fine with all his other gadgets and laptop but Stef's vocals were way too low in the mix, which meant one of the DJs started running round to sort it out which he managed quite quickly.
Some more people were drifting back into the main room from the other bar in time for a very cool version of Love is Blue where Stef's vocals reminded me of Sarah Martin of Belle And Sebastian singing over a much more electronic backing but it was very cool even if the audience didn't seem to even notice there was a band on. It wasn't helped either by the fact that there were no stage lights and they performed with the disco backdrop playing over them.
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Still, Beautiful World had some really nice keyboard changes in to with Stef's vocals sounding more like Sarah Cracknell's did in the short lived Stereolab offshoot S.O.U.P. Stef's introduction to the next song explained their origins. They are a Canadian German band and the next song was a German one. It got a little applause from the wallflowers and when they played The Model they even got a few people dancing which was a real achievement. Stef's vocals added a real nice gauzy haze to the song and Dirk did his best to look like a robot from Dusseldorf.
Best Years Of Our Lives kept the odd person dancing and sounded great even if Dirk looked like he was having trouble seeing what he was doing in the gloom onstage.
No matter how much Stef encouraged the audience it was a losing battle and no matter how good My Radio and Everyone's A Star sounded this audience were either retreating further into the walls or just carrying on their chats like they were in the bar next door; a very tough audience to grab.
S.O.S. could have been the message the band where sending out to try to get some life into the crowd they were playing for. They needed some shock treatment to get them dancing as they should be to this cool electronica. Even so, Everyone Loves You When You're Dead seemed to fall on deaf ears which was a pity.
They thanked everyone and closed the set with Kids Just Wanna Dance: a song that seemed highly ironic as these kids didn't seem to want to do anything more than drink and chat and stare into the distance. The band left the stage to the same sort of ennui from most of the audience as they had greeted everything else this evening. It was odd as three of four of us clapped into the silence especially as we had thoroughly enjoyed the music but just wished the rest of the crowd had too.
We said our goodbyes to Victor and I do wish him every success with his club as he has one great sounding room and a good set up that just needs tweaking a bit for live bands. I hope I get to see the full 3 piece line-up of Lola Dutronic again soon in a venue full of people who want to hear and dance to them.
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