A report by Ikecht about the M’era Luna festival, which was held on 13 and 14 August 2005 in Hildesheim, Germany..

I attended M’era Luna festival in Hildesheim last weekend. 2 days with 40 acts on two stages. From great acts with huge discographies like The Klinik, Sisters Of Mercy and Skinny Puppy, to fresh acts like Klimt 1918, Osiris Taurus, The Birthday Massacre and Staubkind.

A camping festival with a great sense of unitedness in the public, a special group of people from the dark subculture come together to listen to music, see each other again (or for the first time), shop at the different commercial stands, basicly to entertain themselves.

It was a festival with two different kinds of about everything. For instance two different kinds of weather, the dry Saturday and the soaking wet Sunday; two different kinds of music, the wave/EBM gothic acts and the metal-acts. Anyway it is a very nice festival that knows to get some of the best acts together and already does so for several years.

Day 1

As it gets a bore to describe every act into detail, I will stick with some highlights and disappointments. Klimt 1918 was my first surprise, where I hardly know rock music, this clearly is, and to me the guys resembled a mix of U2 and The Cure, with some Italian lyrics, great start for a festival. Qntal showed they really wanted to play and did their best but were obstructed by the local crew who didn’t know how to mix their sound or even how to get their instruments through to the mixing-board. The Cr�xshadows as always were very energetic and a great live act, they actually had an even larger part for the electric violin then they had in former shows.
Combichrist was hard but not good. Mesh was a big surprise, very professional and a good emotional show. Skinny Puppy showed from where many other bands got their ideas. They put down a show that failed to really shock, but entertained none the less and gave some political anti-war (close to anti-Bush) statements.

That is a fast recount of day one on my part, the dry day of the festival.

Day 2

Day 2 was the very muddy and very wet one, luckily one of the stages is in a hangar, this also has a downside soundwise, but it keeps you dry, especially as most of the acts you want to see are programmed on this stage.

Cephalgy proved Darkwave is still alive. Though not very good, they gave a fine performance. KiEw was an act without impression. The sound was way too flat, and just beats don’t do it, not with this public at least. I can imagine this show works in smaller venues. Amduscia came over from Mexico to take the stage and they did. A very fine show from this dark-electro act, that might overtake Hocico soon as the most popular Mexican dark-electro act. A show as well as good music.
Trisomie 21 is finally back on stage! And they really were there, having some problems with the sound they just started and it all came out fine. Where there seemed to be four different islands on the stage, this didn’t hamper their performance. Great to see they are back, not yet with an excellent show, but with some more performances this might actually come. Flesh Field was one of those acts I was really eager to hear live. Their sound was not mixed correctly, but especially their vocals were not even half as good as they were on cd. This seemed more like a show of an ADHD-Ian and “look at my beautiful but”-Wendy, then a music-performance. Diary Of Dreams played a very good set, they grabbed the public and their dark fairytales simply went into the ears to set something loose in the mind that creates a good feeling. Slowly moving along to the music the public just entertained the show.
The Klinik somehow was programmed alongside Sisters Of Mercy, which had the positive side effect that the public for this act fitted into the hangar. They gave away a show that was nothing more then any other electro-act showwise, just someone behind the electronics and someone doing the vocals moving back and forth on the stage. But the music, from their large, very large back-catalogue does so much more, 75 minutes of dancing was guaranteed. They basicly proved that even the music they made in the early 80’s of last century is still worth listening to today.
Getting a glimpse at the last 30 minutes or so of the Sisters Of Mercy, showed they finally (against all reputation of this act) gave away a decent show. Not playing “Marianne” at all, so I heard later on, but still hits like “Vison Thing” and of course “Temple Of Love” were played and the public went home with a good feeling.

Thus two days past with lots of good times, some disappointments, but with the certainty I want to come back again next year. A nice festival, a good line-up, a fine organisation (except for the sound-engineers in the hangar), this feels like more for sure.

Author: HD. Published on: Thursday, August 18th, 2005.
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