Die Totenhosen

Regular readers of my diatribes (both of you) will know that MM has always been partial to a bit of live music, notwithstanding his unfortunate enforced exit from the Black Crowes bash at Brixton 3 weeks ago - but that's another story. Hem). Never a fan of stadium rock though.
So quite how it was that I found myself filing into the Europahalle sports stadium in downtown Karlsruhe last Thursday to watch a band I'd never heard of, was down to a peculiar combination of a property broker and some spontaneous desire to see what this legendary German punk group was all about.
Die Totenhosen, or as you English speakers are likely to call them The Dead Trousers (and don't go all Wallace & Gromit on me here), are something of a cult of 30 years standing. They look fairly unremarkable (compared to their fans anyway) except for the rhythmn guitarist, who, in an effort to give the band a more offbeat look (or cover up his spam, who knows) wears a bowler hat. It doesn't work particularly.
The Europahalle is like a mini O2, for those of you have had that dubious pleasure. On entering everyone was being offered earplugs by a cheery gent wearing a T shirt which insisted that 'Alcohol is not the answer'. Well it is if the question is 'What is it in beer that gets you off your face?', but I digress. However, it did strike me as rather incongruous that these 40something fans with hair spiked specially for the occasion, were grabbing the 'plugs by the handful.
Judging form the clapping & cheering for the support act the Doughnuts (Yes, reader. German rock bands DO need to do a bit more work on their names I agree), I could tell it was going to be a lively evening. The main act came on to the strains of the crowd singing 'You'll never walk alone'. Oddly enough it appears to be some sort of signature tune for Die Totenhosen - couldn't tell you why. The band then launched into a succession of what, to me, seemed some fairly innocuous clappa-singalonga 'Oi' pop songs, but the crowd was loving the whole show and that, in the end, is what matters. Crucially for Die Totenhosen, and probably why they have never made it outside Germany, unlike Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Can, is that they sing in German. And I feel that rhyming German words, and making them scan smoothly into a song, must be fairly challenging, given the multi-syllable typical word construction. The singer had a fairly shouty raucous style which left me feeling that if I was at the controls of the U boat he was captaining, I would be diving at speed due to the imminent arrival of a British destroyer, but that's just me.
Anyway, 10/10 to the fans, who gave their all and who must have been thrilling to behold from the stage. And 10/10 to the band, who played for 2 hours and did 3 encores. It's just a shame they didn't have any good songs. Maybe they were punk once. Maybe what we have here is 'Schlager' punk.