Jonny Numb

Sure, the cultural experience is an important aspect of any music festival outside America, but what of the musical acts proper? After all, that’s the meat in the aural sandwich, as it were.

As Wave Gotik Treffen (WGT hereafter) is a festival that overtakes many venues throughout Leipzig, the total number of booked musicians (between bands and DJs) in a given year taps out around the 200 mark.

Ergo, the most important word one must learn when approaching WGT is “sacrifice,” because honey, you aren’t gonna get to see everyone on your wish list.

Lizard advised as much in the early days of band announcements in late 2024, and even though I was overzealous in the bands I (thought I) wanted to see “live,” there were some (Corlyx; Aux Animaux) that were simply logistically impossible.

His strategy is adopted by many (who aren’t just there to drink their vacation fund away and socialize, that is): find the venue hosting the most bands you want to see in a given day, and perch there. This method served us well, and – with the exception of one close call on the last night of the festival (getting into – you guessed it! – Moritzbastei) – we had no problem gaining access to any venue.

Another sacrifice one makes at festivals in general: kiss podiatry comfort goodbye! Get used to shifting weight across both heels and lifting your legs periodically to shake off a charley horse, because seating is at a premium.

As my recap of WGT is now a year in the rearview, some of my impressions of the bands I saw will be brief to non-existent. That said, I will have words for all of the venues. And hey, if I’m still thinking about a band/performance this far in the future, then it speaks volumes for the performers.

In any case, enough of me rationalizing my belated write-up…let’s tighten those corsets, lace up those Doc Martens, and squeeze into the tram choked tight with raccoon-eyed bandits of the night…

Thursday, June 5, 2025:

Felsenkeller: a mass of people populated the fenced-in area outside the club entrance, smoking and talking during this pre-party night. Fire codes are for the weak. People sitting on curved staircases to people trying to ascend or descend said curved staircases: “Fuck you – we’ll sit where we want! What are ya gonna do? Call the schweine?”

1. ‎Nordarr – dudes in hazmat suits and gasmasks; OK, but the shtick was overplayed and went on for too long.

2. Oliotronix – noise girl dressed in Smurf costume. This was upstairs in the less densely-populated – but much hotter – noise room.

3. Buzz Kull – went on tour with Clan of Xymox in spring of 2026, so good for him. But his one-man set had a lot of song-chugging-along-energy before stopping and pausing between tracks, which kind of wrecked the flow. But there seems to be a, um, “buzz” around this guy, so I may give him another go in the future.

Moritzbastei Oberkeller: part of the cellar labyrinth of Moritzbastei proper. As Lizard said to me as we made our way out that first night – “this place is a maze.”

4. Ecstasphere – NOISE!@#$%^&*!!!

5. 16Pad Noise Terrorist – NOISE you can dance to (HANDS artist; was familiar with before coming to the festival).

6. S.K.E.T. – NOISE you can dance to (more HANDS represent!).

7. Supersimmetria – NOISE you can sit and drink Schofferhofer to while sitting at a table after the crowd has mostly cleared out, enjoying time with your bestie!

Friday, June 6, 2025:

Heidnisches Dorf: welcome…to Renaissance Times! Fun fact: this venue is a relatively short walk from Agra.

8. Mila Mar – the set was good, but the frontwoman looked dressed for a board meeting (maybe the airline misplaced the luggage with her fairy nymph getup?).

Agra: early in the day, the Beast slumbers.

9. Nouvelle Vague – I thought these guys seemed familiar, and maybe halfway through their set I clocked them as the ones who did that chill, lounge-y cover of the Dead Kennedys’ ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ (which made a memorable cameo in Planet Terror). I enjoyed how the two female singers had slinky, synchronized dance moves, and the drummer was an enthusiastic fellow who was fun to watch. Smaller turnout.

10. SKYND – BANG-BANG! BOOGIE-BOOGIE-BANG-BANG! The crowd began to fill in more for this enigmatic act, which distills heinous true-crime cases into micro-epic songs that are insidiously danceable. I honestly struggle with them a bit in the same way I struggle with Marilyn Manson – where is the line between art and exploitation? Considering the very deliberate visuals of SKYND’s music videos, I was sort of surprised at how a) she wasn’t made up in her bizarre “alien” persona; and b) that there was no backing video for the performance. That said, I got swept up in the energy and loved the guttural sound of “Father”’s downtuned bass guitar.

11. Alphaville – “celebrate your beauty, and see the weight come off – the fatman can make you what you want!” Fun yet cheesy and I must’ve been the only person in the room who didn’t have much idea who they were, despite being around almost as long as I’ve been alive. I was impressed at how the singer stubbornly refused to shed his business-professional attire (including a sport coat), despite how transparently warm it was making him.

12. Kite – one of my personal revelations from WGT. I’d struggled to engage with Kite in recorded form, as I just couldn’t connect with the vocals. But as the house lights dimmed (but didn’t go completely dark), I was swept up in the intricate lightshow of their set – transported to a unique aural plane befitting of those enigmatic vocals and dream-like music. There was a breakthrough moment midway through where the singer crooned about “catatonia,” which made me think about my dearly departed Kima, which made me tear up. I hope I can catch them next time they tour the States.

Saturday, June 7, 2025:

Heidnisches Dorf:

13. Totentanz Strumpfsockig – try saying it ten times fast! Maybe six, but possibly upwards of ten (or maybe even fifteen!) members to this lively, heavily-costumed and -made-up act, with songs that were both catchy and indicative of a skilled musical sensibility. Things started on an ominous note, as the drummer was off-time at the start of the first song, but the interplay and musicianship improved as the hour-long set progressed. I’ll admit, I was smitten with the girl who wore a perpetually ominous grin while playing the bagpipes. Bonus points for being on Bruno Kramm’s (Das Ich) Danse Macabre label.

Agra:

14. Absurd Minds – fun, old-school EBM; high-energy set. Found an album of theirs for five bucks at Digital Underground a couple months later (it’s good!).

15. Spetsnaz – “A-PA-THY!” And they’re Swedish? [Minions “Whaaaaaaaaaat?!” face]

Moritzbastei Veranstaltungstonne: became our venue of choice for the weekend, helped by the in-house restaurant and bar area adjacent to the club-size venue (maybe 100 capacity?). This is where I got my much-loved (and much-missed) Bitter Lemon. This is also where a masked desperado from the UK made small talk with Lizard, and an old-timer obstructed the advancement of an impatient young couple by sitting on the floor while everyone else stood (it was kind of amusing watching the guy try to be assertive while smoke came out of his girlfriend’s ears).

16. Lovataraxx – Ladytron vibes. Two guys on synths and a frontwoman who danced like no one was watching. I respected the hell outta that.

17. Diavol Strain – Chilean duo that brought the energy and doomy, guttural basslines for an hour-long set I was kind of sad to see end. I feel like the likelihood of seeing smaller foreign acts Stateside has diminished considerably within the past year, so I am very glad I got to see them at WGT.

18. Balduvian Bears – U.S. act with a cool backing video and cool overall sound, but I’ll admit I felt resistant toward the diminutive frontman, who did that mumbly shoegaze thing I have a very picky sensibility toward. I wanted to like their set more than I did, but I obviously find myself thinking about them, all this time later, so perhaps it’s time to give them another spin.

19. Night in Athens – one-woman act with a backing video rife with 8-bit skulls and inverted crosses. Started her set more or less bound to her tabletop rig, and seemed apologetic at times for her awkwardness, which made the crowd cheer her on even more. She hit her stride a couple songs in, slinking around the stage like a cat refusing the loving advances of its owner. Lizard tried to get some pictures, but even his relatively skilled hand had a rough go of it. Aside: NIA (whose logo is a cute riff on NIN’s) did a small Stateside tour several months after WGT 2025; unfortunately, there were no Philly or Baltimore dates. A definite highlight of the festival and an act I’d (obviously) love to see again sometime.

Sunday, June 8, 2025

Stadtbad: hey, it’s not that bad, amirite? Hahaha! Heh. If I remember correctly, we walked to this venue from the hotel. There was a biergarten and a food truck set up outside as stormclouds converged overhead. When it came close to time for the doors to open, people congregated in some semblance of a line, and it did start to rain. But it didn’t take too long to advance past the event staff and stake a claim inside.

20. Skemer – really enjoyed this two-piece. Frontwoman Kim Peers, who appeared in a translucent – almost mummified – costume bound in crisscrosses of electrical tape, reminded me of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O in appearance and energy. Picked up a CD and T-shirt (which, per the European standard, shrunk down too much in the laundry) after their set.

21. Jakuzi – the dude wearing sunglasses and slouching his way back and forth onstage seemed resigned to the fact that he was the outlier in a lineup that could otherwise strip the copper finish off ancient piping (what does that even mean?).

22. Patriarchy – you want a fucking performance that defines “showstopper”? Patriarchy did that. You want a performance that sets the bar and makes others want to up their game? Patriarchy did that. The fact that people were cheering and snapping photos (myself included) as the band went through sound check (and before they changed into their performance costumes) was as good an indicator as any of the energy humming through the room in the lead-up to them taking the stage and proceeding to make me proud to be an American (it doesn’t happen often). I even ingratiated my way into a picture with them after the show (see header photo).

“I don’t think we can take a picture…but he’s wearing a Swans shirt, so it’s all good.”

As an aside: I heavily considered driving out to QXT’s in New Jersey to see them do a one-off show in October 2025. Seriously – they’re that good (and worth the extra miles on the odometer). And their latest LP, Manual for Dying, is fucking brilliant.

23. Light Asylum – POWER TO THE PEOPLE! And I got another dose of Light Asylum goodness at Dark Force Fest 2026 (stay tuned for that recap – hopefully it won’t take a year)!

24. Linea Aspera – not being one to do any sort of research beforehand, it eluded me that this was another project of Alison Lewis (whose other act, Zanias, I quite like), and that changed my initially dismissive perspective on LA’s music by the time they commenced with their 90-minute(!) headliner set. While the rather standard (at this juncture) setup of a guy on the rig as the frontwoman danced and otherwise carried the engagement portion of the set, the music was so good – prompting me to order a LA CD off Bandcamp – that I couldn’t complain.

Monday, June 9, 2025

Heidnisches Dorf:

25. Delva – I hate to say it, but…

26. Vermaledeyt – …I can’t remember much about either of these bands, even though I had them listed as 2 I wanted to see. 😦

Agra:

27. Ost+Front – Lizard’s been a fan of these guys for a while, but I couldn’t help but make a “we have Mushroomhead/Rammstein/GWAR at home!” joke after their set. For what it’s worth, their driving, loud, guitar-heavy set, coupled with one of the more theatrical presentations of the festival, certainly made for a diverting, entertaining time.

28. L’Ame Immortelle – I’d honestly forgotten this was Thomas Rainier’s (Nachtmahr) mellow side project with female vocals. A good and compelling performance, and quite the contrast to Ost+Front’s set (maybe a comedown from all that pummeling energy was what the event organizers were thinking).

Moritzbastei Veranstaltungstonne:

29. Black Nail Cabaret – “I think I wanna kill you…” (BUT I BELIEVE IN PEACE, BITCH!). I’d been a fan of this Hungarian duo for a few years, so both Lizard and I wanted to make a point to see them at WGT. The fact that they were the penultimate band playing Moritzbastei made their performance even more special. We’d raced over to the venue (via tram) from Agra, and were greeted by a line snaking up from the catacomb entrance and stretching into the concrete courtyard around the perimeter of the complex. There was a genuine concern – as the venue filled in for Henric de la Coeur – as to whether we’d make the cutoff for entry for BNC’s set. Luckily, patience – and some people abandoning the line altogether – paid off, and we smooshed ourselves in and had a good old time. It bears noting that BNC frontwoman Emese Arvai-Illes shed her overcoat at one point, revealing a faux-copper breastplate that looked like a tangle of intestines right out of John Carpenter’s The Thing.

30. Stahlnetz – between their costumes and sound, I got a sort of Information Society vibe from these guys. More mellow and “fun” than BNC, I found it interesting that the band originated in 1981(!), but 2025 was their debut appearance at WGT. As a climax to the bands witnessed at the event, it reinforced the notion of never giving up on your dreams, which was oddly inspiring.

31. Sans-Fin – after Stahlnetz’s set, we got in the long line for food at Moritzbastei. I felt a certain aural dissonance as I stood at the intersection of the mellow ambient music in the restaurant area and the sounds of Front 242 blaring from an adjacent DJ room. (This, it also bears noting, is where Clan of Xymox made their cameo appearance.) After our meal, we reconvened in the room where the bands had played, which had been overtaken by HANDS artist Sans-Fin and a bunch of questionably comfortable dancers onstage, sweating balls to the harsh noise bouncing off the arched-brick structure. It felt good to sweat and dance alongside them, but festival fatigue had settled in by this point, and I was at the end-of-vacation-mentality of wanting to go home.

To be concluded…