For discussion...

[mrph]

The British artists listed in the 2004 Leipzig WGT line-up (so far):

Anne Clark & David Harrow (UK) - Aslan Faction (UK) - Coil (GB) - Fixmer/Mc Carthy (F/GB) - Killing Ophelia (GB) - My dying Bride (UK) - Sexgang Children (UK) - Skeletal Family (UK) - Skinflick (UK) - Tactical Sekt (UK) - Wakeford/Howden (UK)

The US contribution:

Antiworld (USA) - Diva Destruction (USA) - Mephisto Waltz (USA) - The Crüxshadows (USA) - Unto Ashes (USA)

...and this year there are (so far) no bands identified as Canadian.

As ever, the UK names are an eclectic mix. A few reasonably big names from Ye Olden Days, a couple of more recent bands on European labels... and one or two that just perplex me.

At least with the US bands, you can understand why they're playing. There may be other American bands who ought to get the chance at Leipzig, but all the ones they've chosen are (IMHO) known quantities with a successful track record.

Which isn't to begrudge any of the UK names their shot at hitting it big in Leipzig. Just to wonder how they managed to get the slot, and why so many of the current British bands never manage to get their hooks into Germany... surely it can't just be a label thing, can it?

Comments

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Y'see, I thought this post would get some comment. :)

I was never entirely sure what happened with DD, but I knew the band had pretty much departed - and she'd announced that they'd never actually been "band members" in the first place - so I had been wonderering about the new line-up...

chimera_s tells me that their last WGT show was less than triumphant, mostly due to sound problems. I guess the pressure's going to be on to get it right this time.

[blu-muse.livejournal.com]

Stevyn - the drummer - never was a permanent member true -he just filled in on their last tour, however, the guitarist and keyboardist were very much members of the band. Debora suffers a bit from uh - selective memory I think. I hear she's not a very nice person to work with - to put it nicely. ;)

[dave-exile.livejournal.com]

Yep, I caught them at Leipzig '02, and they did have problems sound-wise.

Basically, Debra adds reverb to her vocals from the stage, which works fine in a small venue. Unfortunately, they were playing Haus Auensee, which has buckets of natural acoustic reverb of its own, so of course everything was just drowned in vocal reverb. As the reverb was being added onstage, the sound engineer could do very little about it.