by:'Rebecca'
mind.in.a.box came all the way from Austria to perform for us. It was to be their second 'big' show. I was so excited to see them - I almost fell out of my chair when I saw they were playing a show on the East Coast of North America.
Any scene, mainstream or underground, is truly fortunate when a band with such talent and an actual message hits the scene. Particularly in an underground scene such as ours, we really need to do all we can to support each other and our bands.
I'm not really clear on exactly what happened with the mind.in.a.box show, other than it was a massive promotion and event coordination failure. About 25 people showed up. Apoptygma Berzerk, basically the Depeche Mode of our scene, was playing the same night. Present a relatively new, lesser-known band like mind.in.a.box against them, and you can guess where everyone was that night.
It's so unfortunate, because all those people at the Apoptygma Berzerk show were denied/missed the opportunity to experience mind.in.a.box live. mind.in.a.box was denied the exposure that should have come with an international show like this. The promoter surely lost tons of money. The fans, myself included, were saddened and unhappy at the sparse crowd. Even though the band were true professionals, and really nice and cool guys, I'm sure they were pissed about the circumstances.
I'm telling myself that hopefully it was a lesson learned for the promoter and all involved who simply dropped the ball or missed the boat, or whatever you want to call it, in putting this together. I hope the experience doesn't deter the band from coming back to North America, and that it doesn't deter the promoter from bringing amazing bands from overseas for us.
The next time I get to see mind.in.a.box I will be front and center, cheering them on along with hopefully the massive crowd that they deserve.
They were very good live. They said they had played two small test shows in Vienna, and I am assuming they worked out the kinks there. They had a video display behind them with images that went along with the theme of their albums. On stage, the guitar is a little more prevalent, and I think they had a little more groove/funk to the music on stage. They sounded like they do on the album but with a little more edge, a little more raw. The vocals were a standout - that guy can sing. Plus, the distorted vocals on Amnesia and Fear were just fantastic to hear live.