On Friday, December 20th, it was time for the ‘Jahresabschlusskonzert’ (end of the year concert) organized by Flash Forward. The event took place at Weststadthalle in Essen, Germany. On the line-up were fellow Germans Damona and Our Mirage, joined by The Luka State from England. There even was a little afterparty with DJ Bollo. Everyone who got into the venue got a festival bracelet with the show details, as a keepsake to remember the show by.
Unfortunately due to sickness Damona was not able to make it to the show, so Our Mirage was up first on stage. Originally Our Mirage was supposed to start at 19.55, but due to the cancellation they started 20 minutes earlier. The stage was barely lit at the start of their set, but luckily got brighter throughout the show so we could finally see the band and enjoy their energy. Vocalist Timo Bonner took the time to thank the people who are usually forgotten: their drum tech and their sound guy. For the last song ‘Through The Night’ Bonner jumped down on the barricade and got the crowd to sing the lyrics for those who knew it. Afterwards they took a quick photo with the crowd to remember the show.
Next up on stage was The Luka State, who reversed the roles for this last show; for the past five weeks they were on tour with Flash Forward as their support. They started their set with ‘[Insert Girls Name Here]’, which showed their great energy right from the start. While the band usually consists of four people, bassist Sam Bell was absent to be home with his pregnant wife. In the past few months the band released two new songs, ‘True Confidence (Is Living)’ and ‘Conspiracy’, which of course made their way to the setlist. For the latter Ellis even stated it would be everyone’s new favourite song.
“We’ve got two songs left, I wanna see some fucking moving yeah, this one is called ‘Oxygen Thief’!” said singer Conrad Ellis. During the song he jumped down to the barricade, walked along the fans at the front and later stood on it to get as close as possible to the fans who were singing along. For the last song ‘Bury Me’ Ellis asked for the first circle pit of the evening, which the audience obliged. The energy was through the roof for this last song and I bet quite a few people wished they played a bit longer, since 8 songs is simply not enough when it comes to The Luka State.
A few minutes before it was time for Flash Forward to hit the stage, The Killers’ ‘Mr. Brightside’ blasted through the speakers, which got the whole venue to sing along. Flash Forward came on stage and started their set with ‘Underdogs’. While it is great to see a band in their home country, as a foreigner I was mostly clueless to what was being said since both Our Mirage and Flash Forward spoke in German, which is a language I barely know. Next up on the setlist was ‘Daylight In Your Eyes’, a cover of No Angel’s song. The first crowd surfers of the night surprisingly started floating around during a pretty slow song: ‘Give Me All Your Love’.
With Christmas less than a week away, some girls at the front brought festive headbands and one even had some fairy lights wrapped around her. This show was all about being with fans, friends and family and both supporting bands could be seen watching the show and having a great time. One of the greatest things is when bands who have a song together, also go on tour together. So for the song ‘ENEMY’ Conrad Ellis from The Luka State came back on stage to sing his parts. The next song ‘Start A Comeback’ features From Fall to Spring, who weren’t on the line-up but singer Philip Wilhelm came out to do the song for this special show.
The band went off stage for the encore, which resulted in the crowd chanting “Zugabe! Zugabe!” (encore). Someone from their crew came on stage and instructed for the crowd to make some space in the middle, where they then put the mic stand. Singer Stefan Weigel made his way to the middle for a speech as well as the song ‘No Use’. While Weigel was rocking a Cher shirt, the band also played a cover of ‘Believe’ which was sung loudly by the crowd. The last song of the evening was ‘Dancing in the Dark’. For anyone who was still up for a party DJ Bollo kept going until well after midnight.
