Komodo at Prinzenbar - 28 November 2024
The Prinzenbar is one of the more intimate and unique venues in Hamburg’s legendary Kiez entertainment district. Located in part of what was once one of the city’s oldest and most spectacular movie theaters, it features a high vaulted ceiling complete with an immense crystal chandelier and lush stucco cherubs and swirls that have been painted, or simply allowed to revert to, a dull concrete grey. This juxtaposition of baroque splendor and industrial starkness made a perfect fit for Komodo, a band from the Dutch indie rock hotbed of Utrecht for whom layering myriad influences onto the solid heavy retro-rock foundation of drummer Maarten Kooymans and bassist Joris Ram seems to come as naturally as breathing.
This diversity of influence has tended to dominate the conversation surrounding Komodo since they started to attract attention with their first singles back in 2017. Many writers have even gone so far as to stamp them with the label of “world music”, due to their tendency to flesh out songs with non-western sounding sonorities and instruments collected by collaborator and former band member Gino Bombrini in his world travels or, like the melodica featured on “Lost Kids”, simply found in a family attic. In interviews, band members have pushed back against this characterization, stating simply, “We define ourselves in three words: vintage, exotic and rock’n’roll.” This resonates with what, to me, is a more apt comparison, the exotica genre of the 1950s and 60s, in which artists like Martin Denny and Les Baxter employed layers of Polynesian and faux-Polynesian sounds to add an element of fascination to music that was still fundamentally tied to the style and sensibility of light-weight jazz and pop. In rock terms, we’re talking about something that’s a lot more like “Paint it Black” than “Within You Without You.”
It’s very likely that the members of Komodo, like most people alive today, have never heard the music of Denny or Baxter, but I still bring it up, because that stuff was a key, and often forgotten, influence on a lot of the music that clearly informs Komodo’s work, including surf rock, late-60s psychedelia, and, very likely, the raga rock excursions of the Stones and other bands. Where Komodo parts ways with exotica is in the breadth and organicism of their adoptions. In their songs, raga-esque drones sit comfortably next to swamp pop guitar riffs, Afro-Caribbean conga grooves, middle-eastern scale figures, and poppy melodic turns that would be at home in a Carly Rae Jepson song. You get the feeling that the members of Komodo can’t be exposed to any music without having it somehow come across in what they do. In a world of indie rock that so often bound to narrow and ever changing dogmas of what’s cool at the moment, this kind of openness and apparent indifference to the whims of fashion is refreshing.
Much more than this exotic element, what was on display last night was Komodo’s good natured swagger, unshakable rhythmic groove, and infectious enthusiasm. For the crowd of roughly 75% women, many of whom had been looking forward to the band’s return since they were here last year supporting, of all people, David Duchovny, this was a winning combination. There may have been a few people casually swaying through the first number or two, but by the time they got to the first chorus of “Push and Pull”, a highlight from their second album, Barbarians, that may be the song that best showcases mildly sleazy frontman Tommy Ebben’s strikingly potent sexual energy, I don’t think there was a foot in the house that wasn’t moving. Even getting over a broken leg, I still couldn’t resist. From that point on, both onstage and off, the experience was an ever-increasing frenzy of rhythmic and kinetic energy, building to a revelatory performance of “Zig Zag”, the main single from Barbarians. Only once in all this madness did they slow things down, for “Zanzibar”, a song from the new album, Hell Go Rhythm, with classic soft rock vibes that could put the fear of God into Don Henley or Stephen Stills, and which showcases Ebben’s considerable acoustic guitar skills that were on display on the band’s Unplugged EP released earlier this year.
The greatest moments in the show were those that highlighted the connection between the band members. Thin Lizzyish double guitar riffs between Ebben and multi-instrumentalist Menno Roymans, in the rare instances when the latter deigned to put down his omnipresent bouzouki; the close, sometimes dissonant, vocal harmonies between Ebben and Ram; and one magical moment when Roymans joined percussionist Massimo Bombrini, the brother of Gino, for an incredible conga/woodblock groove that had the audience moving like few I’ve ever seen. Throughout the show you could feel the palpable joy of a band that seems to truly love the experience of being onstage, entertaining an audience and receiving their energy in return.
After the show Ram told me that he and his bandmates are thrilled about the enthusiastic response they’ve been getting from audiences in Germany, compared to back home. While I’m sorry to hear that the Dutch are so unappreciative of having such a phenomenal band in their midsts, as a resident of Hamburg, this is a situation that can only play out in my favor. The next time Komodo comes to town, I will absolutely be there lining up to see them, and, I have a feeling, so will most of the other people who were at Prinzenbar last night.
-Peter Lawson - 29 November 2024
