Sixty Watt Shaman / Karma To Burn

NOVEMBER, 27th 2001 at the Underground / Cologne, GER

One again in Cologne at the Underground ! The last time when I have been there was back in 1999 at a Spirit Caravan / Beaver show (review below!). Now it´s once again one band from Maryland (my favourite heavy area in the USA), that´s reason enough for me and a good friend to take this short travel to Cologne. When we arrived, I was a little bit surprised about the fact that KTB were the headliners. Nearly 150 people wanted to see this show, so here we go.

Ok, opening act SWS were brilliant. They were performing mostly songs from the "Seeds Of Decades" album and it was quite amazing to listen to their own blend of 60´s and 70´s Rock. The new drummer did a very good job, but the eye-catcher on stage are bass-player Reverend Jim Forrester and, of course singer Dan Kerzwick with his awesome and mighty voice. SWS are an energetic live-act and you can see and hear that they are an absolutley tight unit. But after ca. 40 minutes they have finished their gig and I was a little bit disappointed, because SWS have so much good songs on both albums. I hope to see them soonly again, but then as the headliners. Aside of that, a band that has been playing on Wino´s wedding party CAN`T be worse.

After a short break of maybe 20 minutes, KTB entered the stage and they started with songs from the new album "Almost Heathen". This three guys were a well-oiled instrumental riff-machine and they really don´t need any kind of vocals. The only problem for me is that their music becomes a little bit boring after ten or eleven songs, but when I thought that it´s time to go suddenly a mighty riff in one of the songs grabs my attention again. KTB are a very intense live-act and especially the bass-player is a smart guy and while he builds the bottom for the complex song-structures he smiled to the audience and it seems as if wants to know how long the people can stand the massive KTB sound. After nearly two hours the band finished and I think that everybody has lost a lot of sweat. It was an exciting evening and like I said before, next time I want to see SWS much longer than on this evening.

(KK)