Panik Panzer and Koljah from the Antilopen Gang talk about essential live records.
The Antilopen Gang is in top shape. This is proven by their double album ANTI ALL AKTION (LIVE) – at the same time a comprehensive showcase of their work and a steel storm of immediacy. Panik Panzer and Koljah now take a deep look: Which live records do you consider to be essential?
DIE TOTEN HOSEN – “Until the bitter end (live)” (1987)
KOLJAH: I’ve been a big fan of trousers since early childhood. I was born in 1986, which means I was one when this came out, but I probably got the album on cassette when I was three or four. That probably explains what happened to me. I can sing along to every song, I can say every announcement. This somewhat confused, drunken chatter between the songs is excellent and is what makes this record so charming. If I were asked which album I would take with me to the famous desert island, it would be this one.
PANIK PANZER: I can’t say much about it, actually I only know the cover. We had a broken old Toyota around 2013 in which the exhaust gases from the ventilation were creeping into the interior. There were a handful of CDs in the glove compartment of this Lopi mobile, one of which was definitely UNTIL THE BITTER END. However, I also have this message in my ear: “You have to be able to hear a pin drop!”.
FK ALLSTARS – “En Directo” (2000)
PANIK PANZER: I’m not as much of a collector as Koljah, but I always bought music to put on my CD shelf – but this double CD in the long box didn’t fit in there. I thought that was really rude, probably a marketing idea that people have to put the record in their showcase or something. But the format is the only negative point. Otherwise, with this album you can immediately see what the concert was like, what the mood in the audience was like. This gets me from the start. This first song when Max Herre comes in with (imitates the style) “All hands from liiiinks… to reeeechts”. I get goosebumps thinking about it now! Even if in the first song the beat is switched and the drums are suddenly live drums. It has such a badass energy. This record was certainly one reason why we didn’t want to release a live record with the Antilopen for a long time – because this is simply unbeatable.
KOLJAH: They’re not just a group of friends, they’re FK Allstars. You can hear an ensemble here, Afrob was there, Gentleman, Joy Denalane, Brooke Russell, Sékou, Déborah from Sens Unik and so on. For the project here, they first founded a new band, which is an unusual but also exciting move.
NIRVANA – “MTV Unplugged In New York” (1994)
KOLJAH: What fascinates me about the record for their Unplugged concert is that they didn’t play the big hits, instead there are a lot of cover versions like this Bowie piece “The Man Who Sold The World”. They even brought two original members of the Meat Puppets, a band I only got to know through Nirvana, on stage. There is a very special moment in the last song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, also a cover of an old folk piece. Kurt Cobain falls into screaming at the last chorus and suddenly he looks up, as if waking up from a trance – it’s only a second, then he falls back into the song, into his performance. I don’t have to over-interpret this, but so shortly before his death, this anxious, disturbed look upwards, in this atmosphere that already looked like a funeral – with these flowers and candles. I notice this every time.
NOFX – “I Heard They Suck Live” (1995)
PANIK PANZER: That was the first CD of my life that I bought in a cool record store – the record exchange in Aachen. Before that I had only been to Mediamarkt and bought THE FAT OF THE LAND from Prodigy. There was something very intimidating about a real record store back then; I lacked the necessary coolness. But I knew “Kill All The White Men” by NoFX from a burned CD and thought it was great. I discovered the song on I HEARD THEY SUCK LIVE but didn’t dare listen to it at the sales counter. I got it straight away – and when I got home I was totally disappointed that it was a live version! I’ve never heard it very often, but to this day I still consider the title to be the best that a live record can have.
KOLJAH: As a child I misunderstood it. I knew that “suck” could mean a sexual practice and so I thought that this band would do something like that on stage, or at least that they would be said to. Californian skate punk, which was going through the roof at the time, left me rather cold. I made up for it later via the German band Die Shitlers. Later, at NoFX, I was once again impressed by Fat Mike’s Cokie The Clown concept project, in which he performs sad songs about his worst experiences.
LAURYN HILL – “MTV Unplugged 2.0” (2002)
KOLJAH: I would easily put your only studio album THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL in the all-time top ten of all rap records, even THE SCORE by the Fugees, which has “Killing Me Softly” on it, topped it again. Afterwards she made this rather strange MTV Unplugged album, which only consisted of new songs and was even more radical than Nirvana’s. She’s just alone on stage with her guitar, playing very similar chords the whole time and singing her songs, which of course is still really impressive because she’s Lauryn Hill. After that she just disappeared. Respect for letting your own career just fizzle out like that.
PANIK PANZER: I saw them live a few years ago, open air in front of the Festsaal Kreuzberg and I can’t think of a worse concert I’ve ever seen.
KOLJAH: Even worse than the Bushido concert where we were at the Mercedes Whattsbums Arena?
PANIC PANZER: Yes. From the first to the last minute she just kept gesturing wildly and angrily at the mixer, which was a vibe killer because you thought there was something wrong with the sound. And she sang every hit completely. When you hear “Killing Me Softly” live, as a fan you want to sing along, but she just swerved the whole time and said goodbye to all the melodies as we know them – and I wasn’t the only one who thought, let’s please sing together ONCE today. But it didn’t happen and after 40 minutes it was over again.
TURBOSTAAT – “Night Bread” (2019)
PANIK PANZER: Turbostaat are probably my favorite band. I saw them for the first time in 2004 or 2005 at the Fusion Festival. I had already downloaded the FLAMINGO and SCHWAN records beforehand – I thought they were good, but I wasn’t a fan yet. However, I was totally blown away by them live. I find it uncomfortable that I have to talk about energy all the time, but unfortunately I can’t find any synonyms that make it more bearable. In any case, when I see Turbostaat live, they are one of the few bands where I don’t mind actually taking part in a concert and singing along. There are only a few lyrics where I know what it’s about, but I don’t care – I totally feel it.
And it’s incredibly well done by Moses Schneider, who recorded this, that NACHTBROT was able to translate exactly this dense concert feeling onto the record. By the way, Moses also mixed our live album.
More about the Antilopen Gang
The Antilopen Gang consists of Koljah, Danger Dan and Panik Panzer, and NMZS was also part of the cast until his death in 2013. Her record ANARCHIE UND EVERYDAY made it to the top of the sales charts in 2017. Most recently the album ANTI ALLES AKTION LIVE was released. All three actors also run different projects solo, which sometimes (podcast, literature) go beyond the field of music. The gang’s only show this year will be DAS GOLDEN ANTILOPEN AIR on August 15, 2026 at the Spandau Citadel in Berlin.
