In 2018, the very young Dominic Richard Harrison was still playing in a record label on the sidelines of the Eurosonic Festival (ESNS) in Groningen, North Holland. The soul classic “The Night” serves as an intro at the time and is also a musical reference to its northern English origins, where the all-nighter scene in bingo halls and pensioners’ casinos has advanced to a working-class pop phenomenon.
The man, who calls himself Yungblud, had just signed a long-term deal with the world’s largest record label, Universal Music. Even then, the direction was clear: “The Only Way is Up” and the British music press dutifully flanked. He has always adhered to this maxim. With astonishing energy and the greatest possible closeness to the fans. Elaborate riot videos, which like to play in padded cells or creepy psycho houses, increased his reputation in the digital space. Significantly, at the concert in the Berlin Velodrom, the start of his European tour, the house-sized video monitors on the left and right of the stage are in upright smartphone format. Analogue and digital dance pogo, under constant photo bombardment of mobile phones.
Five years after the talent festival show in Groningen, Yungblud is now in the circle in East Berlin that has been converted into a “UFO”. Around 4000plus fans, including many dressed up as “bad girls” in manga or barbie punk gear. After the start of the dynamic, bold two-woman support act ARXX falls – “KAWUMM” – the huge gaze process. Pyro flames and booming Heavy Rock rumble make the word “RAMMSTEIN” flash in front of the mind’s eye. Instead of “The Night”, an intro video now opens the first 2023 European show of the self-crowned fidgety Phillips.
With spiked hair dyed pitch black and a Sid Vicious padlock around his neck, he salutes the early UK punk years. “White Riot” and “Anarchy on the Berlin S-Bahn ring”, stop Landsberger Allee, for those born later. In addition to some benevolently bobbing old-school music professionals, older teenagers and groups of twenty-somethings jumping up and down make up the audience. Yungblud knows how to play with his disciples.
He gives the gymnastics clown with the energy of a solid rubber bouncy ball. In black 3/4 trousers and colorful irony socks and sunglasses he is the drill instructor with “jump, jump, jump”. Probably only he himself knows why a McDonalds “M” is sewn onto every trouser leg. More sarcasm than overly embarrassing sponsorship. The crowd shrieks as the opener “21st Century Liability” rolls in and is followed by the tasty hit “The Funeral”. The energy level is leveled off.
Yungblud has come as a quartet cast. A stoically cool bassist is at the side of a guitarrero. The muscle drummer does his drumming shirtless. In order for the whole thing to get the right punch, the sound is most likely boosted with a compressor. “Berlin,” screeches Yungblud, repeatedly bending the German language, ^this is the best show I’ve EVER played in Europe.’ As a professional, he will put it like this or something similar in Paris or Barcelona. The man can play the guitar. He even strums the piano towards the end of the set. A UK professional through and through.
But such professorial Rock Pope findings are of no interest to anyone here. All signs point to a punk party. Ramba Zamba for the new twenties. The whole thing is never really dangerous, even when sipping out beer mugs and with fountains in the first rows. Hardcore is different. No danger far and wide in sight.
Nevertheless, the fans decorated as unicorns or teddy bears can feel more marginalized than the Insta colleagues from the first semester. Otherwise “everything respect and so” runs here. It’s not for nothing that the “Hug Me” sign from the cosplayer scene is also popular in the Yungblud milieu. Where it then becomes openly queer, the wild Brit copied a lot from Harry Styles and Co. You learn: An entertainer who can also play the identity keys: “The only rule here in the house is ‘Respect for everyone!'” Yes, of course, of course, make it thicker! In short: An all-round entertaining concert evening for the wild mild ones. Or just the mild savages ….