### Dog Eat Dog: 2010-07-30

#### 04/08/10 || Habakuk

What: Dog Eat Dog Where: Munich, Germany

A local club holding free concerts for two weeks is pretty damn sweet. Munich’s Backstage club holds the annual “Free & Easy” festival, this year getting bands like Nada Surf and Sepultura on stage. The downside is that once you are spoiled with offers like these, you just don’t get your ass over there. Got nothing to lose, after all, eh? Or you just assume that the bands suck by default. If the band however doesn’t suck, you can be sure to get a venue packed with people.

Dog Eat Dog don’t suck. I have listened to these crossover veterans since third grade and I still enjoy their shit. Crossover rings a bell? That’s basically the stuff that “nu-metal” was before it turned to shit. A mash-up of Metal, Rap, Punk, Hardcore and so forth. Still, I had no idea they’d come and play until a friend of mine informed me a day before the show about some band he remembered dimly from way back and wanted to see. We got two more guys in, one who’s an old school Hip Hop worshiper and another dude who had only seen Nightwish live when it comes to Metal. Mirroring our weird group combination, the people at the show ranged from tiny girls to Hip Hop fans, metalheads, skatewear dudes, people with Dog Eat Dog shirts from 1994 and whatnot. The average age was refreshingly high, contrary to what you’d expect with a free show. Comes with the old school nature of the band, maybe.

The two support bands were exactly what you’d expect from a free gig, though. Mediocre and unknown. One was called “Benzin”, the other one “Blackout Promise”, and that’s about all that was memorable about them. There were quite a few people around already, but no-one bothered to step into the audience pit in front of the stage. Which left us with a few hours of chatting, drinking beer and hanging out until Dog Eat Dog entered the stage at around 11pm. Let’s just say it was worth the wait.

The band came on stage accompanied by Hip Hop beats and singer John Connor started things off with a little rap skit, immediately getting the crowd involved (“When I say ‘Dog’, you say ‘Eat’, Dog!” – “EAT!” – “dog” – “EAT!”) which was pretty damn entertaining and led directly into the first song. The moment they started playing the opener “Expect the unexpected”, they sent the fucken place bouncing, jumping around, moshing, crowdsurfing and basically tearing the fucken roof off. They owned the place instantly, and people went fucken nuts. There literally was a mosh pit half the size of the venue for each and every song all the way through the show. Now when you hear their songs on CD they sure groove, but nothing matches the stomping in-your-face nature of this material in a live setting with a great sound like at the Backstage. Mind you, there was no “hardcore dancing” or any of that shit, so don’t get yer panties wet all you hard-ass metalheads whose peaceful shows get ruined by it. There was no room for that stuff anyway.

The band went on with the good stuff, which is basically their 1994 album “All Boro Kings”. “If these are good times” gave the (guest) saxophone player, yes, they have a fucken saxophone player, some first exclusive exposure during the short all-sax intro. This was followed by the first batch of high class energy-laden and mosh-friendly songs like “Pull my Finger”, Who’s the King” and “Strip Song” with its take-no-prisoners intro riff.

“When I say ‘Hip’ – you say ‘Hop’, When I say ‘Heavy’ you say ‘Metal’”!

The band literally drag their influences from everywhere. They’re not hipster kids that try to appeal to as many people as possible, but it shows on their albums as well as live that they genuinely love what they listen to and play, whatever it may be. Between the songs, a DJ played rap beats which kept the flow even during some longer in-between song ranting, including shoutouts to Gang Starr as well as Ronnie James Dio who was featured on the 1996 “Play Games” album. There were other, full-on punk numbers like the infamous “Rocky”, “Cannonball” or “MILF” off the latest album, they poured in the raptastic “Step right in” (which I never liked on CD but enjoyed greatly), Connor led some “Wu-Tang clan ain’t nuttin to fuck with” shouts, they even played the “I got five on it” beat as a complete song and Connor let loose some more rap skills. They even played a fucken reggae song. It was a mad mixture but it worked stunningly well as all was held together by fat riffs and constant induction of mosh. How good this was shows in the fact that both metal-me and my Hip Hop-loving buddy ended up bathed in sweat, exhausted as hell and with bruises all over.

“No matter what road our vehicle takes – our vehicle has to be fueled by BEER.”

The crowd’s energy did not stay unnoticed. There was a lot of interaction, and I’ve rarely seen a band genuinely enjoying themselves live as much as Dog Eat Dog. When they were all handed a Mass of beer on stage by the venue staff (a Mass is the Bavarian liter mug you’ve probably heard of in one or the other way), the smiles on their faces showed that the band was completely sold. They said the last time they played the place had been great already, but before that they had apparently played the venue with about 20 people attending. Things like that obviously help keeping your feet on the ground and discerning an awesome show from others. They even had removed a mic stand from the center of the stage to make room for more stagedivers earlier, telling the security to let people up there, and had sung a birthday song for one of their hardcore fans attending the show. The whole band went stagediving at one point or another, by the end of the show, one dude jumped on stage performing backflips, and some fat redneck chicks went on stage, took their tops off and jumped into the crowd face tits first. It was a bit like Free Willy, but it fit well into the complete chaotic mess.

All in all I saw some mad shit, an experienced band still burning for what they do after 20 years, and one of the best shows I’ve ever witnessed. If you get the chance to watch Dog Eat Dog, do it. If it’s free, that’s even better. Needless to say, I got myself a t-shirt for 10 bucks out of 10.

Setlist (I’m probably missing some and the order might not be exact…):

Expect the unexpected If these are good times Pull my finger Who’s the king Strip Song Cannonball Isms Rocky Milf Step right in No fronts I got five on it Encores: Funnel King More beer (Fear cover) Dog Eat Dog