Tokio Hotel at the Seaside Festival Spiez: «Hey Heidi!»

It becomes clear shortly before the concert begins that this could be a somewhat complicated evening. Normally, when the band Tokio Hotel appears on a large stage, there is a certain “Oh my God, they’re here” excitement that can be felt.

Not so in Spiez. Instead of feverish anticipation, it is more of an atmosphere of mistrustful waiting that prevails on the grounds of the Seaside Festival this evening. A festival that in the six previous editions rarely featured bands that aimed at a teen spirit of any kind. Combos like Status Quo, Supertramp and Herbert Grönemeyer are more likely to go down in the festival annals. Overly glamorous productions are not something that will score points here.

And so the skepticism of Spiez does not disappear even when the curtain falls, the singer Bill Kaulitz is hoisted six metres up on a hydraulic column in a brilliant disco ball dress, wind machines make his bleached hair flow and gigantic columns of smoke shoot into the Spiez sky. All of this is noted by the locals. Under the motto: We have enough wind and weather here as it is.

And when Bill has the audacity to get the audience to sing along during the first song, the crowd in the “most beautiful bay in Europe” remains eerily silent. There is a similar conglomerate of reservations as when Bayern Munich plays against a regional league team in the Ruhr region in the cup. The fine gentlemen should first prove that they can also work hard alongside all the show.

Gekünstelte Young-Boy-Group

The fact that the band Tokio Hotel divides opinion is of course not a new phenomenon. It was summer 2005 when the 15-year-old boys from Magdeburg took the charts with their first single “Durch den Monsun”, passionately idolized by the female part of the pubescent youth, and even more passionately despised by boys of the same age. The accusations were manifold: the production team provided by Universal Music was trying to create an artificial young boy group, and Bill’s androgynous style fantasies somewhere between Gothic, Emo, Manga and Glam Rock Lady ensured that he was either beaten up in the indoor swimming pool or stalked by teenage girls.

But the pop-rock grunge for German children’s rooms, performed with all kinds of fervor, quickly became a worldwide mass phenomenon. So much so that the international branches of the Goethe Institute soon saw a sharp increase in interest in the German language. At least until Tokio Hotel decided to continue making music in English, followed by the two Kaulitz front twins fleeing from their abusive fans to Los Angeles.

New popularity boost from Netflix

A Netflix series recently reached us from there, documenting the lives of Bill and Tom Kaulitz in all their colorful splendor. This revolves – or so it seems – mainly around attending some party or award event or preparing for attending some party or award event. You see Bill buying sensationally glamorous show costumes, partying with friends or looking for new male acquaintances. And Tom, who has been married to show queen Heidi Klum since 2018, fixing his recording studio or driving large-displacement motor vehicles. Music is only made in a short sequence in the eight episodes, in which Tom’s studio unfortunately happens to be broken.

But the magical thing is: the two of them, in their unabashed enjoyment of life, in their reflection and living out of their own privileges, in their quirkiness and in their ever-flashing depth and self-irony, soon become so unconditionally likeable that it actually seems almost impossible not to take these behaviorally disturbed mid-thirties into your heart. Actually.

Plain music

Which brings us back to Lake Thun, where Bill Kaulitz has just hopped onto the stage in a new costume. It consists of little more than a pair of leather belt-like trousers and a pair of very skimpy studded briefs. An outfit that would probably cause irritation even in the Spiez dominatrix studio. While the slightly older male audience turns away in horror, the women puff their sides and giggle: «Dr Anger again…!»

We often hear that pop stars don’t present the transition from the brightly lit show stage to the much greyer real life very well. That they get depressed when the applause stops. The opposite seems to be the case with Tokio Hotel. Their Netflix life seems so much more glamorous and celebrated than their guest appearance in Switzerland today, where the applause has already noticeably thinned out from the fifth row of the audience and where the band was asked in advance to record a “We’re really looking forward to it, come along, there are still a few tickets left” video message for social media because of the somewhat slow advance sales.

The fact that the crowd is not going wild could also have something to do with the music being performed, which unfortunately cannot keep up with the wild craziness, the shrill glam and the fashionable zeitgeist of Bill’s stage clothing. What comes out of the speakers is pretty staid, somewhat indecisive radio pop flirting with the zeitgeist with temporarily effervescent stadium rock guitars. It is only the German songs from the founding period that develop some gravitas. Songs that oscillate irritatingly between juvenile despair of existence, rock hymns and some impeccable contributions to “The Voice Kids”.

It won’t be a hard-fought victory today, that much is now clear. At most a hard-fought draw. And when Bill Kaulitz, in his heart-warming, chatty mood, praised the beauty of Spiez Bay and revealed that he was thinking about looking for property here, his career planners backstage must have vehemently shaken their heads. Spiez and Tokio Hotel: That’s not exactly a constellation that promises success.

At some point, the band switches to emergency mode: Because no encore choirs are expected, they integrate them (the mega hit “Durch den Monsun”) into the regular set without having left the stage first.

Since the Netflix series, we know that Tom Kaulitz sends Heidi Klum a text message every evening. The one from that evening might have gone something like this: “Hey Heidi. Hard work in Spiez today. Older, tough crowd. But the area is pretty. Bill wants to move here (annoyed smiley). Looking forward to LA. Hugs. Tom.”

Ane Hebeisen is a music editor and has been writing about pop and related music from all over the world since 1996.More info

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