Finally, after two and a half years, a CONCERT! Combichrist had a stop at one of my favorite venues, De Helling (Utrecht) so of course I had to go. The ticket price was under 30 euro and it was high time to get out into the world again!

For this particular show, Mimi Barks would be opening and of course Combichrist was the head liner. Here is my review of the show!

Mimi Barks

To be completely honest, this is the first time I’ve even heard of this music artist. On her Instagram, she describes herself as an independent artist in the Doom Trap genre of music and her live act involves herself and her drummer on stage.

What did I think of Mimi Barks? I’m a pretty hard person to sell opening acts to. Truthfully, Mimi’s music isn’t my cup of tea. She was incredibly energetic on stage, moving around and using the entire thing (not that De Helling is huge). But there’s a lot of screaming and the music kind of just dwarfed her.

It also felt at time she was trying to hard to sell herself on stage. At some point she was dry humping the air in front of the stage and then she did something that kind of horrified me. She took a drink of water and spit on the crowd.

Seriously? This is why we can’t have nice things. We’ve just been released from a 2.5 year seclusion for a fucking virus and you’re spitting on people? This wasn’t cool and hip pre-pandemic and it’s still gross at this point. I DO NOT like being spit on.

That pretty much lost me.

Combichrist

At this point in my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to see Combichrist just once or twice…

• P60 2016 (Amstelveen, NL)
• Amphi Festival 2017 (Cologne, DE)
• The Regent 2017 (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
• Kulttempel 2018 (Oberhausen, DE)
• P60 2019 (Amstelveen, NL)

Funny enough, the show at The Regent in LA and this particular show are the only 2 that I went to see Combichrist themselves. The P60 show was specifically to see my favorite band Lord of the Lost who was co-headlining. Amphi because they were there and Kulttempel was for the opening band Rave the Reqviem.

Now, remember here, I’ve seen them 4 times before. How did this particular show compare? I don’t feel they were at their best. This is probably because they were just getting started with their European tour paired with not really performing for 2.5 years. Understandable. End of the day, it was nice to be back at a concert!

The songs that you’d expect to be played were indeed played.

• Maggots at the Party
• Blut Royale
• Can’t Control
• Never Surrender
• WTF is wrong with you people

Then of course they played one of their newer songs Not My Enemy and Compliance (released 2021). A few others were played that are escaping me right now.

And of course there was a pit. There’s ALWAYS a pit at Combichrist shows (except the LA show, everyone was too busy standing around trying to look ironic instead of dancing and moshing). As usual I thought I had gotten far enough to the side but it ended up literally right next to me. There was only 1 beer incident (maybe the dude forgot people do mosh at Combichrist concerts?) and a very drunk lady that fell at my feet.

While there was just a little something missing from the band, the crowd was enthusiastic and was happy to be out and about again. Everyone sang and danced their hearts out.

Overall I’d give them an 8/10 this time.