Saturday 12 March 2011

Nevada Base and Elster Club, Cape in Stirling

Last night I ventured through to Stirling to catch Nevada Base playing the regular BULGE night at Cape in Stirling alongside their friends and very special guests from Berline, Elster Club.

Elster Club were over to record at Nevada Base's studio in the East End of Glasgow, with Johanas, their keyboard/synth player being an original founding member of Nevada Base before he returned to Germany. Such is the friendship between them that Nevada Base still name him as a member of the band.

It was great of Tommy, the promoter and organiser of the BULGE nights to include Elster Club on the line-up and to say that they were excited about playing in Scotland with their friends would be an understatement. Their excitement was only topped up with Jager Bombs (Jagermeister and Red Bull). There was also the added bonus of some German friends who are touring round the UK making the time to come to Stirling to see them...and the castle of course!


With a 'thanks for having us' Elster Club kicked off, getting into the groove pretty quickly. By the second song in, the infectious 'Forty Days' people were coming through to the 'gig' area from the bar to check out the electro-pop coming from the stage.

The 3 band members were having a great time on stage, bouncing, dancing, clicking fingers, punching the air and playing with huge smiles on their faces; always nice to see. This spread to the crowd and dancing started, with their German friends leading the way.

It was clear to see how Johanas had helped to shape the early Nevada Base sound as he coaxed all kinds of beats and sounds out of his bank of electronic equipment, helped by funky house bass, new wave guitar riffs and shouty hooks from his mates.

The band only got better as they went on, they would go down a storm at the Sub Club in Glasgow! I enjoyed their set so much that I bought their mini-album 'Club Your Hands' and got a signed copy! The geek that I am!

The band were elated when they left the stage and celebrated by ordering a couple of rounds of Jagermeister for them and their friends in Nevada Base. Well they hadn't seen each other in a while.

Nevada Base took to the stage around 10.45pm and after a few early technical hitches with Gus' keyboard they hit their stride. Elster Club and their German mates were dancing like they were in the Hacienda and their enthusiasm spread to the balcony upstairs and to the girls down the front who appeared fascinated by frontman Albert's afro.


Nevada Base have been hard at work in the studio and have just finished recording an album and are set to release their debut single 'Love In My Mind'. They are clearly happy with what they are doing and looked confident and at ease on stage.

'Electric Touch' was euphoric and 'Pronoid' was stretched out into a jam at the end, lost in the music. Their cover of the Italo disco classic 'Spacer Woman' saw them finish that and go straight into an epic track that had a refrain that went something like;

we have the tunes and the gadgets, if we want we could play all night



'Love In My Mind' caused the guys on the balcony to come downstairs for a dance before the set ended with the pulsating 'If I'm Late'. It was a cracking night and pleasing to see such quality music played by bands with smiles on their faces and genuine affection for each other.






Nevada Base play;

March 26th, Taylors, Kilwinning
April 12th, Bull and Gate, London
April 14th, Nice'n'Sleazys, Glasgow

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