PART 1

It has become some sort of tradition to swap the “Big Smoke” for”Tor zur Welt” in the last English Bank holiday of the year before Christmas. People always ask me why Hamburg? Not that Hamburg is a bad place, but there are no beaches and the weather is not always great. Coming from London, I always try to escape to places where the weather is a bit more sunny! However, with relatively cheap flights, good music (13 bands in 2 days!), cheap booze and food, friends from all over the world, Hamburg becomes the place to be at the end of August!

GET LOST FEST is in its third edition, and it has proven its success with tickets selling out way before the fest! This year’s edition had RED DONS and HEX DISPENSERS as main acts; however, the other bands were excellent demonstrating a caring devotion from the organizers when choosing the bands and dj’s!

Friday night was super full and people were in a great party mood! Weather was nice (maybe too hot inside the venue for the Londoners) and the atmosphere inside the Hafenklang was great!! For the first two bands most of the people were still outside drinking and meeting old friends. I remember Teledrome being very good and the audience started to dance!! By the time Golden Pelicans from Florida, or The Disney Boys, as everyone was calling them, started to play I thought it would be difficult for the Red Dons to beat the atmosphere and energy! The Golden Pelicans were catchy and dancy as fuck.

Red Dons went on stage and there was no space left to stand! It was all dancing, sweaty bodies singing along and the energy on stage was so contagious! A+! After the show was done most of the people headed to the after show party that was about 10 minutes walking. Molotow is a venue in the middle of the Reeperbahn, where all sex shops and strip clubs are as well as the Beatles Platz! The venue was packed and I couldn’t stand the heat so unfortunately I missed the bands!

Saturday morning the hangover descended quickly and after saying goodbye to the Red Dons who continued on tour to Copenhagen we decided to have a nap. Terrible idea as we missed Nervosas playing in the afternoon show, again at Molotow. We arrived in time to catch the last songs of Miss Chain and the Broken Heels, which was the perfect soundtrack to start drinking again! Curing hangovers never tasted better!!  Life Fucker played next, and I was glad to catch them, as I couldn’t the night before! Great band! Suspect Parts closed the afternoon gig entertaining us with their melodic pop punk!

Hex Dispensers were the headline for the evening! It was almost like a flash back, as they also headlined the first GET LOST FEST two years ago! I love their songs, but I really wish I enjoyed seeing them playing live more. They play tight as fuck, but it really misses some action on stage, or a bit more engagement with the audience! This, of course, is only my opinion. The other big show of the night was Maniac, which delivered great songs and were super enthusiastic on stage, definitely worth seeing!! People danced to the early hours with Oihane and Axel djing the best aftershow tunes.

Well, that’s all my poor little brain can remember from the weekend. Gary has a much better and accurate review bellow! Hope you enjoy and see you next year in Hamburg!!

By Thai Cervi

PART  2

The Martin Savage Gang were good, but played too long for my short attention span. Best of the bunch on Friday for me were The Achtungs and Golden Pelicans. The Achtungs were brutal, like a punch in the face, a harsh and raw sound but with the hooks to back it up. From the seedy underbelly of Orlando the Golden Pelicans are one of the best punk bands around right now and played a stone cold killer of a set on the final night of their first European tour and went down a storm.

The action never stops with not one but two after parties happening. First stop is Komet bar, a little bit empty when I get there but fills up quickly with drunks dancing badly to the best punk tunes that Alvar has to offer. Almost everyone seems to leave en masse to make their way via the back streets off the Reeperbahn to Molotow in time to catch local boys Kuken hit the stage of the tiny cellar at gone 4 am. In near pitch blackness, Kuken really nail it home with a short, sharp, shock of a set filled with catchy KBD-style blasts. It was too hot and sweaty to stay for Life Fucker, so I bailed early at 5am to save my strength to be back in the afternoon for the day show.

The backyard of Molotow is perfect for the day show, I had a fine time just catching up with friends, drinking beer and eating taco’s, but there were some decent bands playing too. Nervosas were pretty good, dark and moody, reminded me of Spectres in some ways. The highlight of the afternoon was Suspect Parts, quality melodic punk with an edge and they scored extra points with me for covering ‘She Cracked’.

I arrive at the Hafenklang half way through Shady and the Vamp and am impressed by a band I’ve never heard before. Baddat For Trubbel went from being great on the fast songs to really losing it on the crappy slow ones. I’m glad Maniac followed them and picked up the pace with an exciting high energy set. I think it was the universal opinion that Dean Dirg are the best German band, at least three friends say this to me during their set. I can’t disagree, they were brilliant, one short catchy song after another left me completely won over. If people went crazy during Dean Dirg, they lost their minds completely to Hex Dispensers. Hex Dispensers just can’t put a foot wrong with a set filled with classic songs, it seemed everyone was singing along to them all. For a band that stay fairly static on stage they generate a huge amount of excitement in an audience. I wish they could be the house band for Get Lost Fest and play every year. It might be 2 am but this is Hamburg and the fun doesn’t stop, Oihane and Axel keep every one dancing to punk and power pop tunes until dawn.

By Gary Morehen

Proofreading- Julie Woolie