92-05-02 Instigators – Nessun Dorma – Kurort

I will never forget this one because everyone was so sweaty when ‘Instigators’ played; superb concert! I don’t really remember ‘Kurort’…

Henk Loobuyck

Frank Babel (Blasting Youth recs) organised the ‘Instigators’ socalled ‘Reunion Tour 1992’ (mainly Germany, some dates I, Austria, Italy, Switzerland – see tour-schedule). I think the guys from Dewsbury/Huddersfield didn’t want to go home immediately so they ended up playing the Vort’n Vis… The line-up was the ‘usual’ Andy ‘Tez’ Turner (vocals), Simon Mooney (guitar) & Steve ‘Cuzzy’ Curran (drums), and Keith Whitely did the bass this time. They’d done some gigs for Smurfpunx in the past (‘87 & ‘88) so it was nice to meet them again… And they would be back the next year (93-04-04). I think at this timepoint Bruno was taking in some of the records of Andy’s Full Circle label for distribution…

‘Nessun Dorma’ (Bristol) had played for Smurfpunx a couple of years before (90-09-02) and I’d stayed in touch with Seamus (Cummins), their bassplayer. They were: Paul (vocals), Phil (drums) and Ju & Tony ‘Tone’ (guitarists). They had vinyl (the Chew It Over lp) out on Mike Foster’s MCR recs (actually MCRUK 001). From the review of that in Tilt! #7: “Raging, energetic bulldozer-HC with breaks and tempo-changes. […] Killer live band.”.

From the Bristol-based zine Read It! (winter ‘91-‘92): >>They were originally called ‘Night Terror Syndrome’, formed in early 1988 by Tony (guitar) & Luke (bass), Paul & Phil, and Julian had played in ‘Organised Chaos’ and sang for the ‘Stupid Humans’ [early 80s], the earliest incarnation of the ‘Subhumans’. In spring ’89 Luke left to join ‘Maggot Slayer Overdrive’. An old friend Seamus replaced him. They took the name ‘Nessun Dorma’ (None Shall Sleep – the opera-song Pavarotti did at the soccer world-cup), at the time of their 2^nd demo (1990) [Your Chocolate Factory Needs You].<<

They came back to the Vort’n Vis a few times…

‘Kurort’ were a hardcore/punk band from Bad Ischl, Austria: Andreas ‘Andi’ Wimmer (vocals), Florian ‘Flo’ Sedmak (guitar & vocals), Martin Wimmer (bass) and Rudi Vogtenhuber (drums). They played powerful hardcore with personalized political lyrics and sang in their Upper Austrian dialect. They had released some vinyl themselves and on Trost recs (a Vienna-based label related to Club Flex – a indie/noise/rock venue). Later Tiberiju of Sacro Egoismo and Joris of Conspiracy recs would help ‘em out. They came back a second time (95-03-05).

Brob

Here’s what I think I remember from Ieper… We were booked to play Poperinge and I was asleep in the van as we arrived for the show (no one told me the show had moved towns). We unloaded the gear, set up, sound-checked and I went off for a walk around town before the show. I wandered for a bit and took a few pictures – I’d really only just started taking photographs (which is what I do for a living now). I remember turning one corner and there was the Menin Gate. I was really struck by the of it scale (Incidentally, my great-uncle William Mooney is named on the Thiepval Memorial as killed in one of the Somme battles.) and of course I didn’t expect it to be there as I still thought we were in Poperinge. I stayed for quite some time reading the names and taking photographs before deciding to head back to the venue. I had no idea what time it was.

As I got closer to the Vort’n Vis I could hear the support band. At least I thought it was the support, but it sounded like an ‘Instigators’ tune… It also sounded like Andy singing… I got inside to see the ‘Instigators’ on stage with our roadie Gary Jackson playing guitar (He was much better than me.). It seems I’d been away for hours at the Gate and there was no way to contact me as we had no mobiles back then. I wasn’t very popular with the rest of the band. I think the bass player on this tour was Keith Whitely.

Here’s a video from the same tour: ‘Instigators’ live in Schwenningen 1992…

Simon Mooney

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…