Wave-Gotik-Treffen
wgt
I remember friends coming back from the 2000 WGT and telling stories. There were trials and tribulations as they said the promoters had run off with the money and most the bands had left. Those that remained and played pretty much did so just to prevent riots, but they loved it. The people who were there wanted to be there and the energy was indescribable. Their stories convinced a group of about a dozen of us from Seattle to go to "Treffen" in 2001. There was nothing like it in the United States and the band line up was like something out of my childhood dreams. The bands list was a collection of favorites and any one of the major ones by themselves would have been a major event. It was nice to have everything spread out over the city so that many shows seemed somewhat small for such a large festival. I can still evoke envy in friends by listing the bands I saw at Werk II in one night. I never failed to come home with new favorite bands as I would usually show up two or three bands early for the ones I wanted to see to get exposed to the ones I had never heard of. I’ve been back several times and it never fails to provide me with plenty of stories to take back and tell my friends.
It was many of ours first trip to Europe and the differences between America and Germany showed up at the festival. We had to get used to sausages as fair food and fries being Belgian instead of French. The Germans were surprised that we would stay in a nice hotel and buy the Obsorge tickets for the book and train pass as they only bought them to get camping privleges. One girl accused me of being rich because I could fly to German for just a music festival. I accused her for being rich for being able to take more than one week off of work. German clubs seemed to ration out dance floor space and the styles of dance we saw kept us entertained while we drank. Some of us wore German military clothing, and I saw several Germans wearing American military clothing. One thing that really surprised me was a large screen outside of the Hauptbanhof that greeted me with a large picture of a goth girl. It was a screen set up to show off what was happening in Leipzig. That a city would actually acknowledge that such and event was going on, let alone, seem to have a favorable opinion of it was one of the strangest things that struck me about Germany and the festival.
Between the bands, the Agra vendor hall, Moritzbastei, Dark Flower, and thousands of goths running around till morning, it was something that has never been seen in the United States. It was like a gothic Disneyland with bands instead of rides.