The Road to Wembley, step one: Showbiz (and the fail of Southside)

Oh, 1999…Columbine, Bill Clinton’s impeachment, Californication, The Battle of Los Angeles, Enema of the State, Mr. Oizo, the reunion of Modern Talking, Germany’s most dangerous band.

What have you not?

The end of the century was nigh.

Cell phones were unheard of in our peer group.

We were 16, recently graduated, high on lemon ice tea, chocolate chip cookies and Gavin Rossdale.

The Rodgau Casi Kingz had just been founded, and almost instantly recorded one of their greatest hits: the glorious, Bloodhound Gang-inspired Burn Meisenknödel, Burn – a modern classic. Back off, Guerrilla Radio!

‘It has to start somewhere; it has to start sometime – what better place than here, what better place than now? Oh hell, can’t stop us now!’

Needless to say we skipped our graduation to attend our first festival that summer. Needless to say we weren’t even half as cool as we thought. Southside festival in Munich, three girls who thought Courtney Love was the coolest chick in the world, had wet dreams about Gavin Rossdale and a little teenage angst of die-hard Marilyn Manson fans. We were excited to see bands like Bush, Hole, Massive Attack, Blur, Placebo and Live.

And we used to look like this:

left to right: Marion, Esther, Naischel

It was 1999 too, that saw three twenty year olds on their first tour in Germany.

Needless to say they played that particular Southside festival we attended. It’s been 11 years almost to the day.

Needless to say we had never heard of this band Muse. And therefore didn’t see their gig. And have regretted it ever since. If only we had known back then what we know by now.

Regrets are worthless. Would we really have gone mental for these guys?

left to right: Chris, Dom, Matt

I try to convince myself I had been aware by late 1999 of a single called Muscle Museum and a record called Showbiz. In reality it wasn’t until 2000 that I saw the music video for the first time and not until 2002 that I bought the record to complete the back catalogue. Looking and listening back now, I don’t have a clue why this didn’t immediately catch our attention. We were in the midst of puberty. Songs about the fatigue of small town life and the struggles of relationships should have talked to us – it was what we went through right there and right then. ‘Controlling my feelings for too long’ – the title track of the record should have been our anthem.

But falsetto and weird guitar sounds weren’t necessarily the weapons of choice for us three 99ers. Gallagher-ism had made our ears temporarily deaf for such diamonds like Hate this and I’ll love you, which to my mind is actually the better version of Beyonce’s Single Ladies, nonchalantly stating ‘I’m so over you, dipshit’. A song like Sober which takes the piss out of conformity with Matty spitting out the lines ‘You’re so solid’ – eternal truths. The only explanation for our ignorance applies to our whole history with this band: we just weren’t ready. Part of me thinks we will never really be.

If something like this can grow in as unlikely a place as small-town Devon…then you should prepare yourself, world, for what is about to come out of small-town Rodgau.

My 2010 version of the play list I wish I had had on my walkman in 1999:

Guerilla Radio – Rage against the Machine

Scar Tissue – Red Hot Chili Peppers

Blister – Jimmy Eat World

We’re in this together – Nine Inch Nails

My own worst enemy – Lit

The chemicals between us – Bush

Welcome to the Fold – Filter