At the height of the fascist-musicians-hunt, Der Blutharsch came to the Dutch city of Leiden in September 2004. Of course the at that time usual raids of protests arose, but the major did see no reason to justify a prohibition and the show continued. The whole event became national news, especially when some of the local politicians said to go and see the show and Albin provocatively answered insinuating questions during the interview. There were no protestants outside the venue, but visitors were checked for ‘forbidden symbolism’. People had to deposit their iron crosses, while being the bandlogo at the time, they featured meters-high on each side of the stage. In the end everything was pretty much ‘a storm in a glass or water’ as we say here in the Netherlands. The politicians found the show tasteless, but not illegal.
Almost six years later, Albin decided to release recordings of the show, possibly for the old fans who are not happy with the new sound, as a reminder of people who were there or maybe as a bit of provocation, because the provocation ebbed away in recent years. The sound of the recordings is much better than I expected. The music is of course the martial industrial style with out of tone singing. I am not too fond of live recordings, usually studio recordings sound a lot better, but “Live In Leiden” is indeed a nice reminder.
Link: Der Blutharsch, WKN
