Front 242 | Front By Front Tour, Volksbildungsheim Frankfurt
If this tour was really called ‘Front By Front’ tour or by another name or had maybe no name at all I’m not able to tell for certain. The ticket stub doesn’t give it away and to date, I was only able to find material of which I don’t know if it was official. However, the tour was certainly to promote the ‘Front By Front’ album which was released in late 1988.
Looking at this old flyer still makes me smile today. For every show that is being announced there is a small paragraph mentioning some detail about the respective band, however, the section announcing Front 242 simply reads “Elektro, EBM, Sampling, Techno Club … Alles klar?” (“Elektro, EBM, Sampling, Techno Club … Any questions?”). And if I come to think about it, we probably didn’t have any questions, this took place in Frankfurt (for us the world capital of EBM) and this gave us all the information we needed. 🙂
This was my first EBM concert if you disregard Front 242 as the opening act for Depeche Mode in 1987. I don’t remember what got me into EBM, but a few things certainly helped: at the Erasure concert in 1987 we had stumbled across the name ‘Nitzer Ebb’ by means of a flyer for the first time, and a friend of mine was already into Nitzer Ebb (who were transitioning from doing electro-punk to EBM in 1989). My teenage circle of friends consisted exclusively of boys at the time and we all grew up in Frankfurt with its legendary Techno Club. And as we were riding on the electronic music wave already, all of this certainly contributed to getting into EBM, and subsequently, Front 242 was right up our alley.
More coming soon …. or soonish …. hopefully …. well, I’ll finish it eventualllly.
Links:
Front 242’s official website
The evenings setlist (on setlist.fm)
Volksbildungsheim Wikipedia article (the concert venue within the buidling no longer exists)
Post last updated on 05. December 2020
Nice one. We really called Front 242 “Techno” in Frankfurt 🙂
Although it has to be said that there is certainly a bit of irony in the description on the flyer of this great rock club. It took another two years and a bigger venue until the local press did not call it a phenomenon for angry young men anymore. I will search for the review of leading Indie mag “Spex” in my cellar, as many others they were ironic about the repetitiveness of the music. It was something like “if the next single will be called “again” or “full force again” it’s over” 🙂 Funny enough, it was the Teenager magazine “Bravo” and commercial music tv channel “Tele 5” that promoted Front and NEP early on.
Thanks for your feedback! Indeed we did call it “Techno”, always making sure we pronounced it “Tekkno” as defined by Talla 2XLC! 🙂 And when the Techno Club ended due to the Dorian Gray closing its doors for good my clubbing days were also over.
Before the Gray was closing, it went through a painful period of Trance techno, but what can you do, it was the sound of the city.
I give neverending credit to the Dorian Gray door staff, so many people came from so many places and did not get in (I can only talk about the Technoclub nights), and you did not need to look posh, they did not check your age, they did not care about how many drinks you could afford. I could basically show up with a Front 242 shirt, after a few drinks, not even 18 years old the first times, and I never was refused. They knew their people and how to have a good vibe in the place. Very thankful for the experience!
I share the same sentiments! Knowing that at other clubs admittance wasn’t always guaranteed, the Techno Club was always welcoming and for a while it became our “living room” on Friday nights (I still have some flyers from back then). And together with the Volksbildungsheim and Frankfurts Festhalle the Dorian Gray was culturally an essential part of my teenage and young adult years and to this day I’m grateful that I was born and raised in Frankfurt.