Ja, Panik’s lead singer Andreas Spechtl writhes against his guitar, agonizing before belting out a verse from the group’s newest album: “Nothing’s about me or you, honey/It’s all about the angst and the money.”
Front and center at Sawy Culture Wheel’s River Hall, his guitar wails and the crowd slides into the music’s sway, imbibing the mixture of darkly comedic lyrics and innovatively catchy — yes, catchy — melodies that create a mixture of depth and levity.
On their first foray out of Europe, Ja, Panik has come to Cairo to show Egypt a thing or two about how it’s done in Berlin. Positively oozing the post-punk spit shine of the group’s native Vienna and the gritty ingenuity of their adopted home, Berlin, the group appeared uniformly clad in various fades of black, deliberately unfashionable enough to win points in the right circles.
Despite a spate of bad luck mid-concert — a snapped guitar string, a broken amplifier and a collapsed keyboard player — that forced an impromptu break, the band put on a great show.
Hard-dropping beats and skillfully-blended instrumentation showcased interesting bits of each piece (vocal soliloquies paired with staccato piano, harmonizing vocals) and kept songs peppered with interested moments. Piano interludes added just the right hint of refinement amidst the smash rock, and gave the ear a thread to follow without taming the act’s joyfully unruly sound.
The band reflects not a quintessentially German or Austrian sound, but rather a slice of the cultural breeding ground that is Berlin. While their name translates to “Yes, Panic,” (as in, the contradiction of the old adage of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “don’t panic”) the vibe is more one of “don’t worry, just wallow.”
Lyrically, this ethic is expressed by narrating unfolding existential crises triggered by everything from human relationships to politics to daily life. The group mixes German and English with the same casual flexibility as Arcade Fire mixes French and English, switching up mid-verse and even mid-sentence to express an idea, suit a mood, or craft a rhyme.
Sample lyrics: “Ein langer Tag, jahrein, jahraus/Oh, dieser Erde ist verbrannt” (A long day, year in year out/Oh this earth is scorched); “Words are far out of sight/and I’m out of dynamite.”
“The lyrics [are distinguished] by their intellectual standards, their socio-critical content, their wish to be the revolutionary voice of a generation that’s being told it has no reason to complain because it has everything,” said Frida Köppe, project manager at the Goethe-Institut in Cairo.
The concert broke with the tendency of many musical events in Cairo that are put on by foreign embassies or cultural institutes to include performances by Egyptian artists to facilitate onstage cultural exchange. Instead, this event, which was organized by the Goethe-Institut to provide an insight into the artistic expression, attitudes and ideas of German youth, sought to expose Egyptian audiences to a slice of contemporary German and Austrian culture.
“One objective of the Goethe-Institut is to reflect trends in the German art and music scene and make them accessible to an audience that would otherwise not be able to have that experience,” said Köppe.
Founded in 2005, Ja, Panik’s style follows loosely in the footsteps of the Hamburg School. Founded in the late 1980s and early 1990s by bands like Tocotronic and Blumfeld, the style is characterized by a strong focus on lyrics, explained Köppe.
Bands like Ja, Panik — which came out with their self-titled debut album in 2006, followed by “The Taste and The Money” in 2007 and “The Angst and The Money” in 2009 — play an influential part in the contemporary German youth culture, said Köppe.
The group gives “a voice and a musical expression to the discontent of a young generation about the status quo, the pressure for an IKEA lifestyle, the longing for a sense in life that goes beyond mere materialistic aims and pleasures,” she said.
The group also played concerts in Bibliotheca Alexandria and the Blue Nile Club in Khartoum, Sudan and led workshops for Egyptian and Sudanese youth.
