Live Ammunition by The Magnificent Brotherhood

Recorded live 2008 at the Burg Herzberg Open Air.

liner notes:

You should have been there ...No, I mean you really should have been there. I know. I was. It went down like this:

There’s a huge orange full moon hanging from the skies and it's already about 2:00 AM as The Magnificent Brotherhood cheerfully enter the stage. The last gig of this festival day is going to be the best one in many ways for many people. After a very short instrumental soundcheck the band starts playing right away. The audience is hot and after the first few beats of "Old Tattoo" they’re already catching fire. BAM!! I’m flashed on spot. By no later
than the second song so is everyone else. The audience is turning into a crazy dancing mob. Though the band is playing at the Burg Herzberg Festival for the first time, it seems like the people have been waiting for The
Magnificent Brotherhood all day. After only a few songs I know I'm a life-long fan.
At about the middle of the set Kiryk is asking the crowd to come on stage to dance with the band. "From now on the stage is a public place" he asserts and the people don't even dare wait before they oblige, climbing up the ca. 1,30m high stage behind the security fence. No security could ever stop this. I know now the Brothers were doing that once in a while at smaller club gigs, calling that spontaneous extension of the dance floor "dance contests". The idea behind it is to elect the wildest, most freaked out dancer and award him with a copy of their debut-album or a t-shirt. But on that big of a stage and with so many people the dance contest becomes almost surreal. Now the stage is packed. There is no way to make out the most freaked out dancer as there are too many of them and every single one is freaking out! There is no possibility of not-dancing anymore, anywhere. One can see the whole stage bending and shaking up and down. The security is forced to keep the huge PA loudspeaker system in place as it is in danger of falling on the stage. After one long song (which is sadly not featured on this album) one of the completely over-challenged security men is telling the band to get the people off stage again to save it from total collapse. It's not so easy to do.
Suddenly they do a one-eighty, turning their high energy garage rock sound into a kind of psychedelic-movie-soundtrack. The song is called The Drifter and features an extended instrumental improvisation. Even without the LSD-sticker on Erik's red Farfisa Compact organ you can sure hear this influence. The trip will last for nearly 20 minutes!
What a night! It is near to 4:00 o'clock as the band is leaving stage after several encores. Just as the last note drifts into silence it starts to rain. The "Rolling Stone" Magazine later wrote: "… the dynamic, clever garage-psychs The Magnificent Brotherhood let their Farfisa organ and fuzz guitar rock in that good old sixties style. That is just about how a festival day should end."
Although "Live Ammunition" misses some of the songs that were played that night, it gives an excellent overview of what The Magnificent Brotherhood are like live. Especially due to the fact that the band had no idea that this concert was recorded until some weeks later. They have been asked by the organizers of the festival to release it as the live album you are now holding in your hands. Maybe that's why the tunes on this album sound so natural.

See, you should have been there. That’s why I would highly recommend anybody to join one of their dance concerts as soon as possible. See you there!

Berlin's no. 1 garage psych rockers!

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