Other people visit Halloween parties, I decided to attend a concert. It’s been two very long years since I last saw One Morning Left live at Escalation Fest in 2022. Unfortunately, they then had to cancel their European headline tour in the same year due to bad ticket sales. So it’s unsurprising that their tour this year was called „Buy tickets for this tour tour 2024“. Well, so I did – and I was hyped – and here’s a little spoiler: IT WAS WORTH IT. One Morning Left might have made rank 2 in the best concerts of 2024 (no one will get past Imminence).
The venue
I’m always surprised when another venue in Cologne pops up that I’ve never been to, but here we are. MTC is a really small club located in a part of Cologne full of night life, clubs, bars and the like. As I might’ve mentioned before, parking in Cologne is a big big issue and you can imagine that parking in such a part of the city is an even bigger issue. We parked in a parking garage 5 minutes away from the venue that partly belongs to a local REWE super market. It’s fucking expensive, it’s narrow and half of the parking spots are reserved for REWE customers, but there were hardly any other options. No idea how you get there via public transport though.
The club is small and nice, I liked it a lot. The prices for drinks were fair, the toilets were clean and the concert room itself is really small, but the sound that night was first class. Amazing. So the club definitely passes the vibe check, if only it wasn’t so difficult to get there (traffic was also a mess, what do you expect on Halloween, I know, I know). Nothing bad to say. Also they had a Halloween party after the show, so the club was already decorated for that and it was very atmospherical and super cool.
Lost in Hollywood
For the German shows of their little tour, One Morning Left brought along Lost in Hollywood, a fairly young band from Hamburg. They had a great sound and, given the fact that they’re still a rather new band, they had a nice stage presence. Matching the date, they entered the stage wearing masks (which they then took off after one or two songs) and I’d say they managed to warm up the crowd from the very start. One could clearly see that they were enjoying what they were doing, which, I think, caught the crowd as well.
Partly the clear vocals sounded a tiny tiny bit off (particularly in the ranges where the singer had to switch between head and chest voice I would say), but that didn’t harm their overall performance at all I’d say. Their 30 minutes set was full of energy and I’d personally say we have a young, aspiring band here that deserved some attention. If you have the chance, go check them out. They recently released a single featuring Jules Mitch of SETYØURSAILS.
One Morning Left
I was more than excited for their show. As I said, it’s been two years since I last saw them (and in 2022 I actually saw them 5 times – 3 times on tour with Electric Callboy, once at Tuska and once at Escalation Fest) and I missed them a lot. One Morning Left shows are party and disco. And they held up to that standard. Just before the show, they played some 80s disco song (I KNOW IT BUT I FORGOT, OKAY????), they had a disco ball, colourful lights and – we all love them – pool floaties! Yay!
Their 60 minutes set was opened with Emerald Dragon, a feature with Jake Luhrs from their latest album Neon Inferno. (By the way, I got to review this album for a magazine and hearing it hyped me up for the show even more. I wanted to write a review for my blog as well, but didn’t find the time to do so lol). And Neon Inferno is what their concert was like (as I said, colourful lights and disco balls). And it was party from the start.
The room was packed! As I said, the venue itself was quite small, but the crowd was so tight I could barely get through with my camera (so in case you’re wondering why all my photos are taken from the same spot: that’s why). Nevertheless, people found the space to mosh, to form a circle pit and to dance. There were people crowdsurfing on the massive pool floaties and you could feel that everybody was having a great time.
It was hard not to have one, though. Besides playing lots of bangers like Tonight, Sinners are Winners or You’re Dead, Let’s Disco, which make it hard not to start dancing, their stage energy is incredible. Every single one of them radiates so much positivity and fun that it almost hurts. Drummer Dennis started the show wearing a Pikachu ski mask (then complained that they initially had agreed to wear masks as it was Halloween, but everyone but him forgot 😂), singer/shouter Miksu brought a soap bubble gun and guitarist Juuso enacted Michael the Knight. Bassist Miska and singer/guitarist Leevi danced their heart out and all in all there was so much going on on stage that made you feel like they themselves as well as the crowd were incredibly happy to be in this small packed room to party together.
I also love how they interact with each other on stage. They’re having so much fun during their shows, thinking about it almost makes me cry 😂 Honestly, this was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. And definitely one of the best shows this year.
Guys, for real: if you have the chance to see One Morning Left live, GO! DO IT! They’re worth your time and money! IT’S PARTY! IT’S DISCO!
*Photos will be added later*