Tokio Hotel Concert in Köln 2005.

Tokio Hotel is a German band who had major success at a very young age. At the time of this concert (2005) Bill Kaulitz (singer) and Tom Kaulitz (guitarist; the one with dreadlocks and a hat on) had just turned 16. Bill and Tom are identical twins but you have to look hard to notice it. Bassist Georg Listing would have been 18 and drummer Gustav Schäfer would have  just turned 17. By 2005 they had already been together for about 5 years. This tour was for their first album Schrei. In 2006 Tokio Hotel released Schrei so laut du kannst which had some of the songs from Schrei rerecorded since puberty caused Bill’s voice to change. They also added 3 tracks that were not on Schrei. I personally like the original vocals on Schrei best but Schrei so laut du kannst is worth getting for the extra tracks. Not that I dislike Bill’s voice since it changed, I just like the original vocal recording for those songs better. I think Bill’s voice has sounded slightly different with each album and it suits the music each time.

Their first album was mostly punk. I think their sound changed a bit with each album. Zimmer 483 (2007) was more rock and Humanoid (2009) was rock/synth pop. Their latest album Kings of Suburbia (2014) is more synth/dance/pop rock. Kings of Suburbia is their first album to be recorded only in English; Scream was released in 2007 which had some of the songs from both Schrei and Zimmer 483 recorded in English. And Humanoid had the full album recorded in both German and English.

Anyway, here is the concert from 2005. When I have more time I am going to post another blog with more of my favorite videos. I get tired of having to find them on YouTube when I want to watch them so it’s easier for me to post them here. If anyone knows if this is something I can buy on DVD let me know. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere but YouTube. I even checked Amazon’s German site and could not find it. Danke to sweetbill91 for posting this on YouTube.

1. Jung und nicht mehr jugendfrei 2. Beichte

2. Beichte 3. Ich bin nich’ ich 4. Schrei

4. Schrei 5. Leb die Sekunde 6. Schwarz

6. Schwarz 7. Gegen meinen Willen

8. Durch den Monsun 9. Thema Nr. 1

10. Wenn nichts mehr geht 11. Rette mich

12. Freunde bleiben 13. Der letzte Tag

14. Unendlichkeit

15. Durch den Monsun

-Amber

30 Seconds to Mars covers Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert covers Metallica etc.

I will post the original videos at the bottom of the post for reference.

Here is 30 Seconds to Mars doing a cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. The lyrics are different but I like what they did with it. I think they upped the creep factor a little bit. I love the emotion in Jared Leto’s voice.

Here is Adam Lambert covering Metallica’s Enter Sandman. I never thought of Enter Sandman as a sexy song but leave it to Adam Lambert to pull that off.

This is Postmodern Jukebox covering Paula Abdul’s Straight Up in vintage Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers style. I love the Betty Boop quality in Ashley Stroud’s voice. I had never heard of this group before this but I absolutely love this cover.

Here is Marilyn Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics. I can’t believe it’s going on twenty years since this came out. According to Wikipedia, Billboard rated this the “scariest video ever made”, beating out Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the top spot.

Here are the originals:

Lady Gaga-Bad Romance

Metallica-Enter Sandman

Paula Abdul-Straight Up

Eurythmics-Sweet Dreams

Thank you to the people who posted videos in the comments of Daron’s Guitar Chronicles of 30 Seconds to Mars and Postmodern Jukebox because otherwise I wouldn’t have known those covers existed.

Since I referenced it (and it is still awesome) here is Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

-Amber