That time the speakers at the Hocico gig had blown up but it was still a great show

I was going through photos of music purchases the other day (I’m just that kind of person) and I came across this single from Mexican EBM industrial outfit Hocico that I’d purchased a few years back from Heartland Records — Dog Eat Dog, the first single off the 2010 Hocico album Tiempos De Furia.

The nice cover art — note the surprising lack of biohazard symbols, campy socialist realism and industrial wasteland landscapes — in turn gave my brain sufficient stimulus to motivate me to play a few tracks from it. That, in turn, reminded of when Hocico toured Australia in 2012. But before I get onto that, allow me to digress.

Hocico - Dog Eat Dog. A rare instance of the cover art on an industrial release not featuring biohazard symbols - or even an industrial wasteland. Also, Heartland Records is an amazing shop that's still going.

It's all about expectations

I recently posted how what we get out of a gig can very much depend on what we decide ahead of time we will make of it, and a lot less on what actually occurs while we’re there.

The genesis of that thought was my wholly unexpected and recent impromptu attendance at a gig by New Zealand thrashers Alien Weaponry. It was a performance on a weeknight in the middle of winter at a small venue for a band I knew almost nothing about, so I’d attended not so much with low expectations but rather with no expectations.

It turned out to be a marvelous evening, despite the fact that I wasn’t a massive fan of Alien Weaponry’s mid-tempo thrash-lite. The reasons why are amply described in the above link.

If you want the short explanation, though: essentially, those aspects that ultimately determine how we rate a gig — these being the things that are best articulated as quality and fulfilment and fun — are in many ways dependent on whether those aspects meet the expectations that we set ourselves in our mind, rather than what actually occurred.

I feel strongly about it because I am indeed privileged to live in a town that has a legitimately world-class live music scene. Seeing that photo, which in turn made me play some Hocico, which in turn made me think of the 2012 Hocico Melbourne gig, brought up some long-buried thoughts about that show.

For one thing, it was a divisive show.

It doesn't show that well in this shot but those were some sick visuals.

Hocico in Melbourne

Hocico is a big deal in EBM and industrial music. For years they've headlined or otherwise notched top-level billing across Europe. So when the first ever Hocico Australian tour was announced it was preceded by significant (and by all accounts, justifiable) hype. In particular, much was made of the energy and vigor of the live performance. Those who weren’t overly into Hocico were urged to check them out on that strength.

I will skip ahead and emphasise that I thought it was a brilliant performance. Except for a back injury which, I discovered the next morning, I’d acquired on the dancefloor as a result of my decision to wear a sombrero covered in industrial safety tape (seeing a Mexican industrial band naturally means wearing an industrial sombrero, right?), it was one of those memorable shows.

Here’s what I said about it in 2012:

“When you see live bands that you don’t avidly follow, it’s so often a case of getting into those songs you recognise and maybe even liking a few you don’t recognise. “They’re not bad,” is as absolutely stock-standard behaviour at a gig as is having a vaguely appreciative and not-very-responsive crowd for much of the time. But not so with these guys. I own a few Hocico releases and yet I can honestly say I recognised all of two songs that were played. Yet at every moment there was this powerful you-had-to-be-there energy, this awesome, dark, killer world complete with sensory-depriving lights and visuals. At the risk of running off an old cliché, it was much of a case of you could “feel” it rather than just see and hear it.”

When looking back at things I said or wrote more than half a decade ago, I sometimes get a slight cringey feeling, perhaps due to some long-passed naivety? But not this time. It really was a great show.

This was despite the fact that it was a show marred by a couple of mishaps and technical problems.

Throughout the evening, before I got there, at least one speaker had proverbially blown up. Consequently, bands started late. The Hocico show was eventually shortened — and throughout, the sound cut out more than once. On top of that, only one ‘official’ member of Hocico supposedly formed part of the show.

Years later, I was talking about that gig with a friend. A seasoned gig, festival and club goer, he said, much to my surprise, that he had not liked it and how he felt genuinely embarrassed by what transpired onstage (and presumably behind the sound console).

And yet I rate it as one of the best electronic shows I’d ever seen.

In my view, all the elements came together to form an atmosphere that was dark, heavy, foreboding and intense. This was the nightmare underworld of Hocico’s music in an audio-visual manifestation. It absolutely was, in every sense, a performance where it didn’t matter whether you knew any of their music. As I said, I have for years cultivated the view that I am exceedingly fortunate to live in a town where dark, heavy and nasty music is a regular occurrence.
Looking back at that show from years ago, it reminded me once again that what you make of a gig has a lot to do with what you tell yourself it will be, before

• As a gig-goer you cannot control what goes on with the sound. 
• You cannot prevent a speaker from blowing up. 
• You cannot make a gig start on time. On the other hand, you’re seeing (as was the case here) an international act.
• Nor can you make a missing band member materialize on stage. 

Did any of these things matter? Not to me they did. Not one little bit.

You can't control the sound or whether the band starts on time.

You can control how you feel about it.

A good gig is inherently about what you make of it, whether it’s an international electro-industrial act like or a group of teenage thrashers.

And incidentally, I’m reliably told that the correct pronunciation is hɔ-si-kho.