Berlin punk-pop siblings Otto & Astrid return with their unique brand of musical madness and while the show is played for laughs, these guys can play, writes Ara Jansen
Reviews/Cabaret/Comedy/Fringe World Festival/Music
Krautrock chaos a blast of laughs
1 February 2023
- Reading time • 4 minutesCabaret
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Otto & Astrid Play the Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Concert You’ve Ever Seen, Die Roten Punkte
Studio Underground, 31 January 2023
What do you do with Otto & Astrid, two German siblings who have an affinity for music and can’t stop bickering? You send them on a world tour to work out their issues.
After six years, Berlin punk-pop wunderkinds Otto & Astrid make it back to town – and what a rockingly fun return it is.
From kunst and krautrock to punk and pop-punk with a bit of German electro thrown in, the pair perform a wildly entertaining set of self-penned songs with titles like ”Burger Store Dinosaur”, “Second Best Friend” and “Ich Bin Nicht Ein Roboter” (I am a Lion).
Dressed in red and black, with a huge bow on her head and purple shoes with yellow laces, drummer Astrid is a punked-out Minnie Mouse-meets-Morticia with haute couture designs.
Her guitarist brother wears a painted Joker face and a Brit pop haircut with the sensibility and chops of a straight edge skater, right down to his checkerboard Vans.
Armed with German accents, plenty of sexual subtext, odd undertones and sibling tension, their comedy is funny and delightful but never aggressive or demeaning.
They’ve done their local homework, joking about the guy who wouldn’t let them into the state a few years ago and ruminating about what would happen if a kangaroo ate that missing radioactive capsule. And then if someone ate a sausage made from the kangaroo. You can imagine where that went.
Acts of this style often scrape by with little musical ability, relying on shtick to carry them. Otto and Astrid are the real deal.
Both singers and multi-instrumentalists, you’ve gotta be very good to be this versatile and creative. Who else could have made a keytar and a cowbell come together so well in a song? Full marks to whoever mixed the show, its clarity was perfect.
O&A’s physical comedy is strong, too – Astrid trying to get on and off her drum riser is a source of warm hilarity and their robot dancing was Daft Punk worthy.
Props to audience local Greg, who, at least for an hour, graciously handled Astrid’s glittery-eyed attentions.
These sibs can often be awfully rude to each other but, somehow, we all end up laughing.
Thoroughly endearing, they do everything with the flair and attitude of openers at Knebworth. Be prepared to sing, participate, and swing your arms like a drunken pirate.
Otto & Astrid are a hell of a lot of fun. Rock bang!
Otto & Astrid are at Studio Underground until 5 February 2023
Pictured top: Siblings Otto & Astrid rock out in the ‘Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Concert You’ve Ever Seen’. Photo: Peter Enwight
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