Remember the British Invasion of the mid-60s when (metric) tons of British bands gained huge popularity in the United States? Me neither because I wasn’t around back then, but I have definitely heard plenty about it. This year, it looks like the next platoon of bands to invade America will be from Germany. And the first wave has already landed, straight out of Berlin.

The electronic group Jeans Team has already started their sonic assault a few days ago in San Francisco and will be advancing towards the East coast over the next few weeks. Next to reach America will be De/Vision, one of the most famous synthpop bands around, which will start their first ever tour this side of the Atlantic on February 6th starting in Philadelphia. Shortly after, in an aggressive move, And One will infiltrate Washington D.C. and begin their tour from the nation’s capital. Finally, Canada will be the target of several German industrial and EBM acts in May during the Festival Kinetik in Montreal.

In all seriousness, the sudden influx of German bands playing concerts in the USA and Canada is purely coincidental. While there does seem to be a lot of interest in German music as the internet introduces people to obscure bands from around the world, I really don’t think this “invasion” is going to be nearly as popular as the famed British Invasion. We probably aren’t going to see a German band become as popular as The Beatles in the next few years, but it’s still definitely worth paying attention to.

These first few months of 2008 present American fans of German music with a unique opportunity to see some of our favorite bands. Take advantage of this opportunity. Even if you don’t know who these bands are, I would still urge you to support them for taking the (very expensive) risk of coming over here to America. If they are received with large, enthusiastic crowds, it will send the message to other bands and their labels that touring in America could be a good idea for them, too.

First up, tour dates for Jeans Team. I will post the dates for De/Vision and And One in the next few days.

Jan 04 - San Francisco, California at Loaded
Jan 05 - Los Angeles, California at The COG
Jan 10 - New York, New York at The Grasslands Gallery
Jan 11 - Montreal, Canada at Zoo Bizarre
Jan 13 - Toronto, Canada at Drake Hotel
Jan 15 - Detroit, Michigan at Scrummage
Jan 16 - Chicago, Illinois at Empty Bottle
Jan 18 - New York, New York at Ruff Club

Listen to Jeans Team
You can visit the Jeans Team MySpace page to listen to some of their older, more experimental music, but I would recommend downloading the special interview that Radio Goethe just did with the band a few days ago. Not only will you learn a lot about the band and their history, but this interview is also filled with lots of their more current electronica music. You can download this interview here.

The German Invasion has begun. Prepare yourselves.

Updates
And One tourdates have been updated here

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 5:56 am and is filed under And One, De/Vision, EBM, Electronic, Jeans Team, Synthpop, Tour Dates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.