Chikinki
Augartenbrücke, 2008
Austrians are reserved people. We shot the videos with Chikinki only a few footsteps from the venue of their show and only about half an hour before they were scheduled to go on stage. So there were lots of fans and concert-goers around – especially girls in their late teenage years and last exponents of the chequered dressed New Ravers -, but surprisingly no one actually joined us as we walked by together with singer Rupert and guitarist Ed. They kept watching from a safe distance, when Chikinki performed stripped down, yet powerful versions of their songs, lacking the synths, the heavy guitars and their extroverted stage presence. The five-piece band formed while their studies in Bristol in 1996 and have become quite popular all over Europe since 2005, when they started to release an album every year. Temporarily subsumed under the fading away New Rave movement, Chikinki have sure enough established themselves beyond any short-lived trends.
- Photography
- Simon Brugner
- Artist
- Chikinki
Augartenbrücke
Augartenbrücke (Augarten bridge) is one of twenty bridges across the Donaukanal, a 17 kilometres long side arm of the river Danube in Vienna. The bridge connects the second with the ninth district and was first built in 1782 in order to make newly opened Augarten, a nearby park, easily accessible from the Inner City. Since then the bridge has been torn down and destroyed several times, the last of which was at the end of the Second World War in 1945 by the Germans. Less than one year later the unadorned steel bridge was reopened to people, cars and tramways. Among young people Augartenbrücke is know for being the common way to Vienna’s most popular music club Flex. Just take the stairs down to the Donaukanal on the right side of the southern end of the bridge and you will be captured by the fairy lights and the club tunes.