Can you imagine Queen without Freddy Mercury?
Probably not.

What about Cannibal Corpse without the "Corpsegrinder"?
There are probably some who would say: Of course. Death metal sounds decent without a singer, and you can party in a mosh pit quite well without guttural vocals.
That's an understandable opinion, but one I don't necessarily share.

Why is this question even being asked?
Last weekend, "Hell Over Astra" took place in Brixen for the sixth time, featuring KI Project, Jawbreaker, Aasar, and Anarca.
A few days before the event, Iwan Holzer, the singer of KI Project, unfortunately fell ill and was unable to perform live.

The band decided to go ahead with the performance and not let their fans down – unfortunately without a singer.

So, on Saturday night, KI Project, opening for Hell Over Astra, featured only three people on stage. Instead of the usual image of the singer as frontman in the center of the stage, there was an "Ivan shrine" or "Ivan doll" (at this point, I'm not sure what to call it 😉)

And then it began.
The plan was that the vocals would only be recorded, while the rest of the music would be played live.
The guitar riffs heated things up, the drums pounded, and the bass gave the whole thing that typical KI Project groove.

Unfortunately, due to a technical problem, the vocals from the backing track couldn't be heard, so the first few songs remained purely instrumental death metal.
Very interesting, and I've never heard or seen it in this form before 😉
In all honesty, though, no matter how good a guitar riff is, if it's repeated for the fourth or fifth time and no vocals are heard, it can eventually become monotonous.

The band covered it all up really well, and there was even a spontaneous rap interlude from Sebastian Kuen (bass, KI Project) while the technical problems were being resolved (Marshall Bruce Mathers would have been proud).

Unfortunately, the band failed to explain the situation to the audience (it was briefly mentioned, but not everyone realized why there was no singer and instead only a microphone stand with a picture on it).

This led to some quite amusing conversations during the occasional smoke break. One audience member thought that the singer had probably recently passed away and this was some kind of "instrumental tribute concert" in his honor.

After the technical issue was resolved, the backing track worked, and we were treated to a full-throttle of KI Project's death metal, including vocals.

It was a bit strange, however, that we could hear the vocals, but no one was at the microphone – but the sound was flawless. This clearly showed – at least that's how it felt to me personally – that a singer is very important after all 😉

And still, a huge thank you to KI Project for not canceling the show and for rocking the whole thing even with a less than full lineup!
Not many bands would handle it this way, or even be capable of doing so. So, thumbs up and we're really looking forward to seeing you live again soon with the full lineup!