Keep Cool, Get Tough, Accelerate

Pænda

Vive La Femme Festival, Otto-Wagner-Areal Pavillon 9 Wien, Austria 20240823

Standing on the hill at Schönbrunn, there is a golden dome in the distance. It is the Kirche am Steinhof by Otto Wagner, whose influence can be found all over Vienna. And right beneath, at Pavillon 9 of the Otto-Wagner-Areal, a new series of events begins this year with two days of workshops, comedy and music. 

Vive La Femme wants to make women visible. So this year’s first edition starts with artistic expression with Lym Moreno and features live appearances by Ina Jovanovic amongst others later the first day. The second day comes with an equally varied program and the final with Dorothea Jaburek, PIPPA and Pænda as closing act. 

„I Feel Love“ by Donna Summer and „About Damn Time“ by Lizzo sound across the wide area in front of the Pavillon before. It has been a while, since Pænda’s second album „Evolution II“ was released at Grelle Forelle. Some EPs later, she presented her third full-length at B72: „Call Me Cat“. 

With the title track, she opens her part of the evening. Throughout the show, she takes her listeners back to the very first song „Waves“ that was played on the radio but includes many new ones like „turn the light off“. For „lovin myself“, she gets out a soap bubble gun and guitarist Mathias Kollos (Johnny Indigo, formerly The Boys You Know) does his move. 

Coming to „narcissistic brain“, she tells about the short film, they produced for the album and parts were shot at the Otto-Wagner-Areal. With her band, she also presents the upcoming single „60k Savage“. The Eurovision song „Limits“ must not be missing either as very only ballad in the set. 

And so at the end, the only pity is, that it looks like the festival will need more promotion to gather a bigger audience. Because only few are dancing, even though there would be a lot of space in the beautiful area and familiar setting.