Punk Rap Group Krav Boca List Their Top 10 Craziest Shows

You may not have heard of Krav Boca, an eight-piece, French, Greek, Moroccan, punk, and rap group – yes, really – but their DIY ethics and crushing blend of aggressive music has been tearing up Europe for the last four years. Their latest record, City Hackers, dropped on May 1, 2020, and spotlights the band’s devastating riffage and anthemic vox (delivered mostly in French, from what I can tell). Sporting three singers, one performer, and four musicians playing drums, guitar, mandolin, and bass, Krav Boca pushes a bold and eclectic sound to places rarely heard in the mainstream realms of punk or rap.

Inspired by their recent release and the unfortunate moratorium on all shows for the foreseeable future, Krav Boca are looking back on the craziest shows they’ve ever experienced. In this frenzied Top 10, these dynamic performers explore the wildest scenes they’ve ever encountered from the stage, and, more often than not, sans stage altogether.

1. University of Bordeaux (During a Strike)

“In the context of yellow-vest riots in France, many universities were occupied. We were invited to play a concert supporting the strikers in this faculty created in the XIXe century, located in the very center of the city of Bordeaux. The concert took place in the hall of the faculty between fire breathers, smoke, flares, and a furious public. At the end of the show, the police tented an entry in order to disperse the crowd. We just had the time to go out the back door with all our equipment inside supermarket caddies in order to escape from the police!”

2. The Biggest Circle-Pit of Maghreb in Casablanca

“The L’Boulevard festival is one of the biggest alternative music festivals of the Maghreb. It’s situated in Casablanca, Morocco in a rugby stadium and the entrance is free. The rock-centric local public, fine connoisseurs of punk and metal music, are reputed as kind of strict! We have no idea how they would react to our music, which is punk and rap at the same time. Finally, the alchemy worked! They gratified us with the biggest circle-pit we had ever known.”

3. Basketball Playground in Thessaloniki.

“Greece is known for her alternative music, her DIY spirit, and her concerts happening in squats and directly into the streets. For our very first concert in Thessaloniki (the second biggest city in Greece), we had the surprise of playing in a basketball court! With many spilled beers, we ruined the sound system. The owners remembered this in future tours so they started to looking at us differently.”

4. Xtreme Fest: In a Cage Under the Sun at Noon

“The day before we had just slept for a few hours… in 2019, Xtreme Festival (southwest of France) had the nice idea to make us play inside an iron cage in the middle of August. The temperature was 36°! The public was really into this and literally destroyed the cage. During the last song, we had to calm down everyone with a fire extinguisher! The cage could not be reused the next year; they had to build another one!”

5. Crazy Smoke Bombs and Flares in an Indoor Concert in Toulouse

“For this concert, in our city of Toulouse, the place was full. Many people had brought flares and smoke bombs that night. At the end of the concert, the place was so full of smoke that we could not see a thing a meter away!”

6. Raining Beer Cans in Lyon

“With Krav Boca, we have a tradition inspired by the Greek punk scene. When the public appreciates the concert, we ask them to show it to us by throwing empty beer cans on the stage! That night, the public of Lyon was very motivated! We received more than a hundred cans in barely three minutes!”

7. A Jail in Zaragoza

“This night in Zaragoza (Spain) was really special. The public has a big punk and rap culture. At our pleasure, we managed to play in the squat of Kike Mur, which used to be a jail. At the end of the concert, we slept inside former prison cells!”

8. The Streets of Marseille

“We have played in Marseille with Pirate Punx, a collective who organizes savage concerts in the city center. For this concert, they installed their sound system in the emblematic stairs of Cour Julien neighbourhood. We plugged into the street lights. It was incredible to see all these flares in the heart of the city, and the look of passers-by captivated by the scene.”

9. Old Slaughterhouse in the Middle of Cows in Toscana

“The Agripunk collective occupied former slaughterhouses in Toscana (Italy) in order to transform them into an animal refuge. We don’t have any videos of this concert, but we played among cows, pigs, and goats in a former stable. An awesome meeting with amazing people who run this place.” (One image is below, but view the above gallery for all images.)

10. Savage Concert in a Huge Park in Athens

“This concert was organized by the Antifa Live collective. It was in an enormous parc in the very center of Athens city, with a scene and a sound system like the ones you see in a big festival. Except that, for this concert, there had been zero authorization! Really impressed by the organization; we played in front of more than 1500 people.”

Artwork for ‘City Hackers’ by Krav Boca