Johannes Schult

Last Sunday, Richard Shindell played at the Twickenham Folk Club (upstairs in the Cabbage Patch Pub). It was the third time I saw him live. This time around Richard’s music was augmented by the very tasteful electric guitar playing of Marc Shulman.

I won’t bother you with boring details (keeping that for the Shindell mailing list). Among my personal highlights were a fantastic version of “Fishing”, the groovy new “Stray Cow Blues”, the 3/4-and-yet-no-waltz taxi drive meets folk song masterpiece “The Last Fare of the Day”, and finally “Wisteria”, the achingly beautiful song about a nostalgic encounter with a place from one’s past. It doesn’t get better than this! The timeless story of “Reunion Hill” and the soothing darkness of “Nora” deserve a mention, as well.

Both musicians were in excellent shape. I loved how the whole gig was not a preprogrammed set but a dynamic journey through Richard’s repertoire (along with a couple of cover songs in between). Concert stables like “Transit” were thus played along with requests like “Nora” and “Confession”, the latter featuring very good impromptu arrangements by Marc Shulman. Richard kept telling stories in between songs, which added to the already rewarding concert experience. I really hope he’ll be back in Europe next year or so.

1. The Kenworth of My Dreams
2. You Stay Here
3. Transit
4. The Last Fare of the Day
5. She Belongs to Me
6. Fishing
7. Nora
8. A Change Is Gonna Come
9. Confession
10. Stray Cow Blues
11. Wisteria
12. Satellites
13. Get Up Clara
14. There Goes Mavis
15. A Summer Wind, a Cotton Dress
16. Reunion Hill
17. Arrowhead
18. One Man’s Arkansas

Yesterday, the Hooters played in Friedrichshafen. This was the first time I had to take the ferry to get to a concert. Funnily, the band played “South Ferry Road” this time around. They also had plenty of songs from “Out of Body” in the setlist, four in total. I liked that. Two new songs from the upcoming EP “Five by Five” were also featured. “Pissing in the Rhine” was sung in German; a quick rocking opening track with no deeper meaning as far as I can tell from one listen. “Silver Lining” was a bit closer to serenity of the “Time Stand Still” record, yet had an upbeat infectious chorus. One of the highlights was the ending of “500 Miles”. Eric (on harmonica) and guest musician Tommy Williams (on guitar, helping out until Eric’s broken shoulder is healed) delivered a fascinating duel that reminded me of the tours in 2004 and 2005, when the band jammed quite a lot. I wasn’t perfectly happy with Johnny B being put into the encore section of the setlist. I always loved how “the big hit” came on halfway through the set, paving the way for a grand finale of non-stop rock with Karla, Satellite, Danced and so on. Anyway, be sure to catch the band on their 30th anniversary tour this summer!

1. Pissing in the Rhine
2. Day by Day
3. South Ferry Road
4. Fightin’ on the Same Side
5. The Boys of Summer
6. Great Big American Car
7. Silver Lining
8. 500 Miles
9. Morning Buzz
10. Deliver Me
11. Private Emotion
12. I’m Alive
13. Twenty-Five Hours a Day
14. Satellite
15. All You Zombies
16. Karla With a K
17. And We Danced
18. Johnny B
19. Free Again
20. Boys Will Be Boys
21. One of Us
22. Time After Time

One of Sweden’s finest punk rock bands, Ninja Dolls, visited Konstanz on Thursday night. They played a tight, quick set featuring three songs off their new “D.I.Y.”-EP along with most of the songs from “1 2 3 Go!” (which was one of my favourite albums 2009). Malin’s voice showed a little strain towards the end of the set, but overall she proved to be an excellent lead singer who handled the old material with ease. As an encore we got a nice cover version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. Other highlights were the acoustic version of “Valentine” and, well, pretty much every other song. I only missed “Run and Hide”. Still, it was an enjoyable show, albeit a rather short one. (Just observing, not complaining here – admission was free, after all.)

1. We Gave It All Away
2. Miss Young and Naive
3. You’re a Monster
4. All Mixed Up
5. Old Mariann
6. Don’t Wanna Go Home
7. Valentine (Is Just a Reason to Get Drunk)
8. Who Am I Fooling?
9. Harry’s Got to Go
10. Who’s Pretending
11. The Last Song About You (for This Time)
12. Jolene

Zum Glück hatte ich meine Karte vorab online bestellt und so einen Platz in der zweiten Reihe (von vorne ebenso wie von hinten) Mitte bekommen. Das Konzert fand im Plattenladen The Record Collector statt, wo etwa 45 Klappstühle sowie weiter hinten noch ein paar Stehplätze. Zuerst galt es das Vorprogramm zu überstehen. Erin Hill zupfte auf faszinierende Weise auf ihrer Harfe herum und sang mal schön, mal opernhaft. Einer der keltischen Folksongs klang sogar ziemlich gut. Ansonsten gab es anfangs reichlich Cover-Songs, ehe sie in der zweiten Hälfte “psychedelic scifi erin hill songs” spielte. Ich war froh über meinen Mountain Dew-Konsum, weil die Mucke viel zu abgefahren für mich klang. Als versöhnlichen Schluss gab es noch den Eröffnungssong der Fernsehserie Dollhouse (“What You Don’t Know”), den Hill zusammen mit Komponist Eric Bazilian vortrug.

Dann hieß es: Bühne frei für Eric, Cliff und Dave! Das Trio stieg mit einem neuen, recht rohen Rocksong ein, der bereits deutlich machte, wohin die musikalische Reise gehen würde. Die Musiker waren zum Greifen nah und ich habe erstmals bei einem Gig einen (1) Ohrstöpsel verwendet, weil das Schlagzeug auf der (von mir aus) rechten Seite einfach zu laut war. Trotz Bestuhlung und gemütlicher Atmosphäre rockten die drei Musiker durch Erics erstes Soloalbum “The Optimist” (wie angekündigt). Das im Laufe von fünf Jahren entstandene Werk wirkte so wesentlich homogener und lebhafter. Eric sah man zwar noch die Reste einer Erkältung an, doch musikalisch war alles bestens. Meine Lieblingslieder der CD waren auch live meine Favoriten (“Hopelessly, Relentlessly”, “Until You Dare”, “U.G.L.Y.”, “Be My Woman”). Zwischendurch gab es neben zahlreichen Anektdoten auch noch spontan die Ursprungsversion von “U.G.L.Y.” und von den Beatles “Do You Want to Know a Secret”. Da Eric und Dave erst wenige Tage vorher mit Proben begonnen und beschlossen hatten, einen Bassisten ins Boot zu holen, war die Show geprägt von Lockerheit. Besonders bei “The Optimist” war das Textchaos herrlich mitanzusehen. Am Ende kam auch noch das berüchtigte “One of Us”-Demo zum Zug. Im Anschluss hatte ich noch das Vergnügen, mich mit amerikanischen Fans, die ich sonst nur von Twitter und E-Mails kannte, über das dortige Fandasein zu unterhalten. Auch amüsant: Eric meinte, John Lilley habe ihm gesagt, er hätte auf Twitter gesehen, dass ich aus Deutschland zum Konzert angereist käme. Tja, ich muss sagen, es war schon ein tolles Erlebnis, mal etwas anderes als “Johnny B”, “All You Zombies” und “Noch ein Lied?” zu hören, zumal die Trio-Besetzung und die intime Atmosphäre dem Ganzen das Sahnehäubchen aufsetzten.

(Bild von meiner Kamera kommt noch; Bild aus der letzten Reihe bei Twitpic)

1. New Song
2. Driving in England
3. Until You Dare
4. Gemini Yo-Yo
5. Bye Bye Baby
6. U.G.L.Y.
7. U.G.L.Y. (original version)
8. When I Was the Man
9. Kid From Outer Space
10. Do You Want to Know a Secret
11. Be My Woman
12. Fiddlesticks
13. Hopelessly, Relentlessly
14. Mind Going Down
15. The Optimist
16. One of Us

Pain of Salvation played in Pratteln at the Z7 yesterday. I must confess that I’m not a big fan of the band’s more recent work. Still, “The Perfect Element Part 1″ remains one of my all-time top 10 albums. A total of four song off that album were on the setlist, so I was indeed thrilled. Additional highlights were the raw “Fandango” with its weird measures and a haunting rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (rather differently arranged than on the DVD recording). The audience was very introverted. The musicians on stage were very extroverted. Daniel Gildenlöw, Johan Hallgren and the new bass player did not compromise but gave 100%. Despite the scarce response from the roughly 300 people present, the concert became a success. The sheer mastery of Gildenlöw as a singer and as a guitarist was mind-bending. Even the heavy noise of certain songs was ripe with contextual emotion. It was pretty hard to decide whether to go along and mosh or to just stand back and be in awe of the action on stage.

In total the band played 110 minutes and given the rarity of superb progressive metal in combination with a passionate live show I enjoyed every single one of them.

1. Used
2. Diffidentia
3. Linoleum
4. Ashes
5. Undertow
6. Falling
7. The Perfect Element
8. Fandango
9. Handful of Nothing
10. Inside
11. If You Wait
12. Nightmist
13. Hallelujah
14. Conditioned
15. Disco Queen

Jonathan Coulton returned to Europe. Last Saturday he played a fantastic concert at the Academy 2 in Dublin, Ireland. I had a splendid time along with 200 Irish people. The audience sang along like there was no tomorrow. We even got an unplanned encore. There just wasn’t a weak moment in the whole show. I wish I could indulge in all the little details and communicate better the awesomeness of JoCo. But I really don’t know where to begin and where to end and how to describe the simple fact that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here’s the setlist:

1. Betty and Me
2. Ikea
3. Shop Vac
4. Code Monkey
5. Better
6. Tom Cruise Crazy
7. Blue Sunny Day
8. Big Bad World One
9. Birdhouse in your Soul
10. Creepy Doll
11. Mr. Fancy Pants
12. I’m Your Moon
13. The Future Soon
14. Skullcrusher Mountain
15. Still Alive
16. Re: Your Brains
17. I Feel Fantastic
18. First of May
19. Sweet Caroline
20. A Talk with George