10 May 2012

Three Shows in Three Weeks


April 17th, 2012 Boy and Bear – Roter Salon
April 23rd, 2012 Manel – Lido
May 2nd, 2012 Foster the People – Columbiahalle

Like any well rounded person, I try to include a variety of cultural offerings and the previous three weeks were no exception. Within the boundaries of Berlin I heard a band from Australia, Cataluña and Los Angeles. Let’s begin
Boy & Bear / Boy & Guitars

Boy and Bear – okay the Roter Salon is a lovely venue and reminded me of San Francisco places like the Great American Music Hall and the Regency Ballroom. Off to the side of Volksbuhne, it had decent acoustics and that small, living room feel that makes for a great indie show. The crowd was about 99% Aussie, and so therefore loudly drunk. I didn’t realize I knew this band (Bronwen invited me and I excepted on the “free ticket” premise) until they played “Mexican Mavis” with was featured on the SXSW 2011 sampler which you can download on itunes.  Let’s call them very very Fleet Foxish.  They are also a non-encore band, who just announces they don’t do encores and play another song without leaving the stage. Lead singer told the story of people waiting around for ages at their last show waiting for an encore and he felt bad…well obviously not bad enough to play a few more songs! I thought it was old when the Supersuckers did that.
I have no idea what he's singing

Manel – Heard about this band from an Andalusian coworker, who sent me these links to entice me, note the awesome Pulp cover.  And also, he told me “Estos chicos cantan en Catalan, pero son majos! Yo tampoco los entiendo!!” so off to see a Catalan band that I most certainly won't understand. Now Lido was packed with more Spaniards per square meter than I’ve ever seen in Berlin, and I’ve been to Gorlitzer Park on a Sunday. What impressed me most was the mandolin and (no shit) an oboe incorporated into their version of melodic folk pop. Reminds me a bit of my favorite bit of 70s psych folk, Secos e Molhados.  Not-annoyingly-earnest vocals backed by sweeping melodies and solid musicianship.
ohmygod is it really you mark?

Foster the People – At the pinnacle of my recent show experiences. Now I was pretty bummed when they moved it from Astra Kulturhaus (leaky concrete box) to Columbiahalle (sweaty concrete box with crap acoustics). Now about fifty critics described their album Torches as the soundtrack to summer…but it is! Beautifully danceable electro-pop with catchy-as-hell lyrics. but the band live, oh live… the frontman, Mark Foster, has that break dancing, all over the sweaty stage charisma that makes live shows 10 million times better than listening on your ipod.  The most touching moment was when he brought a brace-eted skinny teen girl on stage, who was brandishing a sign that said “We love Mark!” (there are two in the band). He asked her how many people she was with, and brought her 3 girlfriends and one guy friend onto the stage too.  He asked the to stay on stage and dance with them to this song, and she just kept mouthing “Ohmygod!” while awkwardly keeping time. I’m sure it was the highlight of her 13th year, just as pogoing crazily to “Call It What You Want” was the highlight of my May.