Finally, on the 23. November, the day had come and the „Concert of the Year“, as preassigned from me, took place in Berlin. Thereby the three well-known bands Kowalski, Alt-J and of course Two Door Cinema Club were doing the honours. Here are my collected experiences from the evening.
Arrived at the venue, the ‚Astra Kulturhaus‘, I was quite surprised. From the outside it looked like a scrapped shack, which was located in any backyard. But due to its centrality and the several graffiti’s you kind of got the typical feeling from the scene in Berlin. After the entry the apriori bad impression from the location wasn’t proved. In the end the venue turned oute to be a really nice, casual and small hall for the concert.

While going into the venue you already heard the first support of the evening, which was the unbelievable likeable band Kowalski. With their short rehearsal they gave the last fine-tuning to their performance afterwards, for which you just needed just to wait half an hour. I was really excited for their gig. Due to the fact, that there drummer is the big brother of Kevin Baird, who is the bass guitarist of Two Doors, the band members and their songs are well-known for me. The performance of the 4 group members was absolutely brilliant. Although the music was partly too loud, their sound came over perfectly. Thereby they fascinated especially with their really harmonic awesome music, filled with good, but sometimes also melancholic, temper. A striking lead-guitar, idyllic and dreamy basslines and synthesizers, a smart beat and of course the fantastic voice from the singer ensures a really impressive sound in each of their songs. After the concert I didn’t miss the opportunity of presenting one of my business cards and taking this absolutely great photo with them. In a small chat with the singer Louis Price I also got to know that they will probably release an album in 2013 and will go on tour (hopefully also in Germany!).
I’m really curious how the career of these guys will go on. A sweeping success in our or in the music business of Europe would be desirable.

After a short break for rebuilding, it was the time for the next band Alt-J. At the moment these guys are unbelievably hyped in the UK and won the ‚Mercury Price‘ for theire current album ‚An Awesome Wave‘ recently. There sound was quite experimental, but especially the particular elements in the chorus and on the refrain sounded really harmonic and were really catchy. Therefore I preferred the performance of the songs ‚Dissolve Me‘ and ‚Tessellate‘ most.
The sound in between of the song parts was quite choppy. This unexpected sound underwhelmed me. Moreover it leveled down the dynamic, which was perfectly produced by the electric drums before. Despite the bass, which was too overmodulated right at the beginning, also the singing didn’t catch me, because it was too quiet. You could not hear any word the singer was singing, which was really bad. The band gave everything and the whole performance was specially passionated. Also the crowd was blown away and was going mental.

However, let me now come to the main-act of the evening Two Door Cinema Club. First of all it must be stated out that there was nothing to complain about on their performance. The sound was absolutely brilliant and also the lights were awesome. With that and with the unbelievable mass of people they could have filled a bigger location than that. At the moment this is also a first critical point. All in all there were just too many people there and you couldn’t really move anymore, even if you were standing on the side. It was a huge feat of strength to see anything and I felt this still many days after the concert. Without that you could have enjoyed the concert more and it would have been more fun.
Nevertheless the guy’s performance was really spectacular. They mostly played the more popular songs, although every song of them is a top hit. In between the songs they could have communicated even more with the audience, then the concert would have not been over that fast. ;) Moreover it is really sad that they didn’t come out or rather that this was not foreseeable, because of a huge fence. But maybe I’ll get my autographs and photos with them in the next time and I’m really glad that I got the awesome shot with Kowalski!

In conclusion the concert fulfilled all of my expectations. It gave me the possibility to make myself sure of their great live-potential, although this was already clear to me, because of several live-performances I’ve watched on television or the internet. ;)

Photo