“Guten Abend. Wir sind die Pet Shop Boys.”
• Pet Shop Boys live in Germany
After 15 years of brief acquaintance, I decided it was time to meet in person.
Their show was one of the best gigs I’ve seen so far. They picked up the Gerhard Richter inspired cube elements from Farrow’s artwork for their latest album and leapt with it into the third dimension. Great entertainment.
But there’s another aspect of that evening that amazed me. What I really loved about the PSB is to which extent they don’t take themselves seriously at all while being very self-conscious about it. To me, this felt more authentic than most musicians who try to act all serious. Achieving this might be the crux of pop music.
Both PSB entered the stage with two dancers, all of them hiding their heads within a cube and played/sang the whole first song holding the microphone to its front side. There is no other band I can think of that could pull off something like they did without feeling ridiculous.
After the show was over, a single song was played as tribute to the recently passed away King of Pop: You Are Not Alone. Pure pop magic.
Boing Boom Tschak
• Kraftwerk live in Wolfsburg
I’ve already seen Kraftwerk live three years ago at a festival. Their setlist didn’t change much, but they played the songs differently this time. Not like a Jazz combo that does an improvisation. It was more about fine-tuning the samples and experimenting with parameters. The songs were perfectly recognizable and still it was fun to discover all the tiny variations.
For the second half of the show, the security passed out 3D glasses and the visuals advanced into the third dimension. It was an amazing experience.
Kraftwerk managed to surprise and impress me again — even though I thought I knew exactly what to expect.
More photos on my Flickr.
Like a Rolling Stone
• Bob Dylan at Messehalle Erfurt, April 2nd 2009
I had the great opportunity to experience BD in concert two days ago. It was an amazing gig and I was deeply moved long after I left.
