November 26, 2011

Black & White Berlin

We extended our Berlin visit a little bit, so we had the chance to visit some of the touristic sights such as the Brandenburg Gate and the Pergamon Museum.
I took the opportunity to take some pictures of buildings with my Hipstamatic iPhone app.
Since the weather was good and the sun was shining, I used a black and white film and a lens that emphasized the stark contrasts.











November 23, 2011

Monster Magnet - Live at Huxley's Neue Welt Berlin, 2011-11-21

I have seen Monster Magnet live on last year's regular album release tour at Dock's Club Hamburg.
Although I have been a faithful fan for many years, it was the first Monster Magnet show for me and they did not disappoint! I definetely wanted to see them live again.
I did not expect that it would be so soon, but when I read that they were goin on tour again, this time playing exclusively the entire "Dopes To Infinity Album" - I just had to go!

To be able to watch the show in Berlin added an extra bonus to the whole thing, although I would have loved to see The Magnet at Grosse Freiheit in Hamburg.

Monster Magnet had not promised too much: They indeed performed the entire 'Dopes' album plus a couple of extra hits, such as 'Powertrip' and of course 'Space Lord'.

As this show once more proved, Monster Magnet are one of the most successful and influential bands associated with the so-called underground "stoner rock" scene.

And yet, as I heard tonight yet again, their influences span much further than that scene's foundations in '70s hard rock and metal, delving into space rock, psychedelia, and beyond......







November 22, 2011

Volbeat - Live at Sporthalle Hamburg, 2011-11-16

This was a show to remember. The acoustics were lousy as always at Sporthalle Hamburg, and after Clutch finished their brilliant, but much too short set, Volbeat took more than 45 minutes to finally appear on stage.



And they unleashed a Rock'n'Roll Hurricane! It was Danish Dynamite at it's best!











November 2, 2011

Bob Dylan & Mark Knopfler live at O2 World, Hamburg

This was a show that polarized.
A historic summit had been announced to about 10.000 visitors.
Everyone was amazed at Mark Knopfler's guitar. Of course. And they were right, the Knopfler part of the show was just as everyone expected...except...


....the song selection wasn't. The master rolled out an atmosphere of Irish Folk and Scottish Highlands, rarely looking back at Dire Straits, but 'Sailing To Philadelphia' being the highlight of his performance and closing his 75-minute set with 'Brothers In Arms' and 'So Far Away'.






After the break - a surprise! Mr. Knopfler is back on stage, assisting Mr. Dylan with 'Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat', 'Boots Of Spanish Leather', 'Things Have Changed', 'Man In The Long Black Coat' and 'The Levee's Gonna Break'.



So far, so good.
But when he left the stage and Folk-God Bob Dylan started playing without the guitar of the Dire Straits mastermind by his side, a whole lot of people left the arena, seemingly disgusted by His Bobness slashing his songs to pieces and putting them back together, always searching for the origins of pop music in dirty blues, earthy country and folk.


Waking up from drunken ecstasy after Mark Knopfler's admittedly brilliant performance people seemed to be surprised  that Bob Dylan resists any political or mainstream usurpation. He doesn't need to transform his monotonous growling into notes.


The singer barks through a set of 14 songs that makes it hard to recognize the classics, such as 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' or 'Highway 61 revisited'.

For the finale nothing special comes out of Bob Dylan's repertoire, he shreds 'All Along The Watchtower' and 'Like A Rolling Stone' as if he was trying to end those wonderful songs as soon as possible, kind of like adding fresh water and fertilizer to Jimi Hendrix' versions of them.

On The way out I could still hear people cursing. I really wonder why. If you want to hear 'Blowing In The Wind', you should stick to Joan Baez anyway.

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