BlaBlubbBlog

One of the last evenings I could not fall asleep and instead of turning around from side to side for a few hours, I grabbed the laptop and looked around a bit on lyricwiki. Specifically I was looking for lyrics of Vökuró (a track from the 2004 album Medúlla of Björk). Found it, they have a decent selection there actually. But what caught my eye was an earlier album then the Debut from 1993, namely Gling-Gló. I must admit that I am not such a huge aficionado that I would have her bio-/discography memorised. So I read up at Wikipedia and the description sounded very interesting: Jazz. Björk? Alright. Need that. Now.

When the guys from Nightwish announced that they would cease working with Tarja Turunen last year (was it really last year?), the world was in shock. Well, not really. But Nightwish without Tarja? And what would she do? Well, this time I will only talk about the last question. She went off to do her own thing. Which in this case means asking for song-writers to send her material. And every good (and bad) album needs an associated tour of course. So when I read that she was playing in Berlin (interestingly I saw that in the discussion thread of the Nightwish concert which takes place next year in Berlin) I kind of felt obliged to go there too. After all, I do like her voice a lot.

Nonetheless I was quite sceptical. Not from the technical part, mind you. She can sing, no arguments here. But if the material is not good, the best voice cannot make it good. So I got one of the single versions of I walk alone and still wasn't convinced. It is a decent song, yes. But nothing too special. And the other song that is on the EP, Ciarán's Well, is rather mediocre, heavy, okay, but without soul.

A while ago I had a discussion about memorable (favourite) Beatles songs. And 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' was high in the charts there. My personal favourite probably still is 'Nowhere Man', but yes, WMGGW is an amazingly good song, no arguments there. Recently I have been looking for that song on YouTube, actually I have been looking for the ukulele version of it played by Jake Shimabukuro, which I have been pointed to a couple of years ago (cannot remember anymore by whom). Of course it is to be found there, so enjoy the ukulele version:

The Columbia Club is jinxed. The last time I had tickets for a concert there, it got canceled. And this time, well, Opeth originally was supposed to play there. Two hours before the concert – that is 30 minutes before I wanted to leave for the S-Bahn – I checked their website again, for no specific reason, just had some time to kill. And there it says: Concert in Berlin moved to a bigger venue. Aha. Good that I had a look. So once more I did not get to see the Columbia Club.

But as it turned out, it is actually easier to go to the venue it was moved to: the Postbahnhof. I just have to get on the S-Bahn and it goes straight there. Useful. The concert was scheduled to start at 21:00, I arrived forty minutes earlier to have some time to check out the merchandise material and maybe have a drink. It took me 15 minutes waiting in the queue in front of the cloakroom (actually, the cloak-tent, more ranting on that later) to get in and so I had only a few moments before starting to get to nice spot close to the stage.

Tristania is one of those bands I only stumbled upon by accident. I read a remark in a recension at Amazon that mentioned Tristinia as being something better than what the guy was writing about (forgot which album he was actually discussing). So I had a look, saw the cover of the World of Glass and just ordered it. I was hooked by the sound immediately and also got my hands on the older albums Widow's Weed and Beyond the Veil. That was somewhen in 2002. At that point Morten Veland, who – next to Einar Moen – was writting the songs, had already left Tristania and started to form his own band, Sirenia.

Eher zufällig bin ich auf Talis gestoßen, aus irgendwelchen Gründen habe ich bei den Babyblauen Seiten eine Rezension gelesen und mir dann auch direkt mal die Samples runtergeladen. Nach ein wenig Einwirkungszeit (und hauptsächlich wegen 'A gentle place') habe ich dann am 23.03., wie auf der Bestellseite beschrieben, Gnuarghl (sehr schönes Pseudonym!) eine Mail geschrieben, daß ich die CD doch gerne hätte. Kurz drauf kam dann schon die Antwort mit der Kontoverbindung, wohin man die 15€ (fairer Preis) doch überweise solle. Also flugs überwiesen und am 27.03. lag die CD auch schon im Briefkasten, prima!

Leider leider, und um das nochmal zu sagen, leider fiel das 'the Gathering' Konzert am Samstag aus. Also, alle Konzerte im April und Mai sind abgesagt worden, da die Sängerin krank ist. Naja. Kann man nichts machen (außer die Karten zurückschicken, was ich unbedingt morgen machen muß). Aber nachdem der Besuch dann ja trotz des ausgefallenen Konzertes gekommen ist, haben wir nach etwas anderem gesucht, das man am Samstag ansehen könnte.

Dabei sind wir auf Värttinä gestoßen, die im Palais der Kulturbrauerei spielten. Die sagten mir so rein garnichts, aber das Internet ist ja immer griffbereit und die Webseite der Band ist auch recht ergiebig, was Soundbeispiele angeht (und sogar Videos). Das klang alles recht vielversprechend und interessant, also haben wir uns entschlossen, hinzugehen.