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Alte Feuerwache, Mannheim, Germany
9th October 2008
ASP

After the spectacular unplugged tour with Chamber, ASP seemed to return to normal live shows. Just in the moment they released their new album, a new tour was pronounced. With the wonderful name “Dunkelromantische Herbstabende - Von Zaubererbrüdern, schwarzen Schmetterlingen und anderen Nachtgestalten" (Dark romantic autumn nights - of enchanters, black butterflies and other night figures) it was going to be a highlight this autumn. All shows of this special tour were sold out. So I knew I had to hurry to the location. I was a little bit late and as I turned around the street corner I saw a long line of waiting people. The concert room was filled up with chairs, but still big enough for a stage and huge background banners. There were some guests dressed up very elegant. This fits the theme of the evening very well. I wished there would have been more of them.

ASP was formed in 1999 by Alexander Spreng (ASP himself) and Matthias Ambré (Matze). Until now they released six fulltime albums. First there was the trilogy of the black butterfly (‘Hast Du mich vermisst?’, ‘Duett’, ‘Weltunter’). The following albums ‘Aus der Tiefe’ and ‘Requiembryo’ already showed the immense talent of ASP in writing special lyrics and creating strange worlds, sounds and impressions. With ‘Zaubererbruder - Der Krabat-Liederzyklus’ he took the folk tale of the devils mill and wrote his own version of the story. In order to wake up the story he got the help of the well known live musicians Tossi (bass, backing vocal) and Oliver Himmighoffen (live drummer). For this special tour there were some additional instruments played by Ally Storch-Hukriede (violin), Sylvia Eulitz (cello) Thomas Zöller (Scottish small pipes, border pipes and great highland bagpipe) and Carlos Serrano del Rio (percussions). http://www.thetalesofasp.com/



Music & Performance:
In my concert preview I wrote: “…It will be an evening you could never be dreaming of and which you will never forget…”. It was all of this and so much more. I have to be honest, I expected a perfect evening and I got it. All musicians took their part to make it such perfect. Right from the start there was a warm atmosphere in the whole room. ASP entered the stage already smiling and this immediately swept over to the audience. ASP himself was dressed up very elegantly with boots, a long coat and a triangle hat. He had a text book with him. Matze and Tossi took their places right beside ASP. The women stood a little bit higher behind Matze and the men stood behind Tossi. The drums were placed in the middle. Behind them all, there was a huge background picture out of the “Krabat” booklet. There were some additional pictures projected at the left wall.



At the beginning ASP welcomed the audience in a very formal way. He told a little bit about the beginning of this album. The songs of the “Krabat” story were broken up with some former hits. He took songs, which could be changed for acoustic versions. Although each part of this evening contained ten songs it seemed to last only a few minutes. The time was running out of the normal. Especially ‘Stille der Nacht’ and (of course) ‘Die Ballade von der Erweckung’ created this feeling of being taken out and put into another world. Not only with this two songs, ASP proofed again his huge talent and his incredible voice. Tossi also sang very well. Most of all I was impressed by the perfect teamwork of all musicians. ‘Die Ballade von der Erweckung’ was the longest song of the setlist and Ally just looked twice at her notes. She played the whole song nearly with closed eyes. Also the percussions and the cello created the impressing musical background for ASP’s voice. When they reached ‘Abschied’ in the first part of the concert, ASP told about some critics, who wrote, that this song sounds like some well known other songs. So he took parts of another song in his live version. I’m not sure about all, but I knew ‘Sympathy for the devil’, ‘Let me entertain you’ and ‘The look’.



Although the new songs were not played in the order of the album, the second part of the evening showed the way to the end of the story. The ‘Spottlied auf die harten Wanderjahre’ was one of the highlights of this part. Matze played a pink acoustic guitar (it contained a “Hello Kitty” stamp…) and Carlos played the percussion parts sitting on and playing on the box. At the album ASP sings ‘Zauberbruder’ in a duet with Eric Fish (SUBWAY TO SALLY). Now, the second voice was added by Tossi and he did his job very good. There was some kind of red thread running through the whole evening. Between the songs ASP sang with the audience “ja, ja, dreimal Hurra”, which is a line out of ‘Der geheimnisvolle Fremde’. The whole song came just at the end of the second part and was followed by the warm and sad end of the album ‘Das Ende’. After that the musicians expressed their thanks to the audience and left the stage with all instruments. So this should be the end of the evening?



No, it wasn’t! Nobody thought that. All guests were expecting some encores. After just a little break they all returned and ASP had changed his clothes. Now he wore a top hat and a tailcoat. When somebody in the audience shouted “Take off! Take off!” he answered that it was so hard to change the clothes quickly, he will not take them off. It showed again his good mood and his satisfaction. In a total opposition to the first parts of the evening, the encore was ‘Variety Obscure’. It is a special music and of course, it is wonderful, but something different in comparison with “Krabat”. The second part of the encore was filled with their biggest hits ‘Und wir tanzten’ and ‘Ich will brennen’. In my opinion the last song was only one, which should have not been played. Yes, it is a huge hit. Yes, the fans love this song and they even wanted to hear it this evening, but it didn’t fit this special evening. All in all this could not change my impression of this perfect concert. I felt only sad, because I could not visit another station of the tour. There were no tickets left.

Setlist
01. Betteljunge
02. Beschwörung
03. Krabat
04. Die Teufelsmühle
05. Stille der Nacht
06. Wolfsspuren
07. Denn ich bin der Meister
08. Ballade von der Erweckung
09. Nie mehr
10. Abschied
- break -
11. De profundis
12. The last Love Song
13. Biotopia
14. Der Schnitter Tod
15. Spottlied auf die harten Wanderjahre
16. Zaubererbruder
17. Me
18. Minnelied der Incubi
19. Der geheimnisvolle Fremde
20. Das Ende
---
21. Varieté Obscur
22. Werben
---
23. Und wir tanzten
24. Ich will brennen

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 10
Light: 9
Total: 9.8 / 10



All pictures by Madlen Köhn
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