Live Review: Schneewittchen - Berlin 2012

Written by Amrei Sander Sunday, 06 May 2012 16:24

Grüner Salon, Volksbühne, Berlin, Germany
27th April 2012
Schneewittchen

SCHNEEWITTCHEN is one of the most interesting German alternative bands. Marianne Isar (vocals) and Thomas Duda (instrumentals) started to make music together in Hildesheim in 1996 using simply their names as a band name. In 2000, they choose the name SCHNEEWITTCHEN (snow white), a name of an old German fairy tale, for their band project. They mix successfully elements of very different styles, and as per their own disclosure, they are influenced both by the classical German songs written by Schubert and Schumann and by the French chanson, but also by Punk and other styles. When SCHNEEWITTCHEN was still simply “Marianne Isar & Thomas Duda”, they used to play at cabarets, but after a few years they changed and started to perform at concert halls, music festivals and street fests, gaining in popularity every year. www.schneewittchenmusik.de

Music & Performance
SCHNEEWITTCHEN played at 27th April 2012 their first gig in Berlin since 2010. They presented in the only half full Grüner Salon their program some of their new songs and many of their already classical works. SCHNEEWITTCHEN’s fan community consists of very different people. I’ve seldom seen such a mixed audience: many older guests, most of them seemed to belong to the regular public of the Volksbühne, sitting together with younger and older gothic people, because the concert was provided with seats. SCHNEEWITTCHEN didn’t have a support band and appeared at the stage very punctual, walking through the seats of the public. Marianne entered the room dressed in a white wedding dress adorned with red roses, whereas Thomas was dressed in red and black. She began the concert with ‘Jenseits von Gut und Böse’ (Far away from Good and Evil). After this song, she said that she was glad to be in this “little sweet provincial village”.



She started to head-bang and performed with a lot of passion ‘Ohne Liebe’ (Without Love). Her voice was powerful and beautiful modulated, and she was nicely accompanied by Thomas, who played both keyboard and piano and made the background vocals. The audience was fascinated, but it took some time until SCHNEEWITTCHEN inflamed the people. ‘Gemeinsam untergehn’ (Going to the Ground together) was really heart-breaking, showing all the capacity of her voice and oscillating between passion and despair, wonderful accompanied by Thomas at the Bechstein piano. SCHNEEWITTCHEN didn’t stop to make some sarcastic remarks about Berlin. Before they performed their fifth song, ‘Kaltes (cold) Hannover’, Thomas said that he preferred to be there (in Hannover) than in this “12 villages of Brandenburg unified to the capital”. Marianne cried out the loneliness of a lost African woman in the cold Hannover, and even her performance seemed to be frozen, until she got into some kind of madness. When Marianne danced together with the public singing ‘Verbrannte Kinder’ (Burned Children), SCHNEEWITTCHEN had finally captivated the listeners. Then, Marianne started to distribute nappies for adults and dedicated the next song, a “song against the fear”, to all the nurses and carers for the elderly. “Enjoy your body pieces whereas you have them” she cried, and the very emotional song did get up people from their seats.



After a break of twenty minutes, Marianne reappeared wearing a red flamenco dress. SCHNEEWITTCHEN presented an older song, ‘Komm wir ritzen uns die Adern’ (Come, let us scratch our veins) , and she managed to motivate most of the people to dance spontaneously. Their next song, virtuously interpreted by the artists, was ‘Ich liebe dich’ (I love you). ‘Rosengarten’ (Rose garden) was a passionate song about past luck and hurt, and she interpreted it with a mixture of anger and pain. One of SCHNEEWITTCHEN’s evergreens is ‘Sadistisch’ (Sadistic), a ballad about a masochistic woman; Marianne performed the song with long artificial silver nails, and people danced enthusiastically. After that and before her next song, she spoke some words about traditional roles for women and about expectations for women to be nice, amusing and weak. SCHNEEWITTCHEN played also ‘Perlen vor die Säue’ (Pearls for Swine) and Marianne threw her pearl necklaces to the listeners, like at the BKA two years ago. After 15 songs, SCHNEEWITTCHEN made a break and Marianne reappeared dressed in a transparent dress adorned with gold ornaments. People listened ecstatically to her beautiful and delicate voice when she sung ‘Der Tod hat sich in sie verliebt’ (The Dead Did Fall In Love With Her). SCHNEEWITTCHEN finished their performance with ‘Du mußt an Dich glauben’.



Although I have seen some really nice concerts from this highly interesting alternative music project, I must confess this was really the nicest one. I never have seen such an ecstatic audience and SCHNEEWITTCHEN did give it all: power, passion and technical perfection. The concert can be named as a real success. One likeable detail should be narrated here: Marianne and Thomas mingled under the public after the concert, talking very friendly and without any airs and graces to the people, autographing CDs and letting people take pictures with them. Extraordinary!

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 9 / 10

Pictures by Amrei Sander