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introF-Haus, Jena, Germany
15th March 2014
Robert Enforsen

Robert Enforsen was the voice of ELEGANT MACHINERY. The sound of the Swedish band was influenced in the early years by electronic bands like DEPECHE MODE, HUMAN LEAGUE and YAZOO. The debut album, ‘Degraded Faces’, was released more than 20 years ago, starting point of a career as one of the finest bands in Synth Pop. After a split in 1998/1999, the band reunited in 2005 and released with ‘A soft exchange’ a new album in 2008. Two singles and several live performances later, ELEGANT MACHINERY was again put to rest in 2011. Robert is also known as singer of several synth and electro pop projects like HYPE, their great album ‘Desperately Yours’ from 2006 unfortunately never had a follow-up. In his solo appearance in Jena he used to play songs not only from ELEGANT MACHINERY, but also two songs from HYPE on stage.


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Music & Performance
With some lateness, Robert came in a good mood on stage and opened the evening with ‘Shattered grounds’. To the delight of all the fans the setlist included all the greatest hits from ELEGANT MACHINERY like ‘Love to cry’, ‘Process’ or ‘Black Town’ and of course ‘Save me’. He also sang two songs from HYPE - ‘Bounce’ and ‘Winterday’. The audience loved them all and did not hesitate to sing along most of the songs. When it was time to leave the stage, Robert suggested to simply leave out the part where the audience screams for encore. Finally he sang “Save me” - actually a nice graduation, but Robert was wrong, when he thought the people would let him go after the last song - everyone shouted to get more. Of course he came back on stage and played one more song from HYPE - ‘Winterday’.

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Regarding the fact, that a typical synth band is appearing on stage with two keyboardists and a singer, seeing Robert standing alone on stage was a bit weird in the first place. But honestly, keyboardists from synth bands in most cases do not play all the parts of the whole song live. Rather than that, most of the sounds are coming from a backing track and one or another melody is played by the person behind the synth. But the real live experience for the audience comes by singing and performing and Robert managed professionally this leap between sound and singing, even though the sound broke three times during the concert. The first time it happened while playing ‘Myself with you’ but Robert took it calmly and entertained the audience unceremoniously a capella. At the 3rd time, one of the fans even gave the keynote for ‘Feel the silence’. During the performance Robert came repeatedly from stage and posed with some girls for photos.

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Obviously, Robert used to have some lessons in German drinking manners, because several times he raised his wine glass in a toast with the phrase ‘Hau weg die Scheiße!’

Setlist
01. Shattered Grounds (eM)
02. Myself With You (eM)
03. Strange Behaviour (eM)
04. Entwined (eM)
05. Hard To Handle (eM)
06. Black Town (eM)
07. Process (eM)
08. Blind Man Dreams (eM)
09. Is This The Way (eM)
10. Repressive Thoughts (eM)
11. Fading Away (eM)
12. Restrain (eM)
13. Bounce (Hype)
14. Watching You (eM)
15. With Grace (eM)
16. Flag Of Truce (eM)
17. Love To Cry (eM)
18. Safety In Mind (eM)
19. Feel The Silence (eM)
20. Save Me (eM)
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21. Winterday (Hype)

Rating
Music 9
Performance 7
Sound 7
Light 8
Total 7.8 / 10

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All pictures by Anja Steinbiß (www.fotografie-koethen.de

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