Backstage @Free & Easy Festival, Munich, Germany7th August 2014
Schöngeist
About a week ago in Munich there ended the traditional Free & Easy festival and judging by its name one can guess that it’s really free and rather easy allowing people to have a good time and enjoy good music for 17 days. Yes, that sounds cool but we’d better focus on one day and even on one show to give you a brief idea what it looked like without extra useless information. So on a rainy Thursday all fans of heavy riffs, great sound and gothic atmosphere could see three different bands on one stage. VLAD IN TEARS that opened the whole thing turned out to be an interesting project with high quality metal music which sometimes reminded me of BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. The musicians had made an excellent show and in general produced a fairly good impression.
Another project which charged the audience with the same powerful energy and also demonstrated a high professionalism was DARKHAUS. That was a nice experience to see the band live onstage as they did just a great job. The common thing between these two formations is not only the ability to play an impressive show but also lyrics in English, some mainstream elements and commercial, in a good way, songs. There was one more band that didn’t share the similarity with the lyrics in German and a rather different sound and actually the main reason to attend to event – SCHÖNGEIST. The project was formed in 2006 by Timur Karakus and united really talented musicians so the current line-up is Timur Karakus (vocals), Henriette Becker (violin), Daniel Beutner (guitar), Michael Hirschberger (guitar), Andreas Socher (bass), Manuel Di Camillo (drums). As for the band’s music it depends on what you want to here and varies from gothic to sympho and industrial yet basically it’s rock. http://www.schoengeist-musik.de / https://www.facebook.com/pages/SCHÖNGEIST/146222891222
Music & Performance
Of course, it’s better to see one concert yourself than read several reviews and this is true about any band. However it’s just impossible to be everywhere so let’s get down to business. The second show of SCHÖNGEIST that I managed to visit seemed to be an absolutely different comparing to the previous one: more powerful, more moving and heartfelt and even swifter as the set had passed in no time. However the setlist was the same and it started with ‘Traumtanz’ and then almost without a pause there came other songs mostly from the band’s latest album ‘Wehe!’ yet they were diluted with three compositions off the second release ‘Keine Zeit’ and that was a real pleasure to listen to the eponymous track performed live. Definitely there was no time to lose in order to get as much impressions as possible. The stage was relatively small so that wasn’t a problem to see everything going there. The band was so absorbed with the gig that it seemed the musicians didn’t even notice anything around them and simply had fun playing their music however the frontman didn’t forget about the audience that also enjoyed the gig to the full and supported every track with screams and applause.
After strong yet soulful ‘Zusammen allein’ almost all the musicians left the stage; “almost” because the drummer stayed and his wonderful solo began. Come to thinking of it that must be the third drum solo I’ve ever seen and the most positive one as well as expressive and interesting to watch and to listen to. After such a pleasant break the concert continued and the musicians hit the stage again with the vocalist wearing a cap to perform ‘Wieder’ that looked unexpected and cool. Then everything went on in a usual way with two beautiful and fascinating ‘Lebe’ and ‘Wehe!’. And that time as the finale there was played well-known and one of the best-loved ‘Sonne der Nacht’. Well, everything good finishes sooner or later but I guess I’ll begin to like such club concerts without pomposity, special effects when there only musicians playing simple, but moving music are enough to produce an unforgettable impression and make you want more.
Setlist
01. Traumtanz
02. Tief!
03. Kenne mich
04. Keine Zeit
05. Auge um Auge
06. Zusammen allein
07. Drumsolo
08. Wieder
09. Lebe
10. Wehe!
11. Sonne der Nacht
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 9
Light: 8
Total: 9.3 / 10
All pictures by Viki Callisto & Nataly Night
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