Christina Stürmer - Dortmund 2009

Westfalenhalle 2, Dortmund, Germany
27th May 2009
Christina Stürmer, Herbstrock
Herbstrock

Over six years ago the band members met somewhere in Austria and decided henceforth to enrich the world with their music and lyrics and earned a reputation of being a unique and real band that made its first and successful step into the public with their debut album ‘Ende:Gut’. In the following time, they were touring with the likes of ICH+ICH or AMY MCDONALD. The second album, ‘Die bessere Hälfte’, will be officially released in Germany on 12th June 2009. HERBSTROCK is Anna Müller (vocals, guitar), Paul Wallner (guitar, programming), Mathias Dajeff (bass) and Sebastian Vogt (drums).  http://herbstrock.at/ / http://www.myspace.com/herbstrock



Music & Performance
It was the first German tour for the young Austrian band HERBSTROCK and so far they were pretty much excited about the German audience. And also in Dortmund the “warm-up” band met with quite a responsive audience that was just to wiling to follow any orders they were given by the sympathetic band led by front woman Anna Müller. Despite a little cold, she still had enough power to dance happily over the stage. On her left and right, the guitar and bass player had found their place and followed in line. Especially Paul Wallner fully merged in his performance and had a few adventurous moves in stock for us. The band’s style can be properly described as catchy pop/rock with an indie flavour. The bandwidth spanned more solemn tunes just like the opening track ‘So ist das eben’ and ‘Klar’ or more powerful tunes such as the partly pretty gloomy ‘Kopf durch Wand’ or the “ankle check” tune ‘Um dein Leben’. Tracks were taken from both albums ‘Ende:Gut’ and ‘Die bessere Hälfte’ the latter of which hasn’t even been released in Germany.



At the end of the set, after the stunt pose on the closing song, the audience was so enthusiastic they called for an encore. They surely got a few new fans that evening and as for me I found it was a highly entertaining performance by a very sympathetic band.

Setlist
01. Intro / So ist es eben
02. Herz lauf!
03. Keine Zeit
04. Auf, Ab und dann
05. Klar
06. Kopf durch Wand
07. Sag mir wie viel davon
08. Wenn ich nur wüsste wie
09. Um dein Leben
10. Die bessere Hälfte

Rating
Music: 6
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 6.9 / 10




Christina Stürmer

In 2003 Austrian native CHRISTINA STÜRMER participated in a contest, named Starmania and made #2 with her performed song. That was practically the start of her career which would first only happen in Austria. But with the re-worked single ‘Ich lebe’ and the following album ‘Schwarz Weiss’ she had her break through in Germany as well. End of 2005 she then would embark on a successful tour through Germany and Switzerland. In April 2006 she would return to Austria and release a new single ‘Nie Genug’ that enters the Austrian Single Charts directly on #1 followed by a tour in May. In September 2006 her new and third album ‘Lebe lauter’ was simultaneously released in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and gained top chart placements again. After releasing an acoustic album with ‘Laut-Los’ in April 2008 her newest regular full-length, called ‘In dieser Stadt’ was released on 27th March 2009. http://www.christinaonline.at/ / http://www.myspace.com/stuermerchristina



Music & Performance
It was about time! And to make this unmistakably clear loud choirs hailed from the crowd towards the stage. It was obvious that the audience tonight mainly consisted of long-time fans… and me only knowing a couple of songs and never been attending one of her shows so far. Then street noise, machines and stuff sounded and the time had come to pull the ear plugs back where they belong. It was the intro and the entrance melody for the band and as Christina as the last one came up on stage deafening applause filled the air and the title track of the current album ‘In dieser Stadt’ opened the set with a nicely danceable number and continued with ‘Dieser Tag’ from the same album. And right from the start Christina was jumping and dancing on stage and convinced with strong and clean vocals that never even lost a little smack of their power during the show and of course while performing energetic songs. ‘Ist mir egal’ would be such an example or ‘Bus durch London’, an older number that hasn’t been played in Germany yet.



In the calmer moments during more intense and slow songs as ‘Bleib hier’ or ‘Mama Ana Ahabak’, her voice took on that brittle, soulful shape which most definitely sent shivers down an awful lot of spine and made people hold their breath or swing their lighters. In some cases everyone sang along to these songs so that even in that pretty huge hall an intimate atmosphere could be created. As get-out track of the main set ‘Ich lebe’ was chosen and Christine was right with her statement that most likely everyone knew this song inside-out. Well, not me but I knew the song of course. It’s redundant to say that the crowd didn’t want to leave already after the band had left the stage. So they clapped and clapped and cheered until they returned and spoiled them with another four songs, including ‘Ohne dich’ and ‘Niemals hoffnungslos’.



After 25 songs, the show was over and left nothing but happiness in the faces of everyone you saw and one has to say they had every reason for that. The show was entertaining, energetic and spiked with humour here and there.

Setlist
01. In dieser Stadt
02. Dieser Tag
03. Unsere besten Tage
04. Nie Genug
05. Nicht mehr weit
06. Mehr als perfekt
07. Scherbenmeer
08. Ist mir egal
09. Bus durch London
10. Im Kreis
11. Bleib hier
12. Mama
13. Glücklich
14. Wir sein
15. Schwarz Weiss
16. Jetzt danke ich dir
17. Lebe lauter
18. Jedes Wort
19. Radio
20. Sommertage
21. Ich lebe
---
22. Um bei dir zu sein
23. Ohne Dich
24. Niemals Hoffnungslos
25. Engel fliegen einsam

Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 7.6 / 10





All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)

{jos_sb_discuss:17}