Freiheiz, Munich, Germany
22nd March 2011
Alphaville
Tuesday it was finally time to see ALPHAVILLE back on stage! After all the years I was already very curious how the band would sound like now… In 1981, the German Synth-Pop band was founded by Marian Gold and Bernhard Lloyd as an artist's group under the name NELSON COMMUNITY. Then in 1983, the band was renamed after the film of the same name by Jean-Luc Godard into ALPHAVILLE.
Already their first single ‘Big in Japan’ became a hit in 1984. Other hits followed in the same year like ‘Sounds Like A Melody’ and ‘Forever Young’ from their debut album of the same name. Till 1997 they published another four albums which could not connect, however, all to the success of their first album. After long 13 years in which it was relatively quietly around ALPHAVILLE, their album ‘Catching Rays On Giant’ which reached place 9 in the German album charts appeared on 19th November 2010. www.alphaville.de
Music & Performance
Shortly after 8:00pm, Keyboarder Martin Lister, Dave Goodes (guitar), Jakob Kirsch (drums) who sat enthroned with his instruments high above the stage and Maja Kim (bass) appeared on stage. Then completely at the end, singer Marian Gold joined the rest of the band. From the very start, the musicians had won the spectators for them and the mood was very good. The audience was quite mixed: From the fans from the early days of the band up to quite young listeners everything existed. Also nice were the sometimes turning big mirrors, which reached from below to completely top of the stage and provided therefore in addition to the projections for interesting optical effects during the concert.
The programme was diverse because the band played older as well as newer songs. In the course of the evening their big hits also were not missed; the audience joined in the singing loudly during them. The music sounded unmistakeably ALPHAVILLE, even if, in the meantime, guitar, bass and percussion play a role and the whole one thereby did not sound any more only electronic. Marian Gold's voice still sounded like in the 80th and he was so fit as he moved on stage, the listeners could mean he has not really become older. One proper looked at him and you could see that he had big fun to be finally back on stage again and this also was transferred to the music and the spectators!
Unfortunately, after about two hours and ‘Big In Japan‘ as one of the additions, with which Marian Gold sent a greeting word to the “brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe” everything was over. In the end there was a lot of applause and many happy faces…
Setlist
01. End Of The World
02. Call Me When I Make It
03. Dance With Me
04. Gravitation Breakdown
05. Heaven On Earth
06. Carry Your Flag
07. Call Me Down
08. Die For You
09. Jet Set
10. Song For No One
11. Guardian Angel
12. Golden Feeling
13. Monkey
14. The Deep
15. Iron John
16. Victory
17. Sounds Like A Melody
18. Forever Young
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19. Seeds
20. Big In Japan
21. Apollo
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 6
Total: 7.8 / 10
In my opinion it was a very successful concert evening and we can really say: ALPHAVILLE are back again!
All pictures by Erika Knepper (
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