Columbia Theater, Berlin, Germany3rd October 2016
Goethes Erben & Sara Noxx
GOETHES ERBEN have often been defined as the founders of the European darkwave. Oswald Henke, the mastermind behind GOETHES ERBEN, has been busy with his side projects FETISCH:MENSCH and HENKE in the past years since Mindy Kumbalek, GOETHES ERBEN’s former keyboarder, and himself decided to take a break from this project several years ago. Now they are back, without Mindy, to deliver a great show in Berlin, supported by SARA NOXX.
Sara Noxx
The German musician, whose first album came out in 1997 und who has published eleven albums in total, convinced with her likeable attitude and her beautiful voice. Although she has been compared often to Anne Clark, she has developed into an own style. Her music is electronic, but with a melodious melody, and she often sings with a soft voice. It was a pity that sometimes the sound of her microphone was way too low. She managed to catch the public attention with her quiet presence and her modest but strong manner and left the stage with a big applause. Among her songs I would like to highlight the speedy ‘Describe it again’ and the beautiful, very electronic song ‘Society’. http://www.saranoxx.com / https://www.facebook.com/saranoxx
Setlist
01. Flight 257
02. She
03. Earth song
04. Winter again
05. Short Moment
06. At About Midnight
07. Describe it Again
08. Superior Love
09. Deeper
10. Your Face in My Brain
11. Colder and Colder
12. Society
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 9
Total: 8.25 / 10
Goethes Erben
GOETHES ERBEN are a real legend of the German Gothic and Alternative Music scene. Founded more than 25 years ago by Oswald Henke and Peter Seipt, they started with very dark and morbid music, changing to a more optimistic and bright style after their first years, although they never forgot their roots. Peter Seipt left the band shortly after their genesis, and the members changed frequently before they found a fixed basis in Mindy Kumbalek, who is responsible for the keyboard and the programming. GOETHES ERBEN has published 12 albums, their last one ten years ago. After their retirement of the stage in 2012, they reappeared in 2013 and played several concerts in 2015. Beside of their concerts, they performed also a musical theatre project called “Menschenstille”, highly acclaimed by the audience. At the concert in Berlin, they were accompanied by Sonja Kraushofer, the lead singer of L’ÂME IMMORTELLE, PERSEPHONE and COMA DIVINE, and SARA NOXX, with whom they published ‘Weg zurück’. Whereas their last concert in 2015 was nearly sold out, today the concert hall was only half full. I think it was due to the fact that the next day was a working day and the concert begun and ended very late. Most of the audience was middle-aged, surely some of them supporters since the first steps of GOETHES ERBEN. http://www.goetheserben.de / https://www.facebook.com/goetheserbenoffical
Music & Performance
The stage was beautifully decorated with fishnets, whose five rows of weights were glowing candles, and lots of candles on the floor and on candleholders. Oswald Henke appeared, pouring some red wine into a wine glass, whereas the piano music started and the light changed from white to blue. They started with ‘Nur ein Narr’. At the second song, ‘Traumsuche’, Sonja Kraushofer joined them on stage, singing a duet with Henke. Their voices matched well, although Sonja’s style is very different from Henke’s. I liked the melancholic sound of the cello at the end of the song. GOETHES ERBEN had put a big wooden box on the stage, and before the third song begun, Henke got a doll out of it, saying that “everyone has got a doll or a stuffed animal“ and taking about memories and lost dreams, before performing ‘Vermisster Traum’ with Sonja Kraushofer on the background. The song was beautiful, sad and melancholic and Henke’s voice gave the audience a real feeling of loss and sadness.
Henke changed between jokes and very serious sentences during the breaks between the songs. Example given, he changed his pants and joked that “a little bit of eroticism is necessary“, but added: “war is nothing less than sexy“, before singing ‘Zinnsoldaten’. After saying meaningful “Today is Germany’s unification day“ he performed the antifascist song ‘Die Brut’. The ninth song, ‘Helden’ (heroes), was a Bowie cover, translated to German and performed together with Sonja Kraushofer. At this time, Henke presented his fellow musicians to the audience: Markus Köstner (drums), Cornelius Sturm (bass) - a former member who apparently has reappeared - , Martin Hofer (cello), Carsten Klatte (guitars), another former member, and Tobias Schäfer at the electric piano. After the duet with Sonja Kraushofer, Sara Noxx appeared on the stage. Henke joked with Sara about her abstinence from alcohol and about her getting drunken on “Mon Chérie“ chocolate. Although I found their stage performance (a partner dance) later a little bit brittle, I liked the harmony of their voices a lot, which matched perfectly. Henke joked a lot about the guy at the cello, calling him “Don Bachelor“ because of his attractiveness and saying to the pianist: “Not only you have cast an eye on him“.
The eleventh song, ‘Musenkuss’, was a duet with Sonja Kraushofer again, with Henke pouring a rain of red rose petals on her. “We begin the evening with the decapitation of 20 red roses, some singers would wish to die like this“ Henke joked. The last regular song, ‘Das Ende’, was a really Goosebumps-song about the apocalypse and the end of time, with red lights and red spots, creating an atmosphere of fear, danger and heart-breaking loss. Due to the standing ovations of the audience, GOETHES ERBEN performed seven encores. One of them was the sad ballad ‘So weiß ich doch du warst’ with Sonja at the piano and Oswald’s voice breaking with pain, only accompanied by Sonja’s background voice and piano and the cello, with purple lights. The only thing that was really disturbing was the appearance of a strange noise, coming of the roof of the concert hall, at the last part of the concert. It sounded as if some giants would hoover upstairs and it was clearly audible during the more quiet songs. Except of this inconvenience, it was an outstanding concert with exceptional musicians and a thankful audience.
Setlist
01. Nur ein Narr
02. Traumsuche
03. Vermisster Traum
04. Zinnsoldaten
05. Nacht der 1000 Worte
06. Hintergrundrauschen
07. Die Brut 2000
08. Himmelgrau
09. Helden
10. Sie wusste mehr (mit Sara Noxx)
11. Musenkuss
12. 5 Jahre
13. Iphigenie
14. Das Ende
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15. So weiss ich doch Du warst
16. Kopfstimme
17. Narbenverse
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18. Keine Farben
19. Sitz der Gnade
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20. Die Sonne schmilzt
21. Ironie im Plattenbau
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 8
Light: 9
Total: 9.25 / 10
All pictures by Marcus Rietzsch
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