Live Review: Lebanon Hanover - Leipzig 2019

Conne Island, Leipzig, Germany
26th October 2019
Lebanon Hanover, Hante. & Box And The Twins

End of October, trip to Leipzig from Hamburg over Berlin and another new location that I haven’t been to yet despite the eight years attendance to the Wave-Gotik-Treffen and also a bunch of other concerts in Leipzig. I also almost got lost while trying to find Conne Island after a walk of about 15 minutes from the tram station into an area that became more and more industrial and at least in the darkness of the October evening seemed more lost.

When I decided that the navigation app won’t help me anymore, I decided to watch out for dark clothed people who might look like they are about to go to the concert tonight. A few minutes later I ended up at a hidden, very alternative looking place that seemed to be an area of different buildings. Pretty packed outside a few minutes before the doors opened, it seemed to become a good night. Also the show tonight with LEBANON HANOVER, HANTE. and BOX AND THE TWINS was sold-out. Inside a disco ball and the ceiling covered in colourful lights. Rest rooms covered in tons of “antifa” stickers, a very mixed, exiting audience.


Box And The Twins

The first band of the evening - BOX AND THE TWINS - got a lot of positive attention on their debut album ‘Everywhere I Go Is Silence’. Finest and darkest Dream Pop enchanting the listener. The following release, ‘Zerfall’, was about to hit the stores less than a week after this gig and so the band already let the fans know that they will play one or another song from the upcoming album which made that performance even more exciting. https://www.facebook.com/boxandthetwins / http://www.boxandthetwins.com



Music & Performance
Box and Mike made their gig into a wonderfully dark, storytelling performance, so real and beautiful, desperate and honest, emotionally overwhelming and calming at the same time. I really loved every second of it. Dream & Dark Pop with a pinch of Post-Punk and desperation. While Mike keeps playing bass and guitar in a very calm way, Box is diving deep into her emotions and it is fascinating to watch her do so. While her voice has something hypnotizing in it, the appearance in the blue and purple reminds me sometimes of a modern times witch. With her expressive performance she is taking the crowd on the journey into a very intimate world of emotions. The audience was melting in a very short time watching this performance and so the applause became louder and louder after every song, the crowd was dancing, singing, and feeling a lot.



At some point tears covered Box’ face and the teardrops sparkled on her cheeks. Sometimes focused playing the guitar, a few minutes before hitting the flowers that were decorating the stage against the floor. Afterwards the loose blossom leafs were covering the stage all over, the beauty and destruction symbolized in here. Other times Box’ just dancing wildly around the stage. The description in the info box of the band is so perfectly fitting: “Box: machines. voices. guitar. hysteria.” That is it. And much more. As promised BOX AND THE TWINS performed also some new songs, ‘The First Dream’ and also the very special one with the German lyrics ‘Dein Herz schlägt noch’ were absolutely breath-taking beautiful. Couldn’t have wished for a more magical performance.

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Light: 7
Sound: 8
Total: 8.3 / 10

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Hante.

Behind HANTE. - exceptional Synth Pop project from France - is Hélène de Thoury who started with it in 2014. The one-woman-project is one of its kind, touring all over the world, as just in spring together with BOX AND THE TWINS in the USA or right now supporting BOY HARSHER on the European tour that is about to start. The latest album ‘Fierce’ was released in January 2019 and is a masterpiece of Synth & Cold Wave. https://www.facebook.com/hanteband / https://hante.bandcamp.com



Music & Performance
While I often discover bands first at concerts,or to be more concrete am falling in love with them, with HANTE. it was a bit different as I heard already before so much about this, that I had to dive into the soundscapes, released through the label Synth Religion, long before I got to finally see her live. The cold, melancholic atmosphere of lost soundscapes and emotions, fading away memories and fears. Hélène’s voice feels like not from this world, very spherical, far away, floating above everything. For some of the songs she is taking place behind the keys, for others she is coming in front of them.



The performance itself appears quite minimalistic, at the same time intense and focused on the most important things - synths, vocals & emotions. Crystal clear voice, the projection visuals do not distract from the show, but underline the fragile character of the songs. There is a phrase that comes to my mind when thinking of that performance - “a dream within a dream” - a concert itself is often itself already like a parallel world to get lost in. HANTE.’s show itself feels like a capsule and fits perfectly into the theme of female dominated songs (or at least partly as for LEBANON HANOVER) showing the possible variety in the range of Cold and Synth Wave genre. An outstanding composer, singer and artist - inspirational gig.

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 8
Light: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 8.5 / 10

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Lebanon Hanover

LEBANON HANOVER are Larissa Iceglass and William Maybelline. The info text on the Bandcamp page couldn’t describe the fascination and inspiration of that duo better, so here it is “true romantics of the modern age, admiring William Wordsworth, fascinated by the beauty of art nouveau aesthetics, exploring British seashores and forests at night as well as inspired by the urbanism of Berlin”. https://www.facebook.com/lebanonhanover / https://lebanonhanover.bandcamp.com



Music & Performance
While reading the text above I realized that this is all true. LEBANON HANOVER have that Berlin vibes in there, I was most likely reminded of the 30ies of the last century maybe. But there is more in it. The music is not caged into a specific time or genre, but standing out by itself. The duo is changing the vocals between the songs - at some of the songs Larissa is singing, at others William is taking over the part of the vocalist. That itself brings some variety and a different touch of sound into it. The first part of the performance appeared quite static to me on stage, while the crowd was already dancing right from the beginning.



The concept of LEBANON HANOVER at first seemed to be standing and playing or singing while not really moving during a song. It created a quite cold, abstracted, dark atmosphere - also introverted and clear, unsettling, depressive atmosphere and effect. With scene hits like ‘Gallowdance’ LEBANON HANOVER sparked the light of desperation and the spirit of old school Wave covered the venue in all its colours. Towards the second half of the show, especially William started dancing and going out a lot and also interacting with the audience, so my first impression of the performance itself changed as well. Wildly dancing on stage, letting go of any limitations - a quite interesting view and development of the show, independent music with a touch of Avant-garde.

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

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All in the evening at Conne Island was a pleasure for soul, mind and body. Dancing, dreaming, going through feelings of losing something, fears, desperation, insecurity, anger and anxiety, purest sadness and all human things. Dancing through the evening of sadness - “sadness is rebellion” as one could read on some of the merch items and that is what that evening with three exceptional projects looked like - Wave is not dead, it’s more alive than ever before in all its shadings.

All pictures by Nastja Iz