Theaterfabrik @Dark Munich Festival, Munich, Germany27th April 2014
Schöngeist
Dark Munich Festival traditionally attracts lovers of good music from all over Germany and not only Germany. This year hasn’t become an exception: great line-up, nice audience and definitely a lot of good music made those three festival days really unforgettable. However it will be too long to tell about the whole event as the only thing you should know is that everything was impressive and cool. Yet it’s just impossible to go without a review of a gig to allow you feel better the atmosphere of the festival. And in this case let’s focus of the performance of - as I think one of one of the most interesting bands on the dark scene - gothic rock formation SCHÖNGEIST.
Actually the term “gothic rock” doesn’t define the band’s style to the full because it’s more like a fusion of different notes, elements and tunes and it’s better to listen to them or see their concert once than read several reviews. So let’s get down to ours. SCHÖNGEIST was founded in 2006 and by now their discography consists of three studio albums including the latest creation ‘Wehe!’ that came out in August 2013. The name of the band can be translated as “beautiful spirit” or “aesthete”, revealing that the aesthetics, beauty and music are inseparable. SCHÖNGEIST is Timur Karakus (vocals), Henriette Becker (violin), Daniel Beutner (guitar), Michael Hirschberger (guitar), Andreas Socher (bass), Manuel Di Camillo (drums). http://www.schoengeist-musik.de / https://www.facebook.com/pages/SCHÖNGEIST/146222891222
Music & Performance
When the musicians all in black hit the stage the first rows apparently cheered up. The vocalist, elegant as usual and wearing sunglasses, started the set with that elegance and the opening piece ‘Traumtanz’ immediately created the suitable and inimitable atmosphere for the gig: dream dance is able to carry you away even if it lasts only several minutes. But then there went ‘Tief!’ (Deep) with another emotional surge. Well, when you listen to SCHÖNGEIST’s albums you can feel that dark romance and melancholy the songs convey but the same songs performing live simply can’t be described as dark and doom because of the wave of happiness coming from the stage and overwhelming the audience, however the all features mentioned above remain. The musicians smiled and did their best so everyone got a chance to enjoy a great show. But the show went on and the well-known songs followed one another.
The setlist mostly consisted of the compositions from the latest album ‘Wehe!’ yet there were also two highlights from the previous work ‘Keine Zeit’, namely ‘Auge um Auge’ and ‘Sonne der Nacht’. The latter is definitely a great and powerful piece able to stir the crowd up but ‘Auge um Auge’ has its own peculiarity and as it was one of the first SCHÖNGEIST songs I’ve heard so to see it live was a real pleasure. Among other songs that turned out to be even more impressive played onstage I’d like to mark out ‘Kenne mich’, ‘Zusammen allein’ and definitely ‘Lebe’. The darkness is a splendour of colour and SCHÖNGEIST proves it again and again. The final and fine stroke to the gig becomes ‘Wehe!’ and unexpectedly the concert came to an end but I guess everyone wanted more.
So the best and the most suitable line to finish this review will be the one from the song I always remember in such moments: rewind, we wanna go it again! However for some of you that “again” may come sooner, at Hexentanz Festival.
Setlist
01. Traumtanz
02. Tief!
03. Kenne mich
04. Keine Zeit
05. Auge um Auge
06. Zusammen allein
07. Wieder
08. Lebe
09. Sonne der Nacht
10. Wehe!
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 7
Light: 9
Total: 9 / 10
All pictures by Olga Neko
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