Brad Mehldau and Chris Tile

As with most of Brad Mehldau's performances, he again succeeds to easily meet high expectations here. His duet with Chris Tile is one of its kind and hard to match.


Buddies: Täubchen, Birgit and Jakob
Rating: 5/5
Merch: none
Again: we already have tickets for the trio in spring 2018


This is not the entire setlist, their encores were too many and too various, but gives you a glimpse:
1. The Old Shade Tree
2. Tallahassee Junction
3. Fast As You Can
4. Independence Day
5. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
6. Scarlet Town
7. Dark Turn Of Mind

So even a duet of a piano and a mandolin, along with Chris Tile's vocals, works out, and the auditorium was amazed. For sure, this duet is on the more silent side, but Chris has his moments of (relative) loudness. Of course this can only work out with proper amplification, which I mostly liked. Only the mandoline scrubbing sounded sometimes a bit harsh to me, but that's probably just personal and just fine that way. It was music just made for mid-November, a bit melancholic, but never depressive, and powerful enough to warm your heart. After the fulminant Bach performance another very surprising highlight. It seems to me that Brad Mehldau has an extremely productive and inspired phase as a songwriter.

Laibach VI (Also Sprach Zarathustra Tour)

In its sixth reincarnation on stage, with its rather difficult new album Also Sprach Zarathustra with them, it is the expected difficult performance. My deteriorating health did not help.


Buddy: David
Rating: 3/5
Merch: none
Again? my NSK passport needs more entires ;-)






Setlist:
1. Von den drei Verwandlungen
2. Ein Untergang
3. Ein Verkündiger
4. Von Gipfel zu Gipfel
5. Das Glück
6. Die Unschuld II
7. Das Nachtlied I
9. Als Geist
10. Vor Sonnen-Aufgang
11. Parnassus
12. Cold Song
13. Anti-Semitism
14. Brat Moj
15. Hell: Symmetry
16. Le Privilege Des Morts
17. Ti, ki izzivas
18. Wirtschaft ist tot
19. Bossanova
20. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

Sounds like a long gig, but it wasn't with approx 90 minutes.

My second entry into the NSK passport - geeky :)

Mogwai IV

Mogwai at its best: with a very good new album and with all the important songs in the setlist, including (finally) Haunted By A Freak


Rating: 5/5
Buddy: David
Merch: the new CD
Again: yes and yes and yes





Setlist:
Crossing the Road Material
Friend of the Night
Brain Sweeties
Haunted by a Freak
Rano Pano
Auto Rock
2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
Battered at a Scramble
Don't Beliefe the Fife
Remurdered
We're No Here
Old Poisons
Party in the Dark
Mogwai Fear Satan

I still remember when during a FaceBook Q&A of Mogwai, I did the one thing that you should never ask a band: I asked them whether they would finally play 'Haunted By A Freak' live during their new tour - and without much surprise, the question remained unanswered. I admit that this is a stupid question that every artist will hate. Just like a DJ will hate if somebody asks this DJ to play this one song that you do not plan to play (for whatever reasons). But I could not help. 'Haunted By A Freak' is one of the greatest gems that Mogwai has to offer - and the live versions I listened to on YouTube and their live CD are all very pleasing.

The even bigger surprise was that they had the song on their setlist, and it just completed this setlist as probably the single best setlist of my attended gigs. It reached through a very broad range of their impressive repertoire. As a second surprise, Mogwai had two new young band members on the drums and on the second guitar. Despite their young age, they acted like having played in that band for ages, still with much passion and dedication. And also like always, when the set reaches an end with the monumental 'Mogwai Fear Satan', you beg for ear tips. The moment, where three heavily distorted guitars, amongst them single coil equiped ones, head for full distortion at inhuman volumes. This is when Arena seems to hover some meters above ground and just finds this perfect pitch. Still the song is far longer than 10 minutes, and despite the low-volume sections, it makes your ears begging for help at the end. But the ringing in my ears was over some short term later, and even after some weeks I remember this gig very well as one of the absolute highlights and probably the best Mogwai gig I have seen so far. See you again mates, you are just perfect - and so many thanks for this one song!