The photos belong to Valérie Hahn.
Radio Dept. or is it Radio Debt? Personally I tent to adopt the second version. Because they owe us. What? More live sounds. A drummer for example, go and more vocals. Even an encore. It was the first time watching a concert, that the artist refuses to come back on stage! Note that the audience was cheering and clapping. In vain, as was finally proved. If I were to ask for a few more smiles and a couple of looks, would I be too demanding?
Let's get things started from the beginning. Location: Münster Nordrhein Westfalen. Time: Saturday 19.3.2011. Concerts around: Gleis 22. Art Direction: Radio Dept. (with the generous support of the Turkish female musical duo Kim Ki O). All seemed idyllic. Crystal clear sky (rare in northern Europe), a bright full moon and the dream pop of Radio Dept. What else can you ask to spend a nice evening? The doors opened at 20:30, while attendance was noticeably low (as if they knew something). Okay, the wide audience are not known for their love in indie music, so this was a bit expected. On 21:00 when some fifty people had just gathered, the nice Turkish women duo artists came out who, I must admit, tried hard. However they did not manage to attract much interest. They tried for 40 minutes (sufficient time for support act), but ultimately failed to stop the talks of participants. Probably the audience began to strengthen their voice, rather than shut up to listen to them.
At 21:40 the curtain closed and people began to progress forward. The audience were some 100 people. I rammed into so to hopefully manage to see something. The eternal problem of short people, indeed. For half an hour we were kept in suspense. Will they come out? Or not? What is taking them so long? Ok, they are famous, they can be a little late.
At 22:10 the curtain reopened. Three guys came shyly tentative, so to fit in their indie profile. Only Johan Ducanson seemed a bit Westernized artist in his infancy. The other two rather neglected children from Scandinavian villages. With their plaid shirts and old fashioned mustaches, they have not moved for a bit. Martin Larsson, a two meters high guy, not even lift his eyes throughout the concert. He was either sick (so we should wish a speedy recovery to the lad) or he did not want to bring up the difference of the height of Johan. The hypothesis that he did not wish to look at us, is not one I'm willing to take into account. I'll keep the first version of which the excessive sweat shed could have been caused by a high fever.
Daniel Tjäder seemed very jovial. Do not be fooled. He wasn't smiling. He Just regulated comfortably the console with prefabricated music. Because as I said the musicians were three: guitar, vocals, keyboards and bass. All other sounds (and they were a lot, I do not complain, and drums and tambourine and cymbals, and all the goodies there) were preserved in console and depending on the song they filled the missing sound. One would say, did not you know ma'am where were you going to listen to such music? And he/she would be right. But this, I would say, is on cd. If I wanted to hear the cd I would listen to it in my house. I'm not paying for a live concert ticket to hear a console playing. They could play the three of them and we could hear less sounds.
Fortunately, what saved the situation was their compositions. It was what made the audience to have fun and give less importance to the prevailing negative aspects. There was professionalism in their playing and experience was evident. Especially in Heaven's On Fire the audience stood up and really began to enjoy what's happening. For our bad luck it did not last for very long. After a few songs (one hour after they had started) the singer descended from the stage in the middle of the song, went through the audience (we were happy for a while) and finally reached the bar.
«He finished the beer" I thought but would come back and continued watching the happenings on stage. After a while, Martin got up and left from the door on the right. "He's going to wipe the sweat off" I thought "the lad was soaking wet. He will come back. " I continued looking at Daniel. After a minute, he disappeared as well. From the left door this time. We were just staring at the console playing on its own...! "It can't be happening. They will return for the encore. They want to make an impressive exit" we thought and continued to applaud and wait for their return. And guess what? They never came back!
The lights lit on and the curtain fell. These never came back and I (along with anyone else) did not buy anything from the bench that they had set up. The next time I will limit myself only to their music from the cd and the comfort of my home. Too bad because Passive Aggressive is heard easily and I was hoping to feel a little of the magic and live. So let's ignore the wrong, and let's enjoy once again the melodies, but now free from their presence:
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