So what is it all about?
A splendid, exciting night at Prinzenbar last Friday!!
It was Adventure Playground #5 (not that i had been to any of the (apparently) four preceding...) with the super-line-up of Uni & her Ukulele, Gary Olsen (of Ladybug Transistor), A Smile and A Ribbon & the beautiful Lucksmiths.
The small & stylish club was already pleasingly crowded with people when i reached the top of the stairs leading to the main room, and Uni was happily playing the last song on her funny, little instrument, looking like the living reincarnation of the sixties window curtain at my grandparent’s. Too bad i had missed out on that.
The second show was performed by Gary Olsen of Ladybug Transistor, supported by the guys of The Lucksmiths. It gave a nice picture and far better: it sounded fantastic. Maybe it is true and all i needed from Gary Olsen was to open his mouth – because honestly i completely fell in love with his deep, warm voice – but supposing the five boys hadn’t played together too much it still gave a good band sound, even leaving occasional room for a nicely old-fashioned guitar solo and a few notes on the trumpet (which from my point of view, is a very cool add for the classic band sound).
Too bad the second to last band, A Smile and A Ribbon was the extreme contrary. Stylishly made up in original sixties fashion with cute shirts and dresses, dinky hairdos and even a pair of cat eye glasses, they however lacked a lot when i came to the actual music. An obvious case of “well intended but badly executed”, they lacked both timing and feeling for instrumentation. I was very tempted to simply walk out on that musical blur of unconnected melodies. Very sad. Let’s just hope the Swedes where hung-over, extremely nervous or hadn’t played together on a stage before.
But thank God The Lucksmiths were there to sweep all the bad karma and unhappy moments away. They performed a delightful, entertaining and diverse set of great tunes. The four guys from Australia are a charming and harmonic team that shows the perfect balance of band routine and personal excitement on stage. It was pure pleasure even for someone (like me) who didn’t know the band too well. No wonder the audience wouldn’t let them go until they had played the second encore!
Once again, a great night.
PS: The great pictures are courtesy of Christoph from http://www.konzerttagebuch.de/ (great blog by the way...)
