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PeterLicht Live

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We gave our flatmate a ‘gig’ ticket for Peter Licht – apparently it actually seems to be a the ‘branded’ name PeterLicht without the space – for his birthday. What a perfect excuse to come along as well! It was both a concert and reading of some texts. And it took place in the traditional theatre. Which meant that the environment was fancyish and the audience ranged from Mittelstandssekretärinnen to a bunch of punks some of whom looked rather passed out a few rows in front of us. A rather ‘diverse’ crowd one might say.

I enjoyed some of Peter Licht’s songs before. Sonnendeck was a rather popular song some years back and a friend of mine used to have it on his answering machine, which always made me smile. (Wenn ich nicht hier bin, bin ich auf’m Sonnendeck, oder im Solarium, oder am Radar. … Wenn ich nicht hier bin, bin ich auf’m Sonnendeck, oder im Aquarium. … Und alles, was ist, dauert drei Sekunden: eine Sekunde für voher, eine für nachher, eine für mittendrin; für da, wo der Gletscher kalbt, wo die Sekunden ins blaue Meer fliegen. – roughly If I’m not here I’m on the sun, or in the solarium, or at the radar. … If I’m not here, I’m on the sun deck or at the aquarium. … And everything that is lasts three seconds: one second for before, one for afterwards, one for right in the middle; for where the glacier calves, where the seconds fly into the blue sea.) And I particularly like Safarinachmittag which my inner antilope always liked (Und wir führten Gespräche über unsre Fragen, welche Tiere wir gerne wären, wenn wir mal wieder Tiere wär’n. Ich wünschte mich als Savannenbewohner; Du wünschtest Dich als Paarhufer oder -sohler; Wir einigten uns auf Termiten, für die wir uns dann hielten. – roughly And we chatted about the questions we had, which animals we’d like to be, when we were going to be animals again. I wished to be a savannah-dweller; You wished to be an even-toed or even-soled ungulate)

As this may have illustrated, this is more about the lyrics than good old rock music – hence there being a reading at the same time. It’s partially silly, it’s about enjoying odd words and the combinations you can form of them. There’s also a hint of politics or social critique to it, although that’s a bit weak as the the music and texts seem to be firmly situated in post-ironic arbitrariness. And thus it was funny, it was well presented and it was entertaining but it wasn’t earth-shattering.

At times the post-irony also confuses me. A song called Wir sind jung und wir machen uns Sorgen über unsere Chancen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt (We are young and we worry about our job-market opportunities) doesn’t just compete for one of the longest song titles, the song also makes you wonder ‘huh, really?’. And not just because the young doesn’t exactly hold anymore.

I particularly liked the fact that the music was played with real instruments and people on stage while it seems a bit feeble and coming out of electronic toys on the studio recordings.

An enjoyable evening.

P.S. When discussing the gig afterwards, I thought one could describe the music as ‘not as tacky as Andreas Dorau and not as solid as Funny van Dannen’. In my own objective way I’d consider that as correct and unoffensive.

April 27, 2008, 9:42

Tagged as live.

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