DeutschEnglish

BRENNA TUATS TOUR 2012

Hubert von Goisern: Live in Bad Ischl - 2nd December 2012

7th December 2012 | Photos: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern: Live in Bad Ischl - 1st December 2012

6th December 2012 | Photos: © Sarah Marchant

The last concerts: the Goiserer makes his exit, while things are still burning

Salzburger Nachrichten 3rd December 2012 | Text: Bernhard Flieher

Internalism wipes away the heavy sweat at the end. Hubert von Goisern stands alone. He has brought just the guitar on stage again. Two more songs - and then it's over.

He's still burning - like the money about which he sings. Brenna tuat's guat the song about burning money and excess stood in the charts for 34 weeks from autumn 2011 to the summer of 2012 - with five weeks at number one.

As was once the case with Hiatamadl the song was played over and over until it couldn't be taken any more. But the song can't be killed. It's the same for Hiatamadl. The two songs are too hardwearing with their mixture of pop and tradition. Both songs uphold this (apparent) discord. Mind you, Hiatamadl defined Hubert von Goisern as a joiner of worlds with a open, critical view. Brenna tuat's guat strengthened this status once and for all late on - in November the Goiserer turned 60.

In recent months the omnipresence of Brenna tuat's guat turned a normally planned tour into a months-long journey of success. The usual concert halls - for between 1000 and 3000 people - were too small.

But now, at the end, things are very intimate at the Lehartheater in Bad Ischl. There's room for 500 people. Last weekend the final concerts - numbers 99, 100 and 101 on the Brenna tuat's tour - were played to a packed house each night. And now it's over. "Next year there's nothing and the year after that there's nothing either. After that? It's too far away and pure speculation", the Goiserer says. He goes on stage in two minds: "It's going really well, but nonetheless it is also good to know that it will be over soon."

In many of his speeches during the concert, this feeling seems to have a touch of sentimentality. But the state of mind held before disbanding a closeknit live troupe is never noticeable in the music.

There are no cracks in the strength that keeps this band together. This band - the first to stay at Goisern's side since the end of the Alpinkatzen in the 1990s - will do what they do: With great force, rock, blues and alpine tradition become one. However the Alpinkatzen never had the musical expression that Alex Pohn (drums), Severin Trogbacher (guitar) and Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) have. Every solo lands. Every blues is devastatingly existential. "It's a joy to grow so close when playing", the Goiserer said not long after the tour began at the beginning of the year.

Every song sounds as though one needs to persuade an audience that is faithful anyway of the power of music that knocks down all boundaries. Just over ten years ago Hubert von Goisern did this in a subtle, restrained manner with the Trad albums and equally intense live experiences. Now something similar is happening, only in a harder, more aggressive variant. This time rock-Goisern dominates. In the end remains the same multifaceted aftertaste.

Finally - alone on stage - Hubert von Goisern at first seems almost lost. Then he plays and sinks into what he is playing - as if the outside world could disappear for a few bars. After the last song it will be the other way around: the Goiserer is disappearing from the outside world. For a while anyway.

Hubert von Goisern in Bad Ischl

4th December 2012 | Photos: © www.neubauerphotos.com

Hubert von Goisern makes the Ilshofen Arena shake with his alpine rock

Südwest Presse 27th November 2012 | Text: Ute Schäfer | Photo:  Ric Badal

Austrian world music: Alpine rocker Hubert von Goisern guests with his band in Ilshofen.
There he makes the Arena shake and pays homage to Saint Petronella, to whom the Ilshofen church is dedicated.

Hubert von Goisern

More photos at www.swp.de

"You understood it all", Hubert von Goisern determines right after his first song. The people at the Ilshofen Arena laugh. Of course they understood everything. They're fans and they know all the songs by heart! But everything else that comes out of the blue the musician has to explain: "So, I'm singing German", he confirms. So it's easy to understand. "With a bit of goodwill, it'll work out just fine."

Well, those who don't know the Goiserer's lyrics won't get them straightaway. Without a doubt the Austrian is singing German, but in the rather rough dialect of his Upper Austrian dialect - he comes from Bad Goisern in the Salzkammergut.

"Those of you who don't understand should simply fill in the gaps with fantasy", says the musician, takes up the Styrian accordion and rocks away - and comprehension aside: he thrills every one of his listeners. They dance, clap along and let him take them with him on a journey through the musical styles: at times alpine yodelling, at times hard rock. At times ska, at times reggae, and then everything together. It's a great mixture - world music with a clear strike into the alpine.

"We're misappropriating the hall here", says Hubert von Goisern, thinking he's in an insemination station instead of an auction hall for cattle, but in any case the next song is fitting for the cows, as it's played in the Wild West. He grabs the guitar and away it goes with the Western song Indianer: "Umadum nix wia bama, umadum nix ois Woid" (all around nothing but trees, all around nothing but forest).

And because the musician mixes everything - rock, blues, soul -, at some point the saints litany mixes into the sounds too. "Saint Petronella, pray for us" he drones and the people of Ilshofen are thrilled. Their church is dedicated to this saint. It's clearly not by chance that the Goiserer is mentioning this saint, he must have researched beforehand. "Google 'saint lexikon', it's amazing."

And so it continues for a good two hours that the alpine musician sweats in the arena with his outstanding band consisting of Severin Trogbacher (guitar), Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and Alexander Pohn (drums). "Many thanks, cows, for making room."

While at the start the songs are fast and groovy - they are in part from the newest CD EntwederUndOder - the quieter numbers and well-known hits predominate in the second half: Weit weit weg and Koa Hiatamadl for example. The couples cuddle closer together, the lighters come on until the 60-year-old musician leaves the stage with a farewell yodel. "Farewell", he sings in the song of the same name, "there's so much I still want to say". Hmm, who knows, maybe the Goiserer will be back again? It was great.

Radically globalised folk music

Die Welt 23rd November 2012 | Text: Stefan Krulle

The Austrian Hubert von Goisern makes the Alps glow in the Große Freiheit 36

Nobody raises their voice and claims not to have been warned. "If you have trouble understanding the lyrics at any point, " says Hubert Achleitner alias Hubert von Goisern to the good 1000 listeners in the Große Freiheit 36 on Wednesday, "then please don't ask one of the few Austrians in the hall. You should fill the holes in with fantasy instead!" A formula to which the Upper Austrian has kept his since started his career as a pop musician 30 years ago and which has hitherto remained one of a kind.

While most folk musicians are demonstrably held by native soil and tend not to think outside the box, Hubert was pulled into the distance before he even became a professional musician. It can always be heard in his songs, which he now presents with his band which has been reduced to a quartet in the classic rock lineup. But it's still about folk music, even if the roots thereof clearly have to be to globally located to some extent. That alone can be seen as a not so quiet provocation.

This is how von Goisern sees all the wonderful songs he offered on this memorable evening, acting time and again as moderator, what he once started with his Alpinkatzen as a reckless experiment and has pursued to this day as a musical gambler. "Nowhere," he tells us, "are there only good people. Not even here in Hamburg." There is protest from somewhere, "Anyone moaning now is doing something that I only know from the Bavarians". It is immediately quiet in the hall and then there is applause.

After a short introduction to the quirks more than the virtues of the "ziehharmonika", the button accordion, which according to Hubert differs from the piano accordion most of all in that it is "child's play to play", he dips into very alpine song structures, ripping them once more from their environment though and finally grounding the country dances in the humus of blues and American folk. Until Janis Joplin's legendary song miniature Mercedes Benz becomes an Austrian-tinged cacophony.

Hubert von Goisern has travelled through South Africa and Tibet, the Philippines and Canada, studied the traditions there and gathered fragments of sound and integrated both into his vision of music that is global and yet connected to his homeland. The fact that he has become not a theorist, but instead much more a herald of a motley idea of the "global village" that finds its spearhead in music gives him absolute authenticity. But that's of little use to him for his concerts, where he must convince the people as an entertainer, after all, they've come for nothing else.

Hubert von Goisern succeeds in this with no trouble at all. Even singing along works without a hitch as long as Hubert translates the refrain into syllables that can be understood north of the Bavarian border. Many of his wonderful songs sound as if he's singing them simply into the clear mountain air, almost a little defiantly towards snow-capped peaks. Those leaving the hall two hours later are almost a little taken aback: not a mountain in sight.

Hubert von Goisern: Live in Munich - 10th November 2012

15th November 2012 | Photos: © Elli Christl

Where the devil spawns his children...

Straubinger Tagblatt 14th November 2012 | Text: Wilfried Schaffrath

Hubert von Goisern rocks the nearly sold out Fraunhofer-Halle

"It's the place where everything comes together", sings Hubert von Goisern in his hit Brenna tuats guat. And on Monday evening this place was the Fraunhofer-Halle. An hour before the start fans were already densely thronged at the stage. Full of expectation for what the Austrian and world musician had brought in the way of songs to Straubing. On the dot of 8pm the first chords sounded. Hubert Achleitner is a term only a few people know, but nearly the entire musical world knows who he is in the form of Hubert von Goisern.

Hubert von GoisernHis mix of rock music with elements of traditional folk music makes him of the most important representatives of "alpine rock". He grew up in his hometown's brass band and later also took the connection to Goisern as his name. Of course Goisern is the most beautiful place in the world for Hubert and this he proclaims in the corresponding song. Goisern had his big musical breakthrough in 1992 with the album Aufgeigen statt niederschiassn, on which the songs Heast es nit, Weit weit weg and not least Hiatamadl were to be heard for the first time. Many more hits followed.

Many of them were also to be heard on Monday evening. Supported by three very good musicians, Alexander Pohn (drums), Severin Trogbacher (electric guitar) and Helmut Schartlmüller (bass), things went off pretty rocky at the start of the concert. The loud sounds prevailed. On this evening aside from his accordion Hubert von Goisern himself played acoustic and electric guitars, Jews' harp, lamellophone and keyboard. "All around nothing but trees, just a few Indians and they're old, ancient, ancient, ancient". Indianer from a new album ENTWEDERundODER, pretty rocky, pretty loud and the audience goes with it. The "Goiserer" entertains his fans between his songs with many little stories. There was the story of Saint Christopher and Saint Anthony and if you google "saint lexicon" then "you'll be stunned".

The musician's lyrics are often political and sometimes very emotional too. You believe in Hubert von Goisern and the music he writes. Be it the loud sounds, or much more the quiet songs. In the first part of the concert everything was tantamount to his super hit Brenna tuats guat, while in due course the quieter songs that had made him famous prevailed. Of course the audience was waiting for his number 1 hit. And all those who didn't know until then found out "where the devil spawns his children". And everyone sang and clapped along enthusiastically. The standing guests were offered more than 120 minutes of music without an interval. The "head Goiserer" thoroughly examined the relationship between the Ausseers and the Goiserers and of course gave this appropriate musical instrumental appreciation with Benni. It grew quiet in the auditorium and many couples moved closer together as Hubert von Goisern sang wonderful songs like Heast es nit and Weit, weit weg. Whereby you could have the impression from this evening that the kind of music from the earlier years with the markedly quiet and slow songs went down better with the audience than the really strong rocking sounds. Of course the four couldn't leave the stage without an encore. An a cappella yodel and finally the emotional Lebwohl "There is still so much I would like to say, but it is so difficult in passing and because I don't know where to start either, I'll just say - farewell". And for those who want to congratulate Hubert von Goisern: the world musician will be 60 years old on 17th November.

Hubert von Goisern: Live in Munich - 9th November 2012

13th November 2012 | Photos: © Elli Christl

Goisern thrills at Circus Krone

Münchner Merkur 12th November 2012 | Text: Zoran Gojic

Munich - Hubert von Goisern brought the atmosphere in the Circus Krone to boiling point on Friday evening.
There he showed that he can't just do folklore - he can really go wild too.

Hubert von Goisern is the man who makes the impossible possible. 20 years ago he made scorners of folk music dance with the sounds of the accordion, later the shepherd rocker took a chance with Asian and African sounds and now at the ripe old age of nearly 60 he is celebrating his hitherto greatest success with earthy southern rock. As the crowning achievement, the explicitly critical of capitalism Brenna tuats guat became the hit of Oktoberfest 2012 of all things.

At the first of his vociferously celebrated concerts on three sold out nights at the Circus Krone in Munich he succeeded in doing something unimaginable: he does without his biggest hit Koa Hiatamadl – and nobody cares. The fans celebrate the other new songs all the more untiringly. With which we then come to something else astounding: young and old, traditionally dressed and hipsters sing along peacefully and even let out "juchitzers" in style.

Those who didn't experience it perhaps wouldn't believe it, but it's true: Hubert von Goisern is not just a musician, he is a sociocultural phenomenon. Happily he is not burdened with it, but takes it stoically so that he achieves many remarkable things, for which others would sell their souls.

The aura of the pure-minded devil who doesn't put on a show, but just plays his music the way he likes, is of course one of the secrets to his success. In comparison to the last show at the Circus Krone, when von Goisern really made the tent implode, things are a little more relaxed this time - the exertions of a long tour might be one reason. But even a slightly worn out von Goisern still has more energy than all his epigons and imitators put together. And because that is so, Hubert von Goisern is now setting off on another Mission Impossible – at the next concerts he'll be teaching the people of Hamburg and Dresden a little south German dialect. He'll manage it too.

Hubert von Goisern on Heimatsound

6th November 2012 | Photos: © BR/Ralf Wilschewski

Hubert von Goisern's appearance with his band on Heimatsound in the Freiheizhalle Munich
will be broadcast on Bayerisches Rundfunk at 16th November 2012 at 23:30.

Reggae accompanying yodelling

Mainzer-Rhein-Zeitung 2nd November 2012 | Text: Eva Szulkowski

Mainz - Classic pop rock drumming meets traditional accordion, a western guitar mixes with cow bells
- with Hubert Achleitner alias Hubert von Goisern everything revolves around a musical culture clash.

For the Austrian singer-songwriter, who has sailed the seven seas in search of new sounds, there is no instrument too odd, from the Styrian harmonica, to the flamenco guitar and noseflute, to find a place in his sound cosmos. At the concert in the Rheingoldhalle on the current Brenna tuats guat tour the collaboration of rock and folk music stood in the foreground.

Along the way von Goisern and band also served up everything that wasn't nailed down, from indie rock to funk and psychedelic and even punk rock; musical styles with which many in the audience would probably otherwise not get on so well. Yet Hubert von Goisern's "alpine rock" allows the most diverse approaches, for example with folksy accordion melodies and refrains with alpine call appeal - according to their background everyone can find something that's outside their own acoustic thinking. Those who overcome such musical boundaries shouldn't shy away from language barriers either. "Do you understand us?", the singer-songwriter who writes his lyrics in Austrian, asks his Mainz audience to be on the safe side. "I don't understand you guys. Not everything. But when you take a bit of trouble, then it's fine. After all, it's only German."

At the same time he brings attention to the fact that there are definitely differences between Rhenish Palatinate and Upper Austria: who in Mainz knows the patron saint of the city, or even the province's regional anthem? Von Goisern handles such homeland traditions very subtly in his lyrics, but never rests upon them: the homage to his hometown of Goisern revolves around the mountains and meadows and flows into "yodelehiti", but his band are playing jazz and reggae.

While some songs towards the end of the concert are set more towards sing along and schlager potential and lose a little of the excitement, it is exactly these perpetual tensions between tradition and experiment that make Hubert von Goisern interesting - even if, or exactly because you don't really get on with folk, or alternatively rock music.

In the rock music cosmos

Allgemeine Zeitung 1st November 2012 | Text: Alfred Baiz | Photo: hbz / Kristina Schäfer
Hubert von Goisern

Hubert von Goisern - Splendid mix of folk music and electrified hardness

When Wolfgang Ambros was looking for a yodelling accordion player for his Watzmann project at the beginning of the 90s, the path was predestined for Hubert von Goisern. He subsequently stole the show from everyone else with his bubbling energy, yodel excesses and musical virtuosity. So the Rheingoldhalle is well filled and the predominantly older audience is in a party mood. Those who know the brute force folk musician from the Salzkammergut know that he always offers a good show with charming surprises. For Goisern's one constant is constant change. While with the very traditional Alpinkatzen there were once up to 15 (sic) musicians on stage, now there are just four. Goisern boldly presents his heavy metal trio who are half his age and who shake the audience with every trick in the book. The initially reserved response to the headbangers reminiscent of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Van Halen and Tom Petty transforms into carefree dance and party mood thanks to their dynamic and joy in playing.

Reminiscent of the brass band

Goisern has never turned to the guitar or keyboard and distanced himself from the folk music roots of his youth and the "Styrian" so often. But when he unpacks his old "Novak ziehharmonika", melodies arise that he once learned in the Bad Goisern brass band. In the concert he saves up his Aussee dances and folk verses and the Hiatamadl yodel inferno for the finale. Meanwhile the whippersnappers Alex Pohn (drums), Helmut Schartlmüller and guitar god Severin Trogbacher play so unashamedly boldly and to the point that it takes your breath away. For long periods the concert seems like a lesson in all things rock music. Blues, rock 'n' roll, doowop, surf, guitar twang, beat, hard rock, grunge and rap metal interchange with one another, never allowing for boredom. You can't take offence at the fact that predominantly rock classics are Goisern-ed when you look at the quality of the originals. Indianer reminds you of Clapton, Daimler of Janis Joplin. And so Goisern's journey goes from Little Richard to Dylan and almost to Nirvana.

Fortunately skilfully interspersed lighter-flame ballads and humorous anecdotes offer moments of calm on the stage that is lit like a living room with red standing lamps, with the dragon as heraldic animal. Even if the traditional acoustic side mostly falls by the wayside, the Upper Austrian chameleon has recommended himself unashamedly edgily and sexily to a younger audience who are yet to discover him.

The rocking poet from Austria

Oberhessische Presse 31st October 2012 | Text: Uwe Badouin | Photo: Michael Hoffsteter

On Monday evening Hubert von Goisern made a good 1200 fans happy at the sold out Marburg Stadthalle
- with a two and a half hour thrilling concert.

Hubert von GoisernMarburg. The stage looks homely. Hubert von Goisern - so it seems - has brought his living room with him: three red standing lamps and two big paper lamp shades, a big dragon poster on the red curtain in the background make the stage somehow cosy.

It can only be okay with the fans – nearly all over 40. When Hubert von Goisern feels happy, it will be a good concert. On Monday he was clearly really happy – "sauwohl" the Upper Austrian would probably say.

Hubert von Goisern is 59 years old, which you wouldn't think to look at him. He has almost always been indefatigably travelling the world: in his younger years he spent a long time in South Africa, Canada and the Philippines, from the mid 80s he went through the clubs with Wolfgang from Vienna and the Alpinkatzen. When the band was over, he went to Tibet and Africa, since 2007 he has been touring almost continuously through Europe.

And everywhere he has been and goes, he breathes music, helping himself to rock and reggae, folk and polka and of course the folk tunes of his homeland. He combines all this beautifully into a very individual mix, which has made him famous - at times high tempo and rocky, at times lyrical and calm, almost always with an alpine weft. And in between there are often great yodels. He didn't want to leave them to the folk music schlager people alone - what luck.

It almost doesn't matter what he sings in Hessian climes, almost nobody understands his Upper Austrian dialect here. He could be singing Russian or Chinese, that's how foreign his German sounds. It's a shame, because the storyteller has a lot to say - but you need a song book for it. But the way he sings, whistles and yodels is simply fantastic.

Hubert von Goisern is unbelievably multifaceted: he plays the guitar, keyboard, accordion and harmonica, Jews' harp, rings cow bells and plays a lapsteel guitar as well. He also writes simply great songs - like the anticapitalism anthem Brenna tuat's guat (It Burns Well - money), Koa Hiatamadl, Goisern or Indianer from the current CD Entweder und oder. And he throws in Janis Joplin's classic Mercedes Benz, in Goisern form: "Geh Herrgott, schenkt's ma an Mercedes Benz".

He is accompanied by three young, highly talented musicians who worship him and for whom the tour with Austria's world musician is a career highlight: drummer Alex Pohn and bassist Helmut Schartlmüller provide the necessary foundation on which Goisern and the virtuoso guitarist Severin Trogbacher can run riot.

For two and a half hours Hubert von Goisern gave a rousing concert in the Stadthalle, unseated for the first time since 2006. To play to an unseated hall - that was Goisern's big wish, says concert organiser Hans Emmert.

And one wonders why more organisers don't use the hall this way, even if at the end a good many Goisern fans may have been longing for a chair.

Indians and famous Goiserers

Die Presse 27th October 2012 | Text: sam

Hubert von Goisern proves that heartiness and subtlety don't have to be a contradiction.
Here Georgia can become Goisern.

Austria's folk music has continually been dressed up and turned into schlager since the sixties. With his vision of innovation through fusion Hubert von Goisern has beautifully put the brakes on this compulsion to prettify. He has integrated elements of the folk music of distant cultures, rock and reggae grooves into his art, which always stood for a intellectual triumph over the provincial. When he now asks from the stage of the almost sold-out Vienna Stadthalle whether his Goisern dialect is really understandable, he is being pretty coquettish. For one thing many people from other provinces live in the bloated city of Vienna, secondly Goisern gives highly successful concerts in Germany, where people kind of understand statements like "Dei Smile wiad oiwei breader" too. Perhaps Goisern's music is adopted as a kind of exotic world music outside Upper Austria?

The ovations were certainly very warm as his concert began with a mystically shimmering instrumental, which finally turned into an anthem from Upper Austria. Then rocky sounds found their way in with Suach da an andern: here von Goisern demonstrates for the first time on this long evening that the Jews' harp can be a valuable pop instrument when played with uncompromisingly hard lips.

Another delectation was Indianer, where western guitar twangs and ska beats meld ideally together. "There is no folk that only produces noble people, not even us in Goisern", he jokes, probably an allusion to a certain populist politician. He then turns Georgia On My Mind into an inspired ode to Goisern. In a song dedicated to the Styrians, with a passage from Ziwui Ziwui he then quotes Wilfried, the third famous Goiserer. The feisty reggae Mercedes is served with progressive dub passages and accordion solos. Goisern's version of Mercedes Benz was a joy as an interlude. After a number of critical songs like I kenn oan and I vasteh di nit the well-travelled man's connection to the homeland was ultimately expressed in hits like Hiatamadl and Brenna tuats guat. That was real alpenglow.