TOUR 2011
Alpine rock in "such lousy weather"
Hubert von Goisern with his band and three water spirits at Salem castle.
This is not the way the singer with his instrumentalists Severin Trogbacher (guitar), Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and Alex Pohn on drums imagined it. His concert became a power struggle against the water masses from above with the desperate attempt to bring the rather slowly growing atmosphere to boiling point. The South Tyrolean ladies Maria Moling and Elisabeth and Marlene Schuen from the trio Ganes gave it their best to support him on violins and the drums. In Ladin "Ganes" means "water spirits". Did Hubert von Goisern mean something by engaging the band? But the sound of their beautifully articulated voices delighted the audience and filled the time before the famous singer's show.
Almost two years after his last concert Hubert von Goisern is presenting on his tour the songs from the new, twelfth studio album. He performs his songs in Styrian dialect. The song I versteh' di leider net, dafür bin i wahrscheinlich z'blöd ("I don't understand you, I'm probably too stupid"), suits the strained listening of the people of Baden-Württemberg and the other "foreigners". Von Goisern ends his song with the musical arrow prayer "Saint Christopher, Saint Anthony, Saint Archangel Raphael" and achieves a few seconds respite from the rain. "Willi over there on the grass is confusing me somehow", von Goisern finds fault, but Kaiser Wilhelm remains silent on his pedestal. "Goisern, Goisern, es is a Graus, alleweil wieder muß i z'ruck zu dir" ("Goisern, Goisern, it's a shame, time and again I must return to you) he rocks with a hearty yodel in between and carries on singing: "I want to live" - and now everyone - chorus!".
It remains a fainthearted attempt. "You've just missed your chance to shout really loudly for once", Hubert von Goisern says resignedly and receives much applause for the emotion-laden song awaited by many: Du bist so weit, so weit weg von mir. "Herrgott, i bitt Di" [Mercedes Benz], an odd rock number, ends with a powerful "halleluja" from the Styrian singer's throat and he thanks the audience and resignedly adds: "such lousy weather".
Holleräduliö: Folk rock meets cowbell blues
SALEM. Even persistent rain couldn't stop 4500 fans cheering the musical cosmopolitan and alpine rocker from the Salzkammergut on Friday evening. After an eighteen month break Hubert von Goisern took stock and made sure to musically transport his personal views on social, cultural and sociopolitical incorrectness - at times, laid-back and thoughtful, at times loudly rocking and with punk provocation. The man searching for home and inspired by wanderlust played with allies Alex Pohn (drums), Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and Severin Trogbacher (guitar): Hubert von Goisern – more direct than ever before. "Such lousy weather, it'll stop though - maybe tomorrow", Goisern said to cheer up the drenched fans with just a touch of ironic serenity.
From the start the Austrian globetrotter showed with his legendary diatonic accordion, as well as steel guitar, harmonica, clarinet and lap steel, that the traditional and modern need not bite each other and each finds their raison d'être on stage. The pioneer of alpine world music presented the newest songs from his forthcoming CD, which, will wonders never cease, isn't available yet. "We're going on tour before the record comes out, then we can play the songs in peace. Because nobody can sing along." That's Hubert von Goisern: just different, non-moldable, non-changeable.
Whether hard rock rap in Indianer with humorous, but first-rate cow bell-playing, a ska shuffle in Brenna tuats guat, folk style elements in Halt nit an, the great arrangement Goisern, adapted from Ray Charles' Georgia on my mind or the multi-voiced yodel from the homeland I vastehs nit or the barely recognisable adaptation of Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz: Hubert von Goisern understands with his mostly stoic ease how to cast a spell over the at first measured and rather quiet audience enjoying themselves. He invites them to take on the cold weather and to sing along, to dance and simply celebrate. And as the master shouted a powerful "hey, hey" into the venerable circle of the castle park and the audience followed him in the style of a mountain echo, the ban was broken for good. Something that the security team had to realise too, as hundreds of people were no longer in their seats and took over the fenced off area in front of the stage in order to celebrate with their idol. "It's fine, everyone come on down, it's fun this way", said the protagonist of the evening and struck up the great dance finale with Koa Hiatamadl, probably his best-known work. "It was great" agreed the fans.
How yodelling came to Saarlouis
An entire mountain massif and alpenglow can appear between the buttons of his accordion, and he makes the furious storm in the mountains really whoosh with the bellows: sometimes Hubert von Goisern is a magician of a body of sound. But sometimes he is also just the apparently eternal youth (who is actually 58), for whom taking up the electric guitar means freedom. Freedom from the picturesque Bad Goisern with its six brass bands, the hometown of Achleitner - as Hubert from Goisern is really called. The freedom to play music the way he wants too. Sometimes as a world musician, who can't gather enough sound treasures from around the globe. Sometimes as the untiring folk music reformer that becomes alpine rock.
Now, on tour, he made a two and a half hour stop on Thursday evening at the sold out Saarlouis Theater as part of the Musikfestspiele Saar. He brought with him a number of new songs, as well as old, contenting himself with a small, excellent (and sometimes over loud) rock trio accompaniment: guitar (Severin Trogbacher), bass (Helmut Schartlmüller), drums (Alex Pohn). They are all whiz kids, no matter whether whether soul, rock, jazz or a Janis Joplin classic is required. And all three are, like Hubert, from Upper Austria and as a consequence natural masters of yodelling. Which they do extensively.
Time and again it is also amazing how von Goisern, this melancholic entertainer, knows what to do with simply every instrument, from the accordion to the clarinet and cow bells. You love to join in, even if you're at best guessing what von Goisern is actually singing. Aber schee, schee woas schoan (dialect: But great, it was great).
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Leopoldschlag - 29th April 2011
Photo: © Elli ChristlGoisern rocks the tavern
Tavern tour. The venerable Gasthof Grimming was shaken to its foundations on Tuesday
as a man from Goisern fervently played his music in the hall.
A box stands next to the stage. "Mr Muscle. Forty per cent extra" is written on it. The man on stage gave at least an extra forty per cent on this evening too.
Hubert von Goisern makes a stop with his band (Helmut Schartlmüller, bass; Severin Trogbacher, guitar; Alex Pohn, drums) in the hall of Gasthof Grimming in Rauris. As part of his current tavern tour. In the style of Mr Muscle the Goiserer gives the ears of his audience a proper cleaning. With folk music beautifully underscored by rock.
Goisern, who came across so quietly with his legendary masterpieces Trad I and II and gave new impulse to "real" folk music and saving it for posterity, is now moving in his very own dimensions.
He strikes up a yodel and accompanies himself on the accordion, growing a spiritual strength from these sounds in the twinkling of an eye. At the touch of a button Goisern understands how to put his feeling into sound, without any lead time.
For the audience it is tantamount to an acceleration from zero to a hundred. It is a musical ear-gasm in Hubert von Goisern's trademark style. Now he's up for reinventing the tavern.
On Tuesday evening an audience of 240 crowd into the hall of the tavern built in 1383, the time of gold mining in Rauris. The masters from Grimming lived here. This hall is the western venue for events during the Rauris Literaturtage.
That is how contact was made. Katharina Klingler, director of the Literaturtage: "I spoke to him about a concert. It worked right from the start."
Goisern easily managed on this evening to bring one or two - musical - gold nuggets to the surface.
He doesn't restrict himself to a programme of "greatest hits", there is a lot of new material to be heard. Hard, critical lyrics are his personal inventory.
Goisern doesn't buckle. At most he bows to the audience. He told the SN before the start of the tour with which criteria the taverns for his concerts were chosen: "The atmosphere and history were important to me. They shouldn't be a new building, nor a chic event centre. The taverns also had to be outside conurbations - and the landlord had to be nice too."
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Ottensheim - 28th April 2011
Photo: © Elli ChristlSinger Hubert von Goisern can do everything - except High German
Worpswede. Hubert von Goisern seems a little resistant to advice. No, he won't speak High German to the audience, even if one heckler demands it, and yes certainly. he'll go on tour now, even though his new record hasn't been released yet. But despite his contrariness, the Upper Austrian has never been a stubborn hillbilly.
After musical excursions around the world and river cruises on the Danube meeting musicians and playing concerts in every harbour the cosmopolitan from the Salzkammergut is now on a big club tour again with a reduced band. With Severin Trogbacher (guitar), Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and Alex Pohn on drums he has reduced his accompaniment to a classic rock trio.
The master himself switches ably between different guitars, clarinet, cow bells, accordion, keyboard, Jew's harp and lap steel. With this new band goes a similarly new programme. The majority of the songs have not yet been released and if the forthcoming studio versions can hold on to what the live versions promise, another masterpiece is on its way. It actually isn't necessary to intersperse familiar hits to keep the fans in the sold out Music Hall in Worpswede. But here and there the new lineup take pleasure in earlier works such as Weit, weit weg, Heast as net or the barely recognisable adaptation of Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz.
As on his previous ten albums the cosmopolitan searches for and find further connections between folk music tradition and rock, combining blue or reggae just as he does one yodel or another. The quartet approach the challenges with a joy of playing, inspired and wildly resolute.
also demonstrate great flexibility as far as tempo and atmosphere are concerned. The spectrum reaches from wistful ballads to folk rock stampers at punk rock high speed. "Volle Mettn", says the Austrian, says in this case. This refers both to the high speed and the enormous fun factor. The band also demonstrate great flexibility as far as tone and atmosphere are concerned: The spectrum reaches from wistful ballads to folk rock stampers at punk rock high speed. Every extreme is led to a whole.
It's actually not a crossover, but rather simply the consequential continuation of folk music in its purest sense. There is no separation between popular and folksy if you don't see the latter as a rigid genre without the possibility of evolution. Folk in von Goisern's sense always means a homogenous group of people, from young to old, from conservative to revolutionary, from provincial to cosmopolitan. This was and is von Goisern, his audience - in Worpswede too - and his music. While the concept of multiculturalism is time and again judged to be doomed to failure, here is the living evidence to the contrary.
The songs are the same in the neighbouring valley, they're just played differently there, says Hubert from Bad Goisern - whose real name was Achleitner, before he took on his stage name. So he can sing his song Goisern and say that it is about the town, not him. It's all lies, you can't have one without the other and the view sweeps from the highest mountain, across the valleys and beyond Teufelsmoor. Far, far away even.
Enormous fun
Hubert von Goisern with a small band, new songs and old strengths in the sold out Music Hall
Worpswede. Hubert von Goisern's reaction to this request from the audience is clear: "What, I should speak High German? I don't know that everybody would want that ..." Probably nobody other than the one heckler in the sold out Music Hall wants it, because to rob this man of his Austrian language is almost as unthinkable as BAP without Kölsch dialect, or Konstantin Wecker without Bavarian. Perhaps it is even better if one doesn't understand everything, the singer adds, some of his lyrics are very "explicit".
By the same token, the artist seems to be in the same boat, I vastehs nit (I don't understand) he sings and Heast as nit (Can't you hear) too, his suggestion: "you'll have to make an effort and get into the groove, then you'll get a feeling for it!" Comprehension aside, it's not about having to understand every words or every line. What convinces is the presentation as a whole and the way in which von Goisern sets the traditional and the modern in relation to one another. Since the beginning of his career at the end of the 80s the musician from Bad Goisern has looked for the dialogue of cultures and eras, has travelled the world and brought African, Asian and American music together with his homeland.
Folk music without rigidity
This has often been implemented on stage with a large band a variety of, at least from a pop music point of view, exotic instruments. In recent years as the 58-year-old completed his tours with ships along the Danube he made his accompanying band much younger. Now he has reduced it to the essentials of a rock trio. On stage with him now are only guitarist Severin Trogbacher, bassist Helmut Schartlmüller and drummer Alex Pohn - all Upper Austrians like him, says the bandleader, who constantly changes between guitars, clarinet, harmonica, cow bells, accordion, keyboard and Jew's harp.
In this lineup the band plays a programme, two thirds of which is made up of about two thirds new, unreleased songs, but which doesn't miss out the big hits like Weit, weit weg either. They didn't want to wait until the CD was ready, says von Goisern and so against all marketing strategies they went on tour before its release. The idea that he lets anyone stick their oar into his plans seems unlikely. Hubert von Goisern is sure of his paths and wherever they lead he is proved right. That's how it is with the remoulding of his band too, who get straight down to it with a joy of playing, inspired and wildly resolute. "Volle Mettn", says the Austrian, which in this case could refer both to the high speed and the enormous fun of their playing.
As on his previous ten albums the cosmopolitan searches for and find further connections between folk music tradition and rock, combining blue or reggae just as he does one yodel or another. The quartet also demonstrate great flexibility as far as tempo and atmosphere are concerned. The spectrum reaches from wistful ballads to folk rock stampers at punk rock high speed.
Every extreme is led to a homogenous whole. It's actually not a crossover, but rather simply the consequential continuation of folk music in its purest sense. There is no separation between popular and folksy if you don't see the latter as a rigid genre without the possibility of evolution. Folk always means a homogenous group of people, from young to old, from conservative to revolutionary, from provincial to cosmopolitan. This is von Goisern, his audience - in Worpswede too - and his music. While the concept of multiculturalism is time and again judged to be doomed to failure, here is the living evidence to the contrary.
Blues spiced with yodels and garnished with cow bells
Hubert von Goisern's concert at the Oldenburg Kulturetage – Music styles in alpine format
OLDENBURG - Hubert von Goisern is a daredevil. After numerous journeys all over the world, studying different musical influences and styles, the 58-year-old Austrian is now on tour with a young band. Three young band members who set the room alight with their playing. All this without the new CD, which won't be released until late summer.
Nonetheless von Goisern makes a point of playing new, earthy, blues and rock-soaked songs. It bears witness to self-confidence, to a deep trust in his music. He says himself: "We're going on tour before the record comes out, then we can play the new songs in peace. Because no-one can sing along!"
That's just how Hubert is. Maverick, earthy, odd. Like his music. Right at the start he buckles up his diatonic accordion and plays - supported by electric guitar and bass - a typical country dance: in slow motion tempo. Now and again a deep juchitzer escapes him.
Then von Goisern dedicates himself with blue and rock. Naturally in such a way that every corner of the presentation of his Austrian musical socialisation flashes out. Blues is spiced with a couple of yodels, cow bells are integrated into a wild solo. Jew's harp, clarinet - instruments von Goisern had to play because he was too rebellious in the music group -, lap steel and accordion. Hubert changes instrument faster than you can spell alpine rock.
Yet von Goisern is a poacher of music: he roams different music styles, moulding from them his own alpine amalgam, far from the folksy schlager trademark of Musikantenstadl. Thus for example Georgia On My Mind made famous by Ray Charles becomes Goisern. He presents Weit, weit weg as a power ballad. And after two hours of concert that resounded with his hits Koa Hiatamadl and Heast as nit and wild gstanzls and country dances dressed up with electric guitar, the Austrian makes the 800-strong audience in the yodelling diaspora of Oldenburg dance too.
And what does Hubert do, the daredevil? He acknowledges the euphoria with a smile and gives a pithy "That was great!"
Hubert von Goisern at the Rosenhof
A rocky, rousing concert evening
OSNABRÜCK. It should really be "aus Goisern". But it's "von Goisern" and so it sounds a little as though there is aristocratic ancestry. It's not really meant seriously - even though there is this acknowledgement of his roots in the stage name Hubert von Goisern. At his concert in the sold-out Rose one thing in particular became apparent: yodelling is cool - even beyond the Salzkammergut.
He entered the stage a little reservedly, picking up "the Styrian", the diatonic harmonica, as he came and started to dreamily play a country dance to himself. But things weren't about to stay so leisurely: the first juchitzers were to be heard from the audience and in Brenna duat's guat the air was burning in the Rosenhof. Bass (Helmut Schartlmüller) and electric guitar (Severin Trogbacher) roared, the Goiserer plucked the Jew's harp very, very funkily, Alex Pohn beat the living daylights out of his drums. No question: Hubert von Goisern is not just a multi-instrumentalist, he is also skilled in the most varied musical styles and provenances. With border-crossing projects such as his ship tour from the North Sea to the Black Sea, as well as long stays in Africa and Asia under his belt, he trades under the name of an established world musician. And as such he virtuosically mixes blues and folk, allows alpine country dances to groove and uses exotic instruments. For example the lap steel guitar, on which he plays Goisern with fervour, his version of Ray Charles' classic Georgia on my Mind.
The line "I like you and your old-fashioned jodl-ei-ti" says a lot about the artist's ambivalent relationship with his home of Bad Goisern in the Salzkammergut and its related folk music. There seem to be other conflicts: von Goisern sings of happiness in the flowery meadows, of the passage of time with an almost yogic calmness, only to then call with disgust in the next song: "whether Serb or Croat, to lose either is a shame".
The only recently begun tour is very rocky and rousing, with numerous new pieces, which will not be released on CD until August. The band is small: no violin, no backing singers, no synthesizer sounds, but instead more headbanging polka and more juchitzers, with which the listeners enthusiastically join in. In particular with the old familiar songs, such as Heast es net and Hiatamadl, which the Osnabrück audience knows by heart too. The Austrian seems to almost overlook the northerners' enthusiasm for yodelling with a little simultaneous dialect. "That was cool," he summed up the more than two hour long concert. How right he was.
Hubert von Goisern at the Kulturfabrik
More photos at www.kulturfabrik-krefeld.de (Click "Bilder anzeigen")
Hubert von Goisern: Alpine rocker on a journey around the world
The alpine rock shows his joy for playing at the concert at Kufa
Krefeld. As a musical globetrotter he has been to Tibet, Canada and the Philippines. But his home is Bad Goisern, a town of 7000 people in Upper Austria: On Thursday the alpine rocker Hubert von Goisern made a guest appearance at the almost sold out Kulturfabrik.
For more than two decades the singer-songwriter has successfully mixed rock music with elements of traditional music. Even if ones doesn't completely understand his dialect lyrics in the Rhineland: Hubert von Goisern makes himself understood above all with music characterised by an irrepressible joy for life and play, beyond any familiar clichés.
The onomatopoetic Üuoö was the perfect introduction to an emotionally-loaded set of a good 20 songs. On stage the 58-year-old Austrian confirmed his reputation as a technically adept multi-instrumentalist. In Indianer he rings cow bells, the song living on his vocal acrobatics and the galloping rhythm, later he rocks masterfully to Hey Hey with Jew's harp, or grooves beautifully melodically with the diatonic accordion. Even playing the lap steel guitar he cuts an faultless figure, raising the homeland song Goisern to a dreamy blues number. Along the way the world musician yodels now and again with great spirit.
Further high points are the singalong anthem Weit, weit weg, which receives storms of applause, and Leben, virtuosically shaped by driving bass. The audience in Kufa afford von Goisern and his three member band frenetic applause. An excellent jamboree with a great atmosphere.
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René Janssen
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Krefeld - 7th April 2011
Photo: © René JanssenYodelling plays a part
Bochum. Hubert von Goisern is often connected with the genre of "alpine rock". On the one hand that is right, however it by no means does justice to the 58 year old. Influences from all around the work find their way into his creations. Anyone thinking that they could incorporate the Austrian into world music is fortunately also out of order. Von Goisern showed around 650 happy guests at Zeche with just what versatility he conceives his music.
Yodelling also plays a part. After all Hubert Achleitner from Upper Austria comes from Goisern. There is hearty yodelling. The advantage: yodelling actually sounds very nice. The greater advantage: the audience are delightfully too inhibited to yodel along. That's what makes Goisern different from other rockers. Everyone sings along, but they don't yodel.
No matter whether ska shuffle as in Brenna tuats, the folk in Halt nit an, hard rock rap in Indianer or the cowbell solo as humorous as it is skilful, which follows the Link Wray riff in Indianer – culturally foreign genres are in good hands with Goisern. He kneads them, forms them, makes them his own.
Beauty becoming music
In the song Goisern, based on Ray Charles' Georgia on my Mind he plays the "completely ungroovy sitting instrument" the lap steel, a required instrument of country music, scrounged from his friend Max. A moment of beauty becoming music.
The audience has grown with Goisern, there's barely anyone who hasn't seen at least 40 summers. They spent a good two hours with the most enjoyable entertainment from a fully fledged professional, whose drive for discovery shows no signs of dying.
New album on the way
He is currently working on a new CD and gave a taster of the first songs from it. This also speaks for a man of his musical stature: while most musicians have to make a whole CD first in order to then earn money with a tour, Goisern simply gets going, draws on his repertoire, alters old versions and suggests new thing. No, that was folk music, the way it is not wanted on public television. Why? It is too good for a Saturday evening.
"I don't understand"
Alpine rocker and world musician Hubert von Goisern with his group at Kammgarn
On Tuesday evening 800 fans cheered alpine rocker Hubert von Goisern at Kammgarn. Aside from his classics, the globetrotter also presented for the first time songs from his new album, which will on the market this August.
Hubert von Goisern has never been streamlined. As a child he took the initiative to learn a musical instrument and at 16 years old the band leader of the Goisern musical society in the Salzkammergut threw him out of the brass band after an ongoing dispute. The same way that his homeland became too confining for him and he stayed in South Africa, the Philippines and Tibet (where he was appalled by the oppression of the Tibetan people by the Chinese occupiers), alpine folk music also became too stuffy for him. By no means should the Austrian be banded together with the commercial, so-called folk music that in form and content really isn't folk music any more.
Much more the 58-year-old multi-instrumentalist integrates influences from all over the world into Austrian folk music. He expands their spectrum of expression, he parodies and satirises. He integrates, but by no means allows co-opting. When the right wing populist politician [H.C. Strache] misused one of his songs for his election campaign in 2006, he strictly prohibited the use: "I stand for an open, tolerant society, for the destruction of fear of the unknown and new, and not for the fomentation thereof," he wrote to [Strache] in an open letter. "I stand for looking changes in the eye and looking forward, not for the attempt to stop time, or to even turn it back."
This attitude precipitates into his new songs Brenna tuats, Indianer, Neamer bang and I vastehs nit. Tradition and the modern meet without biting each other. Von Goisern draws on wonderful melodic, old folk tunes and punctuates them with rock, jazz, blues, funk and punk. From folk music comes world music. And he serves this rousing concoction with a proper shot of self-irony and and irrepressible joie de vivre, teasing ever more new pigeonholes as he goes. Music so light-footed, but with sharp corners.
When he, as in Üuoö (über-unter-ober-Österreich) or Brenna tuats, performs virtuosically on the diatonic accordion, losing himself in artistically woven subtleties, a mixture of development and completion rich with fantasy, space and depth develop, while the huge dragon on the backdrop begins to glow. The rhythm group of drummer Alex Pohn and bass player Helmut Schartlmüller blast away the tiniest touch of native kitsch. The air is burning and the audience dance and clap along energetically right from the start. In Hey-hey von Goisern enchants on the harmonica and sings pure tongue acrobatics, while the pyromaniacs of the rhythm group and the guitarist Severin Trogbacher ignite a musical firework. In Indianer von Goisern scat sings in a race with the guitarist and in the self-ironic sounding Goisern he conjures sensational sounds from the steel guitar, while his dynamic, richly facetted voice carols in falsetto with joy for life. In I vastehs nit and Nit lang her he yodels passionately. And he leaps and dances like a flibbertigibbet and the band goes sky high.
The four a highly intensive administration and furnish the folk tunes with intricate breaks and musical extravaganzas. Most captivating of all is the tight communication between them all, counterpointed beautifully in sound. And thus they tear the listeners into a musical rapture from which nobody can escape. Euphoric applause, three encores.
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Grundlsee - 3rd April 2011
Photo: © Elli ChristlHubert von Goisern at Veit
A tavern tour was a brainwave from Hubert von Goisern. And the third stop was at Veit in Gössl on Sunday 3rd April. Together with his excellent band Alex Pohn (drums), Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and Severin Trogbacher (guitar) he felt as happy on stage as the the audience did with his mixture of familiar old numbers and new ones. Many new things had their premiere at Veit. Since the audience was prepared to listen, they were treated to the quite, touching numbers as a reward. There was a giving and taking on both sides, which left a mark on the full hall called pure joy. On the one side was musical philosopher and poet Hubert von Goisern, who doesn't just PLAY his music, but IS his music and lets the audience feel it with every fibre of his being and on the other side the people who gratefully let themselves in for him, his lyrics, rhythms, yodels and primal cries. Multifaceted and versatile like "life itself", that according to Hubert, "is the greatest art".
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Neuhofen im Innkreis - 1st April 2011
Photo: © Elli ChristlGreat concert from Hubert von Goisern at Veit in Grundlsee
He was busy composing in his Salzburg studio, developing a new concert programme and a new CD. With these new songs and old classics from his repertoire Hubert von Goisern started his tour with his band through Austria, Germany and Switzerland at the beginning of April 2011. Alongside these big concerts, Hubert von Goisern also wanted to give a number of small shows in old taverns. "With these concerts we want to make a contribution to breathing life into mostly underused concert venues. And I'm curious to see how the audiences will react to our music. It is always exciting to play where you've never been before. That was once the case in cities such as Cologne, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin ... I still look forward to the concerts in these and other centres. But time and time again great curiosity has drawn me to the edges.
The start of the small concerts is a bit rough, the third concert took place on 3rd April at Gasthof Veit in Grundlsee. There was a real spark between the musician and his audience. Hubert von Goisern gave a great performance and carried the audience to storms of enthusiasm.
There were just 250 tickets for the standing room only concert, organised by the Kulturverein KIK, and these were sold in just a week.
"Barman, a beer and a Hubert, please!"
With both fresh new songs and favourite old songs Hubert von Goisern returns to the source, there where the beer and wine flow. The first stop of the 58-year-old's tavern tour was on Friday in the hall of Gasthof Sternbauer in Neuhofen im Innkreis.
What drives the man who has already played in the furthermost corner of the Ukrainian Danube shore, the desert of Mali, the venerable Lehartheater in Ischl and the salt store in Ebensee to now turn Austrian taverns into concert halls?
The idea leads back to Bad Goisern in 1992. At that time the "Vereinswirt" and with it one of the last tavern halls in the Salzkammergut was bulldozed - two days after the musician had given a show there to a full house. Before the last old halls suffer a similar fate it occurred to Hubert von Goisern and his band to make a contribution to breathing life into mostly underused concert venues".
The "Sternbauer" exudes a hostile to modernisation charm. Tables and benches in the guest room have survived a good many groups of regulars. In the adjoining hall 350 people gather around little round bar tables, so they have somewhere to put their beer when they applaud the Goiserer's songs.
Beneath the wooden ceiling there is no distance between the artist and the audience, some of whom near the bar carry on talking while listening, while from the small stage come the sounds of an objecting "Styrian" accordion that the combo has incorporated as an "Überlowerupper Austrian".
The power and joy in playing of the 2008 album s'Nix has propagated in the new numbers. "Music is playing and things are going crazy", to put it in the words of its originator. The guitar crashes, the blues rocks, the Jew's harp funks, the lap steel wallows, but the fresh lyrics are mostly swallowed by modest acoustics. There is talk of Indians with bows and arrows and the spaghetti western melody takes off in punk tempo.
From the store comes the Joplin cover Mercedes Benz as well as poisonous gstanzls, the eternally touching Weit, weit weg, the ode to desire Haut & Haar and the fantastic Leben, which aptly sums up the two hours tavern work from Hubert, Alex Pohn (drums), Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and Severin Trogbacher (guitar): "what we have, we have to give."
Hubert von Goisern: Tavern Tour
On Friday Hubert von Goisern started his tavern tour at Gasthof Sternbauer in Neuhofen im Innkreis.
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