BRENNA TUATS TOUR 2012
It really burns
Hubert von Goisern and his new band present a unusually edgy and hard body of sound
in the Jahrhunderthalle Höchst.
The litany of the saints help; Hubert from the village of Goisern in the Salzkammergut was especially taken with Saint Rita, the patron saint of every situation. The 59-year-old always takes the piety and conservatism of his homeland in hand with a little mockery, quickly playing waltzes, polka and march rhythms - with a young team of musicians who are firing on all cylinders.
The band with devilish guitarist Severin Trogbacher and the bone dry rhythm group of Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and drummer Alexander Pohn packs the music, developed over the decades, into new "clothes", as the Austrians would put it. The opening instrumental ÜUOÖ with its bold accordion makes you listen up with a crystal clear and very transparent body of sound. Then the Jews' harp is unpacked and the goodbye song Suach da an andern is belted out in ska rhythm. The band spiritedly jumbles blues, ballads, hard (alpine) rock (Indianer) and other music genres together. Yet the two and a half hour concert with no break comes across as a whole. No comparison to the conceptless "ship tour" of 2009. Brenna tuats guat (It burns well) is the motto of the current tour. That's it exactly. Von Goisern, who of course dedicates a jazzy anthem to "his" village, is on top form with a cross-section of his repertoire.
Ovations after his balladic hits Weit weg weg and Heast as nit were the thanks for this fantastic concert evening. And the dedicated environmentalist proved once more that he is the master of a whole arsenal of instruments. New on offer: the clarinet.
You almost want to fall to your knees
Hubert von Goisern shines in Frankfurt
Alpine rocker, folk music rebel, Tom Waits in lederhosen - there are such passable worn labels that have been given to Hubert Achleitner. And mostly, when these clichés threaten to harden, he has musically "dismantled" everything - made stops in Tibet or Africa to invent alpine world music, then worked on a new, but never nationalistic traditionalism with Trad, played roughly the musical opposite for two seasons on a converted cargo ship, or most recently played the deeply relaxed pub bard in idyllic taverns.
Fantastic nonsense
The globetrotter from the Upper Austrian Haider town of Goisern has now had perhaps his best idea in a long time: he stands on the stage of the sold out Jahrhunderthalle, tortures his accordion more soulfully than ever, talks fantastic intelligent nonsense about cut-off hat bobbles, Austrian brass musicians and other muddleheaded "Indians" - and gives his best concert in years. His tour named for his current album Entwederundoder is a unique, all over the place lucky dip. For two and a half hours the 59-year-old celebrates what in the high mountains would probably be called a "wild style mélange". Hubert von Goisern has the blues, alpine rock and the most melancholy yodel too, he drags polka and Karawanken beat into a superbly grooving whole, sings ballads of heartache, longing, lust for life or farewell songs and subjects the boozed up staid folk music to a creative kind of exorcism. Good, as a lowlands "Indian", you understand songs such as Es is wias is or i kenn oan best during the refrain, but it's the same way with Grönemeyer too.
Jews' harp to cow bells
What unites the two men above all is their dazzling charisma. Only, von Goisern isn't just disarmingly authentic, he also plays a good dozen instruments: Styrian accordion in red (not to be confused with the diatonic accordion in white), Jews' harp, various guitars, keyboard, clarinet, cow bells and and and.
He also has put together a band as young as they are brilliant - Helmut Schartlmüller (bass guitar), Severin Trogbacher (electric guitar), Alexander Pohn (drums) -, who translate Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz prayer into a witty slowed-down reggae without any problems, tip their cap to Ray Charles' Georgia, which puts the good old Goisern into a swooning anthem, in equal parts a declaration of love. It all comes across as so normal and honest that you almost want to fall to your knees with an eye toward the otherwise systemically dishonest business. Hubert von Goisern remains a rare original, someone who doesn't profess to be, but rather is.
He can yodel with his rock trio too
The best entertainment with Hubert von Goisern in the sold out Tollhaus in Karlsruhe
Now on stage as a quartet: Hubert von Goisern reduces himself to a class rock band lineup. Good, of course the accordion, his clarinet, the Jews' harp, the vintage selection of cow bells are still there. The current album Entwederundoder, which was presented in full in the sold out Tollhaus, is a highly concentrated, powerful matter with uniformly stage-suitable pieces. It begins with the atmospheric entrance Üuoö, which showcases the electric guitar and accordion as instrumental brothers in spirit. Straight after that the band introduces itself as a hard-rocking power trio and the boss plays the Jews' harp.
Firing off ostensibly contradictory things one after the other without the listener feeling overtaxed is an art that the singer masters splendidly, because he tells the right stories too: about the clarinet, for example, which the pubescent boy was offered as an alternative instrument at the second music society, after he was removed from the first thanks to his age-appropriate obstreperousness and the band's trumpet was withdrawn. He didn't want the clarinet then, but now he plays one again. A cheap Japanese one made of plastic ("it's a good plastic!). That even sounds good. But that's thanks to the Austrian microphone. And the cosmopolitan Goisern has gone once around the world already and demonstrates in the next song quite casually that you don't necessarily have to play plastic music with plastic instruments.
The clarinet carries the contemplative atmosphere of Es is wias is. But the guys can do the blues differently too: in I versteh di nit the ensemble (guitarist Severin Trogbacher, drummer Alexander Pohn and bassist Helmut Schartlmüller) fires off a thrashing, lightning power blues as would become a hard rock band. In the "prayer meeting" that asks for a Mercedes Benz in a German version of the Janis Joplin song, the foundation is a shuffling reggae with scattered metallic eruptions. So to imply that Goisern is a musical revolutionary misses the point. He doesn't invent anything new, but he puts what is available in a new, sometimes surprising context and does so in an extremely pleasant way. His popularity may in part also be down to the fact that his style of playing music is on the other hand planted with embellishments from popular styles. It's doesn't bother you that even non-musical people notice straightaway that Halt nit an is the twin separated at birth from Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, and it really doesn't bother you that the man from Upper Austria blindly longs for a better world in simple words: "it's not long ago / that I dreamed / I was flying / high above the world / everyone had everything / they needed / not a single soul / wanted for anything. Who can disagree with him? To say nothing of even simpler insights: "I don't like shepherdesses". Yes, he can really yodel well too. In case anyone had forgotten in this rock-heavy two and a half hours.
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Landshut - 3rd February 2012
Photo: © Elli ChristlOn the rocky tour - Hubert von Goisern and band in Kempten
The thoughtful one serves up catchy rock and deep lyrics in the Big Box Kempten
– The audience of 4000 say thank you with standing ovations
Nothing during the concert pointed to the 4000 listeners in the Big Box in Kempten being especially taken with it. They applauded politely after each piece that Hubert von Goisern and his band played. Nothing more. But when after a good two hours and three encores the four musicians said farewell, most of them got up from their seats to thank them on their feet. A moment that in its calm and celebratory way was rather touching. You seldom see anything like that at a rock concert.
Yes, Hubert von Goisern has - at least on his new album EntwederUndOder - taken to rock. Catchy, powerful rock. The look of his tour band suits it, with guitar (Severin Trogbacher), bass (Helmut Schartlmüller) and drums (Alexander Pohn). Hubert von Goisern contributes all possible instruments (Jews' harp, guitar, clarinet, piano, accordion).
The folk music, from which the 59-year-old comes, now sounds only as an echo in one song or another. Mostly when he straps on the Styrian, the diatonic accordion.
Then suddenly the sound dominated by a distorted guitar and rich drum is given an alpine colour, a breath of homeland - without any excess. In these moments the pedigree musician seems even a touch more authentic, honest, straightforward.
But his music is straightforward too. Nothing seems contrived, pompous or extravagant - even when he press the accordion buttons so virtuosically. He expressly wanted this after his rather bombastic last albums. It was to be simple music, which at times is a complicated matter. But this Hubert von Goisern finds the right tone, be it a slanted waltz, loud rock numbers or soft ballads.
Every class and age
In the first part of the concert he plays mainly from his new album. Only later does he mix in a few older songs. As said before, it approaches being largely peaceful. Seldom do people's hands reach up to clap along. Sometimes a melancholy atmosphere develops. That's not just down to the music (for example in the wintery clarinet piece Es is wias is or in I versteh di net, this one with a litany blues).
It's the lyrics too that cover fortune good and bad, saints and the devil. The strong-voiced bard from Upper Austria cultivates a thoughtfulness without complaining or moaning. They are the stories of someone who feels a great deal and expresses it in his very own way.
It is when you consider this that you perhaps best understand the reaction of the audience at the end. An audience that was incidentally made up of every class and age. A good majority of them sing the 20 year old love song Weit weit weg without prompting. Another of those rare magic moments.
Anyone wanting to see Hubert von Goisern and his band in the Allgäu region again will have the opportunity on Sunday, 12th August (8pm), when he'll be appearing at the open air stage in Altusried.
"My, that's really rocking"
"Less is more" - in the case of Hubert von Goisern, the oft-quoted expression is, by way of a change, actually the case. After his Danube ship tour, which took him from the Black Sea to the North Sea, the 59-year-old has radically purged his cosmos of sound. And von Goisern proved how good this reduction has been for his music on Thursday at the completely sold out Posthof in Linz.
For two and a half hours things went uncompromisingly straight to the point. Through all genres. Through all periods of creativity. Without any frippery and superfluous embellishment. Whether blues rock (I Versteh Di Nit), ska sounds (Indianer), hypnotising instrumentals (ÜUOÖ) or strange Jews harp rock 'n' roll (Suach Da An Åndern) – it is an impossible thing to classify the music of Bad Goisern's most famous son. Because pigeonholes are for pigeons as far as Hubert is concerned, not his songs. One thing is certain: "My, that's really rocking", a staid gentleman put it in a nutshell. Approving nod from a young guy with dreadlocks.
Von Goisern excellent accompanying band was to be thanked for the wild style mix sounding as if it came from a single source. Guitarist Severin Trogbacher shone with finely set solos, the rhythm troupe of Helmut Schartlmüller (bass) and drummer Alex Pohn acting dry as a bone.
After a small low in the middle part, in which things got a little too schunkel-like, von Goisern proved at the end of the regular set that even annoying constant repetition on the radio has nothing on a great song like Brenna tuats guat.
With Oben und Unten, the heartbreaking encores Weit Weit Weg and Heast As Nit, as well as the touching piano ballad Lebwohl an inspiring, at times phenomenal concert evening came to a close. Thunderous applause!
More photos at www.nachrichten.at
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli Christl
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Linz - 26th January 2012
Photo: © Elli ChristlHubert von Goisern: Brenna Tuats - Tour 2012
Take an age range of 15-75 years old in the audience - a mix that is rarely found - and combine it with primal Upper Austrian humour and dialect. This is roughly how you can describe the sold-out Hubert von Goisern concert in the Linz Posthof - a successful evening that perhaps couldn't have been expected as a young concert-goer.
You feel so different on this evening, compared to going to a "classic concert" in the younger age group - traffic on the way to the Posthof was heavier than usual, the concert had probably been sold out twice over weeks ago and the crowd was accordingly large crowd, meaning that the hall was completely packed even half an hour before the official start. The 59-year-old Upper Austrian needs no warm-up band. He manages to thrill the audience from the first bars - something that many others can't manage to do. Paired with anecdotes from the current tour - from shows in Worms, where he should High German, please, to the homecoming in Upper Austria, where you have to watch out, because the people really understand everything that is being said on stage. The show continued with well-known songs, alternating with the new record - and the confession that as a young man he was thrown out of one of the seven brass bands in the 7000 inhabitant town of Bad Goisern, because he took the conductor's ostrich feather. With irony and profound lyrics Hubert von Goisern proves that dialect and Austrian music also - thank God - work outside of Musikantenstadl. For that alone he deserves thanks.
More photos at www.subtext.at
A triumph without "Hiatamadl"
Hubert von Goisern in the Graz Orpheum
There are concerts. And there are events. Hubert von Goisern and band's show on Wednesday in the sold-out Graz Orpheum was a fantastic concert event full of power, wit, joy in playing, empathy and originality.
The 59-year-old world musician and globetrotter has been many ways before; now you get the feeling that he has arrived - at a high level.
He has arrived at the perhaps dangerous cutting point between rock music - presented by three dynamic whippersnappers on guitar, bass, drums - and earthy-honest "folk music", presented by a wonderful, calm Goisern, who serves as a musical jack of all trades alongside his optimally disposed vocal chords, accordion, clarinet, steel guitar, Jews' harp and cow bells.
Entweder und oder
At the centre of the programme stand the new CD Entweder und oder. No weak song, no embarrassing talking, instead witty episodes from Goisern's life. The current chart stormer Brenna tuats guat was ablaze, the Indian galloped through the prairie, the encores Heast as nit and Weit, weit weg provided comforting nostalgia. Only Hiatamadl was left out by Hubert von Goisern. Nobody missed it. That was perhaps the biggest triumph of the fantastic evening.
The "Brenna Tuats Tour 2012" in Austria
Last night superstar Hubert von Goisern officially opened his "Brenna Tuats Tour 2012" in Austria in the Orpheum, Graz, keeping his audience spellbound for more than two hours.
More than 1100 enthusiastic fans checked out the alpine rocker's power show last night, which had been sold out for months and were agreed across the board that they had witnessed something really big. Together with his deliberately small band in classic rock formation of bass, guitar, drums and accordion, Hubert von Goisern proved that less can absolutely be more.
Thus he effortlessly succeeded with a fine mix of old hits such as Weit, Weit Weg and Heast As Nit and new pieces, including the current huge hit Brenna Tuats Guat. In between he entertained the audience with amusing anecdotes from his youth and an almost cabaret-like atmosphere developed, tears of joy included.
Hubert von Goisern in Graz
More photos at www.fenstergucker.com
The first stop in Austria on the BRENNA TUATS GUAT TOUR 2012 was in Graz. So nobody was surprised that the Graz Orpheum had long since sold out. Around 1200 fans gathered in the Orpheum to spend a fun evening with Hubert von Goisern. For more than two hours he entertained the audience, who even after numerous encores still hadn't had enough. Make sure you get your hands on one of the highly-coveted tickets for the still young tour.
Joy in life
Alpine rocker Hubert von Goisern in the sold-out Kammgarn Kasino
"I like it here with you guys!", Hubert von Goisern flatters his audience. "Things have gone upwards since I was last in Kaiserslautern." And in fact: in April of last year, it was 800 people who made the pilgrimage to the Austrian alpine rocker and world musician; on Wednesday evening more than 1000 were in the sold out Kulturzentrum. They needed good stamina. Hubert von Goisern ground the organ for two and three quarter hours with his band and gave five encores.
Alpine lights accompany the band in the intro. And the atmospheric alpine music slowly climbs to a powerful mountain of sound, against which the Großglockner mountain is but a molehill. Into von Goisern's yodels and chords is mixed the howling guitar of Severin Trogbacher, who chases his strings through the distortion pedal. Tradition meets modern, alpine meets rock. Von Goisern draws on wonderfully melodic old folk tunes and intersperses them with elements of blues, jazz and punk. From folk music comes world music.
The 59-year-old from the Salzkammergut serves this rousing concoction with an appropriate shot of self-deprecation and with unrestrained joy in life. Time and again he opens up new sections of his huge repertoire and presents his music lightfootedly. But with rough edges. Goisern's playing has many facets. Space and depth develop as he, as in Schönberger or Üuoö (Über-Unter-Ober-Österreich), pulls the bellows of his diatonic accordion all the way apart and his fingers fly across the buttons.
He loses himself in an artistically woven game of overtones and musical effects and in a fantasy-rich shift of development and completion. The rhythm group of drummer Alexander Pohn and bassist Helmut Schartlmüller shoot down the touch of homeland kitsch.
Von Goisern is a multi-instrumentalist, an all-rounder. In Hey-Hey he enchants on the Jews' harp and sings acrobatically, then scat sings, racing the guitarist. In the self-deprecating Goisern he lets the steel guitar howl and sing, while his sonorous voice celebrates the joy in life in falsetto. In I vastehns nit he yodels in such a way that it is a pleasure to hear and skips and dances likes a dervish, while the band let off a pyromaniacal firework. Volume belongs to a rock concert and is an important style element.
The quartet drives an intensive administration, defamiliarising folk tunes, furnishing them with intricate breaks and musical extravaganzas. The audience can't be held back even more. Even visitors dressed in traditional dirndls and Tyrolean costume clap, jump and sing along with every line. By the third song at the latest, the mood barometer climbs into the immeasurable. This varied music from the great entertainer, who even plays clarinet, guitar, harmonica and electric piano, takes everyone with it.
But Goisern doesn't just want to entertain. He has something to say too. In the song I kenn oan he encourages tolerance as he sings: "of all the people / there must be one or two in the world / like you and me." In Brenna tuats guat he lashes out at the policy that uses tax money to promote the idea of burning wheat and maize, which are actually foodstuffs, as biofuel. And in Indianer he tackles the "moneybags"; "They have arrows, they have bows, they have huge balls and they think they must shoot everybody. They know everything, they're as sly as the fox." After all Goisern has often set an example in his life with civil courage. When the right wing populist politician Jörg Haider misappropriated one of his songs for his election campaign, he strictly repudiated it. This attitude precipitates into all his songs, influences from Tibet being integrated just like stylistic elements from Africa or South America.
Hubert von Goisern - Rock on the accordion
He is probably the founder of alpine rock. And anyone who thinks that is a sedate-beery, honest kind of music, doesn't know Hubert von Goisern. Together with his band he played in Lörrach.
For more than two decades he has busied himself with the deconstruction of folk music, reassembling it and putting it into a new environment, mixing it with rock 'n' roll, and what emerges isn't just musically exciting, it exudes so much realism that as a listener you are captured by the primitive power of this music. No wonder that the Lörrach Burghof, where Hubert von Goisern played not for the first time on Monday evening, was sold out with more than 1100 people, an audience of very mixed ages.
After a quiet opening piece Hubert von Goisern and his three band members let loose with crisp rock, a snippet of folk music melody unexpectedly turned into a rock riff and the audience straight away went along with it. The accordion is not an instrument of rock music and yet Hubert von Goisern plays it so gung-ho that it becomes one. He elicits from it melodies with rousing swing, he strokes and challenges his instrument. A great band provides lively groove, with the guitarist Severin Trogbacher, bassist Helmut Schartlmüller and drummer Alexander Pohn he has excellent accompanying musicians. But Hubert von Goisern could replace a whole band all on his own, he swaps the accordion for the electric or acoustic guitar and a lap steel guitar, for which a frame was specially made so that he didn't have to sit down to play it. Then a keyboard goes onto the rack, he plays the harmonica too, and even the clarinet, which, he explains, he played only grudgingly as a young boy in a brass band in his hometown.
The songs from Hubert von Goisern are of rousing authenticity, the audience in the Burghof often sang along, and in contrast to earlier times, it doesn't bother him any more, he revealed. "It seems like a holiday to me, when I come to Lörrach", he said and regretted the fact that he usually didn't have enough time. Of course it's not true that it's beautiful everywhere. But of course none of it compares to Goisern, at which Hubert Achleitner, as he is really called, sang a song about his hometown.
Songs from his most recent album Entwederundoder are part of the set, such as Indianer, after the rocky section followed blues and ballads, he sang Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin in Austrian, underscored with a reggae rhythm and accompanied by the accordion. Again and again he combined the primal strength of non-kitschy folk music with the power of rock 'n' roll, and always impressively succeeded with this connection.
As the second of a total of four encores, he played his old hit Hit Weit, weit weg, enthusiastically applauded by the audience from the very first notes, and then said goodbye at the end of a two-hour concert with a yodel piece and the hope that it wouldn't be the last time he was in Lörrach. The enthralled audience hoped so too.
Hubert von Goisern
TUTTLINGEN - "Brenna tuats!". In English: "It burns". That's the name of the 2012 tour on which alpine rocker Hubert von Goisern will play about 80 concerts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The charismatic Austrian attracted about 1500 fans to the Tuttlingen Stadthalle on Sunday.
"That's the way it is" 59-year-old Hubert Achleitner "von Goisern" philosophically determines in a song from his most recent CD Entwederundoder. And slips into the role of a weatherman: "Just one thing is certain, that today's snow won't stay", the translation of the dialect lyrics could be. In Tuttlingen introduces a clarinet into the song and entertains with an anecdote: how back then in Goisern, "7000 inhabitants and seven brass bands" he had to give back the borrowed trumpet and be content with the clarinet instead. He answered the many sympathetic "aaahs" from the hall with "I've never been shown such understanding" and elicited deep and emotive sounds from the "Japanese plastic thing".
Just three musicians have the honour of accompanying Hubert von Goisern on this mammoth tour (Tuttlingen was the first stop in Germany): Alex Pohn, the energetic drummer from Pezzlpark, Vienna. Bassist Helmut Schartlmüller - self-taught with experience in the USA - and Severin Trogbacher, also from Vienna and successful as HvG's guitarist for the past five years.
All three are a good bit younger than the star, but he allows each of them the spotlight, or "duo-els" with them by turns.
Hannes is also particularly busy: it's his job to give Hubert von Goisern each instrument. Accordion in white or green, Jews' harp, the acoustic guitar, or the two electric guitars. For I will leben! there's the "Schepperl" too, that is, the tambourine.
"Really, you should play this instrument on your lap," the musical multi-talent says of the lap steel. But it is now mounted on a mobile stand. It sounds during the sceptical piece I vastehs nit. Even cow bells are among the many instruments. Of his harmonicas, which are used during Benni und Nit lang her, Hubert von Goisern says: "They come from Trossingen, right around the corner. They were Germany's worst cultural export, so small and cheap, they reached everywhere." It was the Chinese who invented the "shimmering reeds", "but the people of Trossingen systematised it". Special applause broke out in a part of the hall where fans from Trossingen must have gathered.
Aside from the ten new pieces, HvG also has older material in his set: Steirer, the moving homesickness-song Goisern! and the intimate conversation with God, whom he approaches for "a Daimler, eternal life and a halo". There are also two versions of Schleiniger to be heard. A more than one thousand voice sings with abandon the refrain of Heast as nit? and Weit weit weg. The applause is thunderous and there is demand for a fourth encore. It comes, a cappella, in the form of Lärabrett. With a warm goodbye, HvG says "danggsche!" and promises to return.
Nobody torments the squeezebox harder
Austria's alpine rocker keeps 1500 listeners on tenterhooks
and presses pure joie de vivre from his accordion
A concert evening with Austrian Hubert von Goisern is exciting. It's exciting because one never knows as a listener which wave of music will cover and wash you away next. An earthy blues with heavy harmonica? A solid piece of brass music as is heard in the party tents in Germany, although far, far crisper with him? A peaceful ballad, from which drops heartache, longing, sorrow of love? Or another song with von Goisern's favourite instrument, the accordion, from which he squeezes forth the most terribly strange beautiful melodies.
1500 people in the Tuttlinger Stadthalle let themselves in for this excitement on this evening. Again. Hubert Achleitner, as the 59-year-old is really called, is a regular guest in the region. And the visitors in Tuttlingen don't regret coming. For two and a half hours Hubert von Goisern keeps them on tenterhooks with his band, mixing his songs from rock 'n' roll to polka, from reggae to folk music, soul to funk. Stylistically all over the place and gloriously wild.
As wild as he plays his instruments. Or rather: torments? Von Goisern is master of numerous instruments. First and foremost his accordion. Barely no other strokes the keys more tenderly when there are the soft melodies, the the sensual and tender chords. Instrument and musician become one. But: it's quite certain that on the other hand nobody squeezes the accordion rockier and harder than him. Von Goisern is a mechanical maximum punishment for every squeezebox. He bullies, he presses and squeezes and out come fantastic waves of unheard of and undreamed of sounds. Sounds and noises that do not otherwise exist in this form. Best of all set loudly and garishly, colourfully and with fitting lighting on stage. Amazing.
Certainly: The Upper Austrian can sing too. It sounds no less exciting than his music, only even in south west Germany the average listener understands little of the lyrics. The alpine rocker knows this when he ironically calls to the crowd "Versteht's eh' alls?!" (Do you understand it all?) Average age: 40, 45 years old. Anyone who knows the Goisern lyrics can sing along happily. Those who have never heard them puzzles. Even an expert understands barely a word of the new pieces from his album. Only with the very slow pieces do the building blocks of lyrics unravel into sentences.
That's good, because this world musician, who has experimented in many places around the globe, has all kinds of things to say. For example, when he sings in his new hit Brenna tuat's guat that money doesn't grow on trees, you can't eat it, but it burns well. And that we're stupid to burn wheat instead of eating it. And soon it's all going to go to hell if we carry on like this with the resources of our planet. Von Goisern shows his qualities as a singer-songwriter and is strongly reminiscent of Wolfgang Niedecken from the Cologne group BAP, with whom von Goisern has also stood on stage.
Two and a half hours of music without a break, plucked, beaten, rung, beaten and tinkled from countless instruments, lyrics too - and then the Austrian's trademark: yodelling. There's definitely nobody on this side of the Alps or beyond who yodels more coolly than von Goisern. He yodels quietly and he yodels loudly. He yodels weirdly and he yodels madly. Whatever suits. And the listener always knows, as hard as his eardrums are twitching: von Goisern yodels with body and soul, yodelling his heart out. This mixture is unique and anything but well-behaved.
Those who missed this exceptions musician can soon see him in a very fitting setting: at the Hohentwiel in Singen, where von Goisern will be playing at the open air festival this summer. Then there will be smashing alpine rock with a view of the Alps.
Hubert von Goisern: Live in Bern - 20th January 2012
More photos at www.konzertbilder.ch (Events/2012 /Januar)