Tagged: living abroad
Greasepaint, Wine & Musical Saws: Tiger Lillies at Kaserne, Basel
It’s become a running joke between me and my housemates that I am the “artsy” one – cemented last week when I convinced two of them to accompany me to see Birdman at the cinema. I’d like to think I enjoyed it enough for all three of us? I asked around to see if anyone wanted to join me to see The Tiger Lillies this week at Kaserne, but in retrospect, it probably wouldn’t have helped my reputation..
When I heard that The Tiger Lillies would be coming to town, the name rang a bell – the Peacock & Gamble podcast used to use their music, so I’d heard bits and pieces. The bio for the band on the Kaserne website was in German, and running it through google translate gives possibly the best description of them you could write:
“the lyrics are not for the value Conservatives and wherever there is objectionable, they put it provocatively another. Bandleader Martyn Jacques sings about whores, junkies, pickpockets, murder, the common man’s life and all the smoke died sparkled figures in the world”
So there’s that.
I’ve decided I’m a big fan of going to gigs alone – go can stand where you want, show up when you want, and you don’t need to fight your way back to exactly where you left everyone if you want to go to the bar. Kaserne has a bit of a weird layout, and kept the audience in what I can only describe as a holding room until about 15 minutes before the band took the stage. In this time, I was approached by a guy from the local tv news who was covering the gig. I quickly gave up on trying to talk to him in German (I really haven’t made much progress) but he was undeterred and pressed on in English. The outcome of this is that there is now footage out there somewhere of me like a rabbit in the headlights (quite literally; Kaserne has pretty low lighting, so the camera had a huge lamp strapped on the front) mumbling about how I was excited to be there. The world is a strange place.
Tiger Lillies took to the stage and were faced with perhaps the most unusual audience I’ve been a part of at a gig. People drink WINE at gigs here – I can’t imagine ordering a glass of red wine at a gig in Birmingham. And right down the front was a kid with his parents who couldn’t have been much older than ten. Now seems like a good time to point out that a LOT of The Tiger Lillies’ songs are about drug abuse, prostitutes, and dead babies. This is not an exaggeration:
I don’t know how much English your average swiss ten-year-old has under his belt, but I’m pretty sure he got the jist.
No one in the audience seemed the slightest bit phased by the content of their songs, though. The Tiger Lillies have been gigging hard for a pretty long time, and it shows – they are a really tight band live, and use everything at their disposal to give a great performance. (Think props, masks, and the occasional over-enthusiastic audience member). They mix up the instruments a fair bit too – they’re a three piece band, but the stage was full of instruments, including a piano, drums, double bass, guitar, accordion, ukelele, theremin and musical saw. The latter was a highlight for me.
Perhaps down to the diverse audience and unpredictable performance, but the atmosphere was fantastic. Basel is gearing up for Fasnacht right now, so Tiger Lillies with all their greasepaint and circus vibes seemed to fit right in. After a brilliant (and long!) evening, the band were hanging out right outside, and were kind enough to pose for a photo:
Second from the left in this picture is Kimmy, who isn’t in the band – we met in the audience! She’s staying in Alsace on study abroad from university in DC, and heard my English accent a mile off. Just shows how international Basel can be.
In a few weeks I’ll be off to Berlin to see Father John Misty – any suggestions for what I should do while I’m there?
A Weekend in Amsterdam
This weekend I managed to go a little further afield than usual – what began as a joke led to me meeting two friends at Schipol Airport for a weekend of exploring, shopping, and seeing Gerard Way.
Layers were necessary
Leaving work at 3pm, I caught a flight to Amsterdam from the Euroairport (thankfully only 30 mins away from my lab) and made it into Schipol for about 8pm. I met Rosie there, who informed me that the current weather outside was “freezing rain” (apparently distinct from snow or hail). We got a train followed by a tram to our hostel, Hotel Van Gogh, finding out on the way that it was indeed extremely cold. Charlotte, who arrived earlier that afternoon, met us there having already acquainted herself with all the other guests in the common room and made full use of the hot drinks machine.
After a reasonable nights sleep, we woke up to snow!
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If you read my post last week you’ll know that I will never not find this exciting. With less than 48 hours in the city, we headed off to do some exploring.
Amsterdam has some great vintage shops, which we wasted no time in finding. Purchases included a jumper embroidered with ducks and a bucket hat with unicorns on. (I was disappointed to later discover that the “unicorns” in question were in fact just flamboyantly coloured horses, although this didn’t stop me proudly wearing it all evening.)
Outside Time Warp, Amsterdam
Candy Freaks
We also came across a great little sweetshop which had a huge range of vegetarian and vegan pick n mix. The staff were fantastic; one guy just could not give us enough free samples. This place is well worth a look if you’re in the area, vegan or not!
Literally in a world of pure imagination.
With a satisfyingly weighty bag of pick n mix each, we headed back to the hostel the pick up our tickets for the show that night.
So this is why we ended up in Amsterdam, really. Rosie and I both recently rekindled our teenage obsession with Thank You For The Venom (if you don’t love that album, fight me) which led to us joking that we should go and see Gerard Way live. Which led to me finding out that he was on tour, and playing in Birmingham (where Rosie lives). Unfortunately the Birmingham show was midweek, so I couldn’t really fly back without using up what’s left of my holiday allowance at work. Fortunately, his show in Amsterdam was on a Saturday night. Before we knew it we’d booked out flights..
We missed the support (sorry Nothing But Thieves!) as it turns out that it’s entirely possible to get lost in Amsterdam in the dark with only some hastily scribbled directions from google maps to help you find the venue. Despite my stubbornness (“I’m sure it’s just down here..”), Rosie asked a nearby restaurant owner who showed us the way.
Melkweg
The venue was housed in a former dairy, and the name (“Melkweg”) translates literally as “milky way”.
By this point my inner thirteen-year-old had taken over and I was inappropriately excited. I am now the proud owner of a 25€ t shirt, which Rosie kindly pointed out was more than the price of my ticket. I’m just going to put that down to gigs being waaay cheaper on the continent. At this point it should be clear to you that I won’t (nay, can’t) give you a unbiased review of the gig. Instead, a few observations:
- They served draught Leffe behind the bar at a reasonable price – this is infinitely superior to the Carlsberg you pay upwards of £4 a pint for at most of the mid-sized venues in the UK.
- I don’t think I have ever been to a gig with more women in the audience than men. This was most definitely the case here. It was chill.
- Gerard Way’s showmanship was predictably fantastic. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny he knows how to please a crowd. He played every track off his solo album, and threw in an impromptu cover of “Do You Want To Build A Snowman” from Frozen for good measure. This was admittedly a little lost on me, having not seen Frozen, but I think I was the only one.
- Gerard Way is now a certified silver fox.
It’s not a gig if you didn’t annoy everyone behind you by taking a grainy mobile phone pic.
We left the show to meet Charlotte, who for some reason opted not to spend her evening wading through a crowd of sweaty emo fangirls. Each to their own I guess. She was at Roest, a warehouse bar just a short tram ride out of the city centre. It was situated in an industrial estate, so we were greeted with a slightly post-apocalyptic vibe, despite the liberal amounts of fairy lights.
Hardly a wethers is it.
Thankfully on the inside it was really cosy!
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Good music, old friends, and a few beers – a great (if cliché) end to a super fun weekend.
Of course, given more time I would have loved to have seen more of Amsterdam – any suggestions for what I missed out would be gratefully received in the comments!
Patrick Wolf at Theater Basel – An Evening for World Aids Day
The Basel music scene doesn’t compare to Birmingham very favourably, so I was super keen when I found out that electro-folk dream boy Patrick Wolf was coming to town! I snapped up a ticket as soon as the posters showed up around town, and was lucky enough to get the last front row seat.
The evening was a benefit for World Aids Day 2014. As such, it started with a speech which appeared to be at once both funny and moving. I say, “appeared to be” because, as regular readers may remember, my German isn’t up to much. Following this we were ushered into the venue where I quickly found my seat at the front. I proceeded to excitedly send pictures of my view of the empty stage to politely interested friends before realising that the place was packed out. Basel may not have a whole lot of live music, but people show up for it when it happens!]
Patrick Wolf took the stage alone to applause from the house; he clearly has a fan base here, and after his first song it was clear why. Those who know his work will be familiar with his distinctive voice. And for those who don’t:
It’s fair to say that live, his performances are on another level. A solo performer, Wolf makes great use of loop pedals to reimagine his studio works using violin, harp, piano, and guitars to build the tracks up piece by piece. However, relying on technology like this comes with risks. After a fantastic arrangement of Wind In The Wires, he started getting some pretty major feedback, and the sound team weren’t able to fix it. The rest of the set was unfortunately plagued with technical problems, but Wolf was more than able to charm his way through with talk of Virginia Woolf, Ghostbusters, and why he would like to be a pigeon for the day. His open and understated presence gave the concer
t a very intimate feel (following the ballad Enchanted, Wolf mused “I wrote this song at a time when I was drinking two bottles of Baileys a day”) which more than made up for the issues with the tech.
I was told that I couldn’t miss this show by my long suffering bff Drum, who’s seen Patrick Wolf before and likens it to some kind of glittery electro-folk religious experience. I was not disappointed.
I left my felt tips in England
I came across some old drawings on my hard drive and it made me realise something: I didn’t bring any of my pens or sketchbooks with me when I moved to Switzerland. My blog is already a mish-mash of topics, and is pretty much the definition of vanity publishing. So, all in the name of content, I thought I’d stick these pictures up here – they may as well be somewhere.
Obviously any and all criticism is greatly welcomed! Balancing work and studies is proving a challenge right now, hence the slightly irregular posts. Saying that, my post about #shirtstorm has had a great response (thanks to everyone who took the time to read it!) so I felt I should post something!
I’ll be bringing my felt tips back with me from the UK next chance I get. Anyone else getting back into drawing? Say hi in the comments!
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