Friday, 20 February 2015
Paloma Faith @ Postbahnhof Berlin
A long weekend in Berlin was planned so quick check on Songkick revealed that The Black Keys were playing. Looked at booking tickets but the German online site did not fill me with confidence and thought therefore I would try to get tickets when in the city. So with a week to go before the holiday had a quick look again at Songkick to find that their tour had been cancelled due to the drummer seriously injuring his shoulder.
A quick trawl then revealed that Palomo was paying in a very promising edgy venue (thank you google earth), so why not? Never heard her music at all, only the odd interview where she came over as rather quirky.
An easy ride on the S-Bahn from our hotel by the Zoo to Ostbahnhof and a simple walk to the converted Postal railway station. Not many people around but people were going inside through an industrial hanging clear pvc strip curtain. But then my heart fell as there were two security guards after the ticket check. Sure enough my partially hidden new Nikon DSLR which was getting its first gig outing had to be removed and would not be let in, return ticket was given and they were polite about. I still had two cameras on my body, a small compact, (which appeared not to function particularity well) and my phone. But even that, given that Paloma came on stage wearing a white outfit, could not handle the contrast. The photographs above were taken by some guy directly in front of us who obviously had permission. So thanks to him.
The venue was small, decent sized stage bar at the back and another in an adjacent room/stage. There was probably about 500 inside, tightly packed especially in front of the stage. Bumped into a couple of Brits who had just driven in from Coventry to see her.
So the actual gig, well I enjoyed it, did get a bit samey but she really is a little darling with a fine voice. It was rocky pop. She was accompanied by drums, bass/double bass/keyboards, backing singer, solo lead, keyboards and another multi instrumentalist who was out of our sight stage left.
Her chats between numbers were funny and also charming in a east London way. Except when she was making a point about the costs of tickets she said to the audience (who she suspected to be all German not knowing there was a good number from the UK) that she would imagine they were all good savers of their money. I just had to shout back 'No they are having to give it all to the Greeks' not understanding it, I had to repeat it. She asked the audience who were having a good laugh about it, 'what was that, geeks'? to receive several replies of 'Greeks' and then it was all forgotten about.
Another nice one was that they were off to Cologne straight after the gig, knowing that it is not said like that in German she asked the audience what is it called to which a number of replies came back as 'Koln', to which she said ' What Colon?' We dissolved in laughter but the non english speakers did not get the joke (Doppelpunkt is colon), Whether it was intentional or not I have no idea.
Anyway a fun evening. (9/10 for entertainment, 6/10 for the music)
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