ELLIOTT

+ SUNSHINE

+ PALE

+ SUNDAY INN

Location: Schorndorf (Germany), JuZe Hammerschlag

Date: January 12^th 2001

The new year is still young as I type this, and I was to witness one of the best shows for this young year. You may think it’s maybe a little be too premature to describe a show in the second week of January like that, but it’s the truth.

SUNDAY INN from Berlin, Germany, were first to play and they were great. Really. Four guys and a female singer with a fantastic voice. Their music is a mixture of indie, pop, emo and… whatever, take a listen for yourself. Anyway, I liked them very much. They played a couple of new songs from their forthcoming album, which sounded even better than their last MCD “As if.” Great opening of the show!

Next were PALE, also from Germany, and they rocked! Very energetic performance. Their music? Maybe punk, emo, indie? I really don’t know how to describe, but fans of the Movielife, Saves the Day or emo stuff should check them out. I liked their songs a lot, and I was not the only one as most of the people attending the show (I guess about 200 in total) seemed to dig their stuff. For one song they invited the singer of the German band Ambrose on stage and he did the vocals. Fantastic, more of that!

SUNSHINE entered the stage short before midnight, and I was pretty tired at that point. And their music couldn’t change that. The three piece created a rather unique sound, as their bassplayer handled the keyboards and a sampler as well. Interesting: Yes. My cup of tea: No. After listening to about four songs a friend of mine and I decided to hang around in another room of the club where we found many other people besieging the guys who were selling records, shirts and stuff. My friend bought a couple of records and when we carried them to his car he said one sentence that were laughing our asses off for the whole evening: “I am so stupid, I waste all my money.” Maybe you wonder why that seems to be so funny, but we couldn’t stop laughing whenever one of us repeated that sentence afterwards.

Anyway, when we entered the club again, SUNSHINE were almost through their set, and after a short while it was time for ELLIOTT from Louisville, Kentucky. Their last album ‘False cathedrals’ was one of my favourite releases last year, and I can remember when I heard it for the first time and was blown away. So I was very curious about their show. Chris Higdon (vocals, guitar) and his three companions entered the stage and from the first song the audience was into them. And they were great. Chris talked a lot with the audience during the set and obviously seemed to enjoy the show. The second song was one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard, namely ‘Blessed by your own ghost’ (from ‘False cathedrals’), followed by ‘Drive onto me’, their hit. During that song, all the people sang along and Chris was very happy to see that. ELLIOTT played lots of songs from ‘False cathedrals’ (e.g. ‘Calvary song’, ‘Calm Americans’, etc.) and the predecessor, ‘U.S. Songs.’ Their drummer was responsible for the electronic effects that appeared on their last full length, and these effects made the songs even better. At one point of the show a drum pedal broke, but after a short pause (during which Chris was communicating with the audience) the show continued. Great gig!

If you have the possibility to catch ELLIOTT (and of course PALE) on stage, don’t miss them. Highly recommended!

(Stefan)