Hymn For Her in my living room!

19. November 2012 in meinem Wohnzimmer

 

Hymn For Her bestehend, aus Lucy, Wayne und seit bald 6 Jahren auch Klein-Diver haben wir vor vielen Jahren bei einem Urlaub in Florida kennengelernt. In etwas anderer Besetzung wurde vor nunmehr 7 und 6 Jahren bereits durch Europa und mein Wohnzimmer getourt. Im November waren Sie endlich mal wieder da. Eigentlich hatten wir uns für diesen Tag ein wunderschönes Wellness-Programm in einem der Stuttgarter Mineralbäder ausgedacht. Eine Fastgehirnerschütterung im Umkleidebereich hat dies leider verhindert. Zum Glück waren bis zum Abend alle wieder einigermaßen fit, so dass das Haus gerockt werden konnte. Holger von gig-blog.net, einem hervorragenden Stuttgarter Konzertblog hat hier bereits einen wunderbaren Artikel veröffentlicht, dem ich nichts auf Deutsch hinzuzufügen habe, außer herzlichen Dank für's Kommen und Schreiben und für die tollen Fotos von Reiner.

 

 

 

In November our friends from Hymn For Her played a fantastic very emotinal gig in our living-room. There is a great article on a local music blog with lots of great pictures all written in German. So this is my attempt to a translation of Holger's post and a few more pictures we did with our not so high professional home equipment:

 

"It is a cold, foggy night in November. I just stepped outside in front of the door for a moment, but not in downtown Stuttgart in front of a club, but in a quiet residential road somewhere in Stuttgart-Feuerbach. And I’m in total awe for a concert, one of the kinds I’ve never experienced before: I’m standing in front of a pretty little house with panoramic windows, inside some thirty people and a band that is about to raise the roof with rough country- trash. Surrounded by a good middle-class neighborhood, that gets filled with loud sound but seems to be quite tolerant.

 

What exactly is going on here? Musiclover Claudia from Stuttgart met the duo “Hymn For Her” in the United States. She invites them to make a stop-over in Stuttgart on their European tour, but finds no club where the two of them could perform. Without further ado, she changes her living room into a concert venue, invites family and friends, chills a few crates of beer and just allows the band to put on a house concert. In and of itself a wonderful idea. And finally she also thinks of inviting Stuttgart’s central institution for upscale taste in music, and we really appreciate that.

One thing gets obvious straightaway: Hymn for Her are a discovery! Lucy Tight and Wayne Waxing are without doubts "characters". The couple comes from the folk scene of Philadelphia, together with their daughter they live in one of those typical American vintage caravans (a 16-foot model of the type "1961 Airstream Bambi") and travel back and forth all over the United States on behalf of/in the name of music. Their musical arrangements also sound very, very American. Somewhere between folk trash and alternative-country. Jack White would love it. Anyways with drums, guitar, banjo and an abundant bizarre cigar box guitar they kick up quite a row. They have two albums in the bag: the classic-folky "Year of the Golden Pig" and their latest "Lucy & Wayne and the Amairican Stream". From the first one, they play the more quiet songs and ballads, out of the latest one the rock titles as "Slips" or "Sea". And these tracks move right into the legs. After just a few songs, the noble oak flooring turns into a dance floor. The mentioned cigar box guitar is the dominant instrument of Hymn For Her’s dirty sound, a construction made of a cigar box, a sawed-off broomstick and two strings, including one for the bass. This rarity is usually played with a bottleneck and the resulting whiny sounds get finally put through a fuzz-box. The ideal soundtrack for dusty road movies - or now Swabian homes. An absolutely piece of luck by the way: among the circle of friends and acquaintances of the hostess there is a mixer who arrived with such good equipment, some club would go green with envy.

And he does his job so well that the band offers him straight away to take him with them on the rest of the tour. When H4H then send out a medley of cult band Morphine who are totally to idolize and unfortunately gone from us way too early through the musical chopper, I’m fully thrilled: I think I’m hearing "Thursday" and "You look like Rain" . Simply brilliant. Also impressive: In passing Wayne Waxing suggests casual classical Spanish guitar playing art or even a loose bossa nova. Without question, there is a virtuoso hiding behind the noisemaker . And then there is some more rocking right on the caps with Led Zeppelin's "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp". But all this is nothing compared to the surprise of the evening: Lucy and Wayne's five year old daughter takes over the vocals in one song- completely natural and incredibly charming - while mommy and daddy do the backing vocals.

That's so sweet, that it even cheers the heart of the most hard-boiled Gigblogger. In short: a concert that makes you happy. A band that you would wish a much larger audience of course. And above all, a kind of concert, which should take place more often. Yesterday really everybody got one’s money worth: the hostess who had her favorite band in her own home, the guests who were able to see a great band in such an intimate setting, the hat well stocked with donations and the house left in a reasonable condition. And a band that certainly had a nice break in their tour routine. So, dear Stuttgartians: take an example. Invite your favorite band simply to your homes, chill a few beers and make the concert of your life. And do not forget to invite the Gigbloggers! "