Artist: Tour of Tours
Venue: Lido
Location: Berlin,
Germany
Date: 2 March 2018
The Tour of Tours is an
ambitious and appealing concept. Supergroups such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
might be an influence not just in terms of genre and style, but also
in format. In this case, five bands based in and around Germany
teamed up for a tour in which the various performers served as each
other's backing band. The ten musicians traded instruments just as
readily as they traded songs and almost all sang backing parts and
harmonies when not taking the lead.
The bands whose various
members were on stage were Honig, Jonas David, Tim Neuhaus, Ian Fisher and Town of Saints. While they all share a certain
foundation in singer-songwriter, folk, and indie rock traditions,
they all have their own angles and styles, which makes for a diverse
presentation. Presumably not every variation will appeal to every
listener, but over the three hours of the show, they covered a lot of
ground. Some songs leaned closer to modern rock, some had a bit of an
electronic edge, some were straight folk numbers, some were in the
realm of acoustic pop, some had country overtones, and most fell
somewhere in the wide spectrum called indie rock. And then there was
Ryan Thomas Carpenter's hilarious/bizarre lounge number presumably
titled "Is That All There Is?". Almost everyone in the
collective took the lead at some point, even the quiet Italian
drummer Davide Iacono.
The band played two
lengthy encores. For the last one, they jumped off stage and played
their one collaboratively written song, "Song of Songs", in
the middle of the audience without any electric amplification. The
crowd was at the ready to share the vocals in the chorus. Afterwards,
the band climbed back on stage for one last number, an extended take
on Ian Fisher's existentialist singalong "Nothing". It was
a fitting end for a long show that featured a variety of perspectives
on the meaning of life.
When the show was over
and I realized what time it was, I couldn't believe that three hours
had passed. The rotation of performers and styles meant that the show
always had something new to keep my attention, so the time passed by
without my noticing. It's hard to beat seeing five solid bands in a
unique formation for the price of one show.
