September, 10th – Stuttgart, Zwölfzehn – IRA, Liquid Broom

Third time is a charm. Finally I had the possibility to see IRA live. It was really nice to go there after work (first usual work then mailorder work), first have a nice chat with some friends in front of the club in a warm night in late summer. A really relaxing atmosphere and a small club with a very personal setting.

LIQUID BROOM opened up. The band lately evolved from parts of the local scene. You could describe the music as typical nowadays post rock mixed with some electronic parts and a few straight-forward rock parts. Playing with a decent sound, the band often trys to sound “very post rock” but these moments are not what makes this band special. Their particularly strong moments are the erupting parts when the guitars are playing a doubled melody, but also the calm electronic moments. Maybe the band should try to combine these parts even more with their post rock sound. Anyways, painted with uv color which was emphasized by black light, they did a great show which made me dream at some points. They finished off after approx. 50 minutes when I wanted to escape the stuffy concert room for some minutes. But I will see them again for sure…

After a short gasp for breath IRA started with their set which consisted mainly of songs from their upcoming album “Visions of a Landscape” which are a bit wind down compared to older material. The sound was brilliant. If only other post rock based bands would use vocals like IRA but this is surely something that makes them very unique. Singer Tobias did a great job this night singing very emotional and nevertheless musically correct. The rest of the band did a great job as well transporting all sorrow, from time to time exploding in anger. With only six songs, each of them lasting almost 10 minutes, they built up a very own sound scape with great harmonies. I could not resist closing my eyes from time to time and simply savor the pictures the band was drawing with their songs. The sometimes very heavy guitars are often dubbed with a fragile lead melody, be it by the vocals or by one of the guitars. This was simply electrifying. After the song entitled “encore” which you can also see as live video on their MySpace site the band left the stage but came back for what this title stands for – an encore. So they played “Long live the parts”, an older song which was very very heavy in the live version. This was a felicitous finish for a great gig! I will surely come to your next show when you are around, guys…

IRA: MySpace – Homepage
Liquid Broom: MySpace – Homepage

Next live event I will be reporting from is GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT and DATURAH in Karlsruhe / Jubez, September 13th…

Feel free to comment or rate this live report! Express yourself, demand what you are missing!

Now off to bed, reading some lines and then finally sleep…

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