Not a lot to say about this concert yesterday at the Mousonturm. Marie Frank, a Danish singer/songwriter opened for Howe. Very blue eyes, very blond hair, very charming smile and very irresistible voice. She was on her own with an acoustic guitar and voice-wise she reminded me a lot of Juliana Hatfield. In one song she sounded as innocent and natural as the early Dolores O'Riordan from the Cranberries. After a couple of songs Hans Anders joined her on electric guitar and lap steel. I really dug his understated and concentrated way of playing the guitars. The lap steel added the mystery feel. It sounded almost like a theremin.

Howe arrived with two more musicians from Aarhus, a drummer and a classic bass player who resembled Joey Burns (Howe's usual bassist in Giant Sand, now busy with Calexico) quite a lot. Marie and Hans Anders stayed most of the time so that there were five people on stage. Howe played his solid new album The Listener (audio) almost completely. He spent a lot of the time at the Steinway grand piano. Inside the grand there was a small monkey figure with a red electric guitar who seemed to move occasionally. Howe did his usual cd-deejaying. The overall feel of the music he played was quite jazzy, free-flowing. Altogether I found the bulk of the songs a little bit too slow and at the end I suddenly got the impression that Howe always does the same song. That had never happened to me before. I must have close to thirty records of his. The concert was still great but I was missing the outstanding tunes. The captivating intimate No Reply from my favourite Giant Sand album Chore of Enchantment was an exception. Someone in the audience had asked for it and it was interesting to see that Howe played the first minute or so on his worn acoustic guitar on his own as his Danish band apparently did not know the song well enough. But then Hans Anders on guitar and the bassist and the drummer joined in. A very good backing band. I also have to say that I prefer Howe with a band than on his own. Last year's concert on the Cover Magazine tour was a little bit disappointing as he did everything (piano, guitar, singing, deejaying etc.) on his own. The band sound is something very important for his music. I also had the impression that Howe was very happy to play with younger people (he must be around 45 I'd guess). Several times he referred to his fellow musicians as his home.

Before the concert I bought the excellent Italian live album Infiltration of Dreams of Giant Sand, a new Down Home 2002 release by Howe and the last remaining Chore of Enchantment T-shirt.

Nick Southall in the Stylus Magazine Blog. Somehow I suspected something in that direction. Assuming that this is not a concoction...