Shared pain

Xiuxiu_München concerts by Xiu Xiu are something of suffering in the semi-public space, so the visitor pays a small contribution to the best possible view of the self-flagellation by Jamie Stewart, played catch with his current three-man backing band. So also on 10 April in the moderately filled crane hall of the Munich plant celebration.

Fair to accuse anyone of having chosen that evening for another form of entertainment - the performances by the Americans are not particularly easy rezipierbar, ranging from the almost non-existing interaction with the audience to spread the four on and off the stage a physically noticeable discomfort, an unpleasant intersection of rugged, repellent gesture and harassed unrest. Most clearly the focus, of course, in the person of Jamie Stewart himself - a driven man who writhes with a faraway look on his guitar, his (selbstbezeugt) ill feelings from the prying eyes down there accused to be devoured, while apparently so under pressure that is says he'll be able to bring the evening to end non-healing.

If he does, of course, but - surprise at all, you have him and his band credit, the music that accompanies this outward display of pain and transformed wonderful, finest indie and post rock is - cold, of course, but also fascinating. This applies to the pieces of his fabulous new album "Always", especially the single "Hi", "Joey's Song" and "Beauty Towne," as well as for older songs, with "Fabulous Muscles," "The Fox And The Rabbit "" I Love The Valley OH! "he mixes his set balanced between past and present. In between, again, the almost obsessive mouthwash using two different liquids, the handwritten change a guitar string (elsewhere the industrious Roadie using a second instrument quickly bridges) in any case of Stewart - no one dares the audience even utter a sound at all - the tense, proverbial ordeal. So much louder then the cheers for two successful cover versions done already seems "Ceremony" from the late work of Joy Division and for this band and this evening, when the furious encore "Frankie Teardrop" staggers from Suicide and jumps Stewart, from his own microphone cord strangled , with lucid smile across the stage - the big show. And certainly the end of an unconventional, but successful evening.