Brandtson

+ Unwed Sailor / Otherwise / Opposition of One

Date: Friday June 20^th

Location: JuZe Hammerschlag, Schorndorf (Germany)

Sometimes I really wonder what is wrong with the scene. The begin of the show was scheduled for 9 pm, but when a friend of mine and me arrived at the club around half an hour before the supposed start, there was virtually nobody there except for the bands. Well, I didn’t know Unwed Sailor before, and only heard that Otherwise should supposedly be a great band from the UK, but Brandtson… I mean Brandtson are probably the most catchy band on Deep Elm (they’re my fave band on this label by the way) and their sound is similar to bands like Jimmy Eat World in my eyes that draw large crowds, so why isn’t anybody showing up when such a great band is on the road? I don’t know how many people came to the other shows of their European tour, but tonight there were 60 people in total attending the gig. Ok, 60 people is not that bad, but they were mainly showing up when Brandtson entered the stage. This had the effect that the other bands played in front of only a handful of people. Oh well, what can you do?

Opposition of One are a local band and they started the whole event off. Whilst the other three bands, apart from all differences in sound, had some musical “connections”, Opposition of One were pretty much different with their screaming new school kind of sound. Not bad, but as I said totally different from the rest of that night’s bands (which generally isn’t a bad thing at all). And they were playing a little bit too long.

Otherwise were next on the bill, and they rocked. As I said, I hadn’t heard their music before, but I had read before the show that they would sound like bands as Texas is the Reason, Samiam or Gameface. In my eyes this comparison is not 100% correct as these mentioned bands are / were way more catchy than Otherwise. The British five piece played more dissonant yet still emotional and melodic songs. I liked them as the songs as well as the stage acting was cool.

Unwed Sailor come from the US and played right before Brandtson. The most noticeable thing about these three guys was that their set consisted only of instrumental songs. Very unusual, but interesting. The music was also in the emo or indie direction and I bet their bass player was a metal kid some time ago as he was headbanging as hell, even though he didn’t wear a typical metal outfit ;-)

Finally it was time for Brandtson to enter the stage. They started their set with one of my favourite songs, ‘Sic transit Gloria (Glory fades)’, and from the very first note they rocked! They were so powerful on stage and although I am repeating myself, their songs were just ROCKING! I hadn’t expected that much energy from them, but it was definitely great! The singer/guitarist and drummer were both singing, and this helped to create the same magic effect as on their albums. The Otherwise guys were standing in the audience and were joking with Brandtson, telling them that they would suck. And finally the audience was moving. Yeah, really. But it is hard to stand still when you hear such cool music. As far as I remember Brandtson played songs from all of their previous releases and two new songs as well. Hopefully there will be a new album by these guys soon that will sell thousands of copies so that more people come to their shows!

(Stefan Münch)

Be sure to check out the official Brandtson website: www.brandtson.com