The Anatomy of Frank – Sidestep, Aschaffenburg; October 17th, 2016
The essentials of an Anatomy of Frank show? Beautiful music with surprising melodies and great harmonies that will put a smile on your face. Three very likable guys who know how to play, sing and tell the occasional story. And concerts that go by so fast you wish they’d start over again as soon as they have ended. Aschaffenburg was one of those gigs: beautiful, funny and over in a heartbeat.
This was my fourth or even fifth time going to Colos-Saal in Aschaffenburg and by now it feels like routine already, i.e. I know my way around. 🙂 Got there early, saw Max sitting outside, decided not to bother him and left again for a while. Met P. and A. on the way back and found out the concert would not take place at the Colos-Saal itself, but at Sidestep, the cafe of the place. OK then. Walked in, found a seat, had a drink, said hello to Kyle, talked, waited, the usual.
Shortly after 8 Kyle stepped on the stage, picked up his guitar and started playing ‘Lake Eyre’. I didn’t recognize it right away, but knew it was one of the new songs. Such a beautiful piece of music. It is going to be a while before it finds its way to an album though. Lake Eyre is i Australia and the next album, planned for January, is South America. I love it how they always play songs from the unreleased albums already. 🙂
Jimmy and Max joined Kyle and they played “songs from the cold north” as Kyle calls them, explaining their liking for places up there. When I think “North” I never think of North America so my thoughts immediately traveled to northern Europe, but either way the songs work for me, making me smile and sing along as best as I could. One I’ll finally remember the lyrics and will realize how much I’ve misheard in all the years before. 😉 Until then I just do he choruses and the parts in-between that got stuck in my head along the way, always hoping they can’t actually hear what I sing. 😛
There was room to move around this time and I used it to take pictures from all angles. The light wasn’t great, but it was doable and more importantly the sound was good, coming from the venue’s PA instead of the small amplifier the band had brought. Thy played ‘August’ and I wondered it this was the first time I heard it live. My memory of setlists is always patchy at best so I might have heard it before and just forgotten. Halfway through the concert I as back in my original spot and stayed there, enough pictures taken for the night. I smiled at P. who looked like she was enjoying this just as much as I did. There is no other way to describe it: Their music just makes me feel happy. 🙂
With ‘Ecuador’ Kyle was telling us a new story about his friend Davide or rather hinted at it and let Jimmy tell it. It was just as funny as the one about the scary bodyguard Giovanni, involving a local race that Davide won and having to drink the blood of a goat. Seeing that made his sister a vegetarian. 😉 I do like good storytellers. 🙂 Before ‘Katja’s Song’ we learned that it was written for their Kickstarter campaign and that Árstíðir are playing on the original version. It sounded amazing this time around. I’m sure Katja will be happy with it. 😀
‘La Llorona’ ended the set with Kyle telling us how in this scary story this woman comes and eats kids at night. He even imitated her screams in the distance and coming closer. It was hilarious. 😀 No sing along this time though, maybe he thought we were not enough people for that.
Of course they did not make us wait for an encore and ‘Vancouver’ worked beautifully as it always does. Even the sing along. 🙂 To my and everyone else’s surprise they came back for a second encore and gave us a beautiful unplugged version of ‘Minnesota Part 2’. It was lovely, heartfelt and a perfect way to end the show. 🙂
We stuck around for a while, chatted with the guys, discussing when we’d meet again. I stole a posted from the window and asked them to sign it which thy happily did. Quite a few people bought CDs and talked to them afterwards. Hopefully they will spread the word and bring all their friends next time. Thank you, see you soon!
Setlist
Lake Eyre
Minnesota Part I
Photographs of Inuvik in January
Diagonal North America
A Bridge over Lake Champlain
August
Ecuador
Katja’s Song
La Llorona
Vancouver
Minnesota Part 2