The Anatomy of Frank – Die Wohngemeinschaft, Cologne; November 29th, 2017
Cologne has never failed me when it comes to good concerts. No matter which band or venue, it is always fun. Thus, I was looking forward to see The Anatomy of Frank at Die Wohngemeinschaft and it turned out to be a good and happy evening. The tour was slowly coming to an end, at least for me with this being the next to last concert I was going to see. My plan was to enjoy the hell out of this one and it worked. 🙂
Got to Cologne and the venue too early due to conflicting information as to when it was supposed to start. Soon found out it was not going to happen at the bar, but at the small theater and would start a bit later than I had thought. Met up with P. and just sat around talking. The guys walked out from sound check and happily accepted the cookies I had brought. The doors opened, we found seats and more people arrived, among them A. We talked some more until the support band, Fallinn Wolff walked on stage.
Fallinn Wolff, a female due with a cello, a piano and animal masks looked interesting so I was curious about their music. It was very listenable and nice. I liked one or two songs and thought the stories they told to introduce them were fun. Overall though, they did not leave a lasting impression.
Soon after they were done the guys walked on stage. “We’re The Anatomy of Frank, nice to meet you.” Kyle introduced the band and played ‘Lake Eyre’ solo. It was lovely to hear that song again. Their setlist always bring surprises because they often play unreleased songs or resurrect the ones they have not played in a long time. Next up was ‘Photographs of Inuvik in January’, right into ‘Minnesota Part I’ which is still one of my favorites. The images in that song are so well described they almost appear in front of my eyes every time I hear it.
When they started playing ‘Diagonal North America’ straight away I thought we were not going to hear them talk at all that night. Granted the theater was small and not even full, but some nights Kyle is a lot more talkative. He did not say anything until after ‘Holy Mountain’ was over. It didn’t matter though. I love the stories, but I come for the music and I got lots of that. 🙂
Jimmy told us they were introducing their South America album which prompted Kyle to talk about his best friend David and his first trip to Ecuador. It was full of gestures showing what he did and how people looked. I had not heard the story in a while and I loved the description of David’s bodyguard Giovanni with x-ray eyes and the car with bulletproof windows. We heard about David’d younger sister, about Kyle feeling nice about himself with new sunglasses and the dangers of using the wrong words in Ecuadorian Spanish. 😉 It was funny as ever. ‘Viteri’ followed and gave me goosebumps. I absolutely adore that song. <3
Before ‘La Llorona’ Kyle thanked everyone he had to thank for help and support and dedicated the song to Fallinn Wolff. The song always makes me smile, because it has such a happy melody. Of course I realized the lyrics are rather dark, but that’s exactly what I love about it. A contrast between music and lyrics has always worked well for me and this song has especially smart lyrics too. 😀
The guys walked out briefly, but were back soon to give us one final song. They were debating what song to play and told us how they have a song from the first album they want to play, but can not really remember how so they never play it. I wonder which one that may be. Thus they did ‘Vancouver’ instead. First Kyle had to talk about hard German bed with soft pillows though and about dreams we have when we growing up, complete with a terrible German accent. Of course we got us to sing. No venue or crowd is ever too small for that. At first Kyle wasn’t satisfied with our singing and told us we could do better, but then we got the hang of it. Yay! 😀
Sadly it was the last song of the night. The show felt way too short, but it was a good one. The positive effect for me was that I could catch an earlier train to go home. I said goodbye to everyone, shared a few hugs and left, knowing there was one last show for me to go.
Setlist
Lake Eyre
Photographs of Inuvik in January
Minnesota Part I
Diagonal North America
Patagonia
Holy Mountain
Viteri
Ecuador
La Llorona
Vancouver