On 1st April Amistat started their Color in Life tour and stop at Dynamo Zurich this Thursday. Finally I see Amistat live too. However, I do regret one thing: that I hadn’t made it to one of their concerts sooner.
Musical stories from the life of Alivan Blu
Luckily British Anna Stanton didn’t listen to her mother too closely when she was 17 years old and fell in love with an Australian, Jed Billington to be precise, immediately after settling in Australia. Otherwise we wouldn’t be standing here in the Dynamo today enjoying Alivan Blu’s beautiful folk songs.
Complete photo gallery: Alivan Blu at Dynamo Zurich
The duo opens the evening for Amistat tonight. And not only in Zurich, but in general they are able to accompany Amistat on the whole tour. Alivan Blu was particularly looking forward to the concert here in Switzerland, says Anna. She immediately assures us that this is indeed the case and that she doesn’t just say it everywhere.
Inspired by the English singer-songwriter Ben Howard, the indie folk band Bon Iver and the British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, the duo has been traveling the world with their music since 2017. As a couple, they write songs based on their life together. For example, with “Southern Sun” Anna tells her story of how she emigrated to Australia. It’s the first song from Alivan Blu’s debut album, due out this year. Anna lays the guitar flat on her legs to play it. Just like I’ve seen with Tom James, among others.
Differences to home
Alivan Blu’s sound is warm and soothing. In addition to their own songs like “All The Gold”, “Wildflowers” or “Solace” they also play the The Lumineers cover “Salt and the Sea”. They are happy how quiet it is in the Dynamo tonight and how well the audience is listening. They smile because it’s different in Australia. Over there people would go to concerts mainly to get drunk. The difference seems quite big. In the course of the concert evening, the audience keeps getting praised for this silence and listening by both bands.
In the middle of the show, a string on Jed’s guitar snaps. That’s the second string in three shows, laughs Anna. Until Jed has strung the guitar again, she bridges the waiting time with stories and anecdotes about their music and past experiences. The couple also apologize for not bringing more guitars with them so they could easily switch. It’s too expensive to fly over so many guitars.
The audience doesn’t take offense at the two likeable musicians and is looking forward to more songs, including a new one that will be released in the next few weeks.
Alivan Blu will be back in a few weeks
With “Let me go” there is again something danceable at the end, to which Anna even brings out the harmonica. By the way, Alivan Blu will be playing at Galvanik in Zug on Thursday, 27 April 2023 (Viertel vor Fritig, free admission).
On Melbourne’s streets
Shortly after 9 p.m. Amistat enter stage together with multi-instrumentalist Phil Deekay and start the main part of the concert evening with “Remember me”. They start an incredibly beautiful evening that we will all remember for a long time.
Around 650 concert visitors are listening to Amistat’s songs in the sold-out Dynamo tonight. In the front row, a little girl holds up the picture she’s drawn in hopes that the band will eventually discover it. A little later in the concert, she can actually give it to Josef.
Amistat means friendship in Catalan. It is easy to see that the two are not only brothers but also friends. And they are also on tour with friends. While Jan and Josef take turns playing guitar and keyboard on songs like “Something Wrong” and “Far From Home”, causing goosebumps with their warm voices and beautiful harmonies, Phil Deekay supports them on violin, guitar and percussion.
They met Phil while busking in Melbourne, Australia, Jan says during the concert. At that time they wanted to fight for the best spots first. But since then the Austrian has been their best friend.
Dreams come true
Jan and Josef Prasil, better known as Amistat, have been on the road with their music for 10 years. The sons of an Australian and a Czech, they were both born in Germany and grew up in Italy. The brothers later moved to Australia for a few years where they discovered that their music, unique vocal harmonies and style were well received. The listeners love them and that love keeps growing.
In 2019 Amistat were on tour with the Australian indie rock band Sons Of The East (concert report: Sons Of The East last year at the Seaside Festival). They played 49 shows in 15 countries in two months. A dedicated 150-show tour through 10 countries, incl. Italy and South Africa followed. Since then, her fame has grown rapidly around the world. In the meantime it has gone “back to the roots” for them and they live in Germany again.
Complete photo gallery: Amistat at Dynamo Zurich
In addition to 5 EPs, most recently “Color in Life” at the end of March 2023, Amistat released their debut album “Parley” in 2019. Their first live album was also released in time for the pandemic. They hoped their music would help people during this difficult time. It did – definitely for me. Music like the one of Amistat is all the more beneficial in such times: It slows you down, harmonises, brings you into balance and is simply beautiful.
This is also the case today in Zurich: Amistat are greeted enthusiastically and appreciatively with cheers and whistles. “Listen to the Silence” or “Ready Now” (Josef’s favorite), for example, are sung along to the furthest corner. It’s unbelievable what’s going on here in Switzerland, Jan is all enthusiastic about and remembers theur last concert in Zurich in the Papiersaal.
Even after so many years, they are still a bit nervous about coming on stage. But they are all the happier that after all these years their dream of touring around the world is finally coming true. From time to time they have to slap each other’s face to realize that everything is real, says Josef with a laugh.
A guest from Winterthur
It’s the end of the fourth song, “Coward”, when they get additional drum support. The drummer now accompanies them on most of the songs, such as the next songs “Build a home” and “Falling”.
Besides him, there are more friends today: Amistat bring Caro, the singer of the Winterthur folk-pop band Ginger & The Alchemists, also on stage for a song. Together they perform “Heart On Fire”. The song was released on Ginger & The Alchemists’ debut album, Better Now, in November 2022.
No encore
Between their songs like “Brave”, “Listen to the Silence” and Josef’s favorite “Ready Now”, Amistat tell stories about their musical life, their career and the creation of their songs. One enjoys listening to them just as much as their music.
However, Amistat doesn’t play encores because they’ve had bad experiences with them in the past. They promise to play the last few songs long enough to feel like four though. And in the end they it’s what they actually do. With detailed stories and passionate solos, “Still Alive” and the current EP/Tour title track “Color in Life” drag on. But I’m convinced that if the hall lights and background music hadn’t come on immediately afterwards, the whole hall would have loudly demanded more encores. Because one could listen to Amistat forever.
Amistat are still on tour until the end of April before the festival season begins. The brothers are part if the following Swiss festivals:
29.07.2023 Openair Etziken
17.08.2023 Gampel Openair
If you haven’t seen them yet, you should definitely catch up this summer!
Information and tour dates can be found at
www.amistatmusic.com
www.alivanblumusic.com
www.mainlandmusic.com
