One should know Johannes Oerding and the concerts were to be sold out. But it’s not (yet) exactly like that. I also only knew the name so far. Who would have thought, that he is the way he is? He’s not only a great musician but also a super entertainer.
Currently Johannes Oerding is on tour with his album “Kreise” and was greatly entertaining during two hours with loads of jokes, charm and wonderful music.
Marie Bothmer kicked off the evening
The soon 22 years old Marie Bothmer kicked off the evening for Johannes Oerding with her German pop songs. She actually didn’t have to mention that she was nervous, you could see it. But it made her even likable. It was her first performance in Switzerland or actually in general they are her first performances. Because her dad is living in Switzerland, she already had been living here for 2 weeks before (;-)) visiting school. That’s why she loved Zurich a lot.
Whilst she was playing songs like “Fieber” or “Gewinner” together with guitarist and drummer as a trio, there was a man standing proudly not far from us, with shining eyes and a pocket camera in the hands. That had to be her dad, we were pretty sure of. Googling Marie Bothmer, Wikipedia even told me that her dad is crime thriller writer Roland Voggenauer. Honestly didn’t know him, but googling pictures confirmed that it was him.
Marie got discovered by her producer on Facebook when she was 18 years old. She mentioned that her first single “Es braucht Zeit” had 1 million clicks. That’s of course “wow!”, but she immediately added that the song was used in Til Schweiger’s movie “Unsere Zeit ist jetzt”. That explained a lot, but it is really a nice song.
At the end of her half an hour set she even grabbed her guitar laughing: “I have to proof, that I’m capable”. Well, she was already capable of writing songs, singing and entertaining people in a very likable way before this proof 😉
Her debut album is due in March 2018 by the way.
Trip to the 80s
Already before 9pm Johannes Oerding and his four member band entered Kaufleuten stage and swept the audience away with their opener “Leuchtschrift”. The talkactive musician proofed quickly, if it wouldn’t work out with music anymore, he might even try as a stand-up comedian. Johannes Oerding is outspoken and showed during his concerts a lot of humour and various facets.
Whilst the Hamburg inhabitant by choice told his stories in-between the songs and entertained through his introductions, his lyrics completed his stories. At times his lyrics are funny and cheeky, then beautiful and to swoon over. With additional clips he quickly captivated the audience and even catapulted them into the past. Already during his song “Tetris” he played the theme melody of the 80s game.
He loves coming to Switzerland. With a short side trip here and to Austria the tour felt like a world tour. So he even tried to translate his song “Reparieren” into Swiss German. The musician became known through various support performances, the German Bundesvision contest and here especially through the shows at SEAT Music Session last year.
Whilst his band supported him actively during the conversations and completed his songs with great solos, Johannes was joking about the psychiatrist visit, after he wrote the song “Traurig aber wahr” for the Augusburg news paper journalist to deal with all the poor incidents.
Besides he had big feelings for his teacher Frau Rosen, when he was about 13/14 years old. In a short song he explained that Frau Rosen was too late now, but still was grining that she could visit him now on tour. The appeal to get her to a concert had already been started. With it his song “Hundert Leben” from the actual album followed.
It was so nice
He kept letting the audience become active. He let them sing in age brackets and realized that the average age obviously was higher than expected. Hands were raised. He was teaching children in the audience and even jumped into the middle of them all to join the concert visitors.
Despite the band had forbidden it, Johannes started singing “I’ve been looking for freedom” by David Hasselhoff during the show and had woman hearts beating faster with his Dirty Dancing version of “Wo wir sind ist oben”.
Songs like „Love Me Tinder“, “Stein für Stein”, „Zieh dich aus“ and of course „Alles brennt“ were part of the setlist. In-between it became quieter and more romantic with his wonderful ballades. For a few songs, among them “Schlaflos”, he sat down behind the piano all alone.
When he said goodbye with his song “Ich will noch nicht nach Hause” (I don’t want to go home yet), really none wanted to go home and so an encore had to be added. The whole concert was just “So schön” (so nice), like he had sung at the beginning of the show.
By the way, my favourite of the evening was the album title song “Kreise”.
Kreise tour continues
Yes, sometimes you discover a musician or band better late than never. The concerts of Johannes Oerding I absolutely recommend. Who’d love to see him live, does have various possibilities in Germany. On www.johannesoerding.de you can find his tour dates.
Apart from that there’ll be a live album of the Kreise tour concert with NDR Radiophilharmonie out on 24.11.2017. So you can listen to it at home until the next Swiss concert.
Infos about Marie Bothmer you can find on Facebook.
More videos you can find on my Youtube channel
