Manafonistas

Robert once found his love in Regensburg, so did I (at least I thought so) in a similar time, but mine was a disaster with a lot of heaven for starters, hell came later. Now we were all back, in good shape, on a cold late autumn evening, in Cologne, in that beautifully fucked-up place called „Gebäude 9“. I was surprised to see Robert and his wife Karin Bäumler alone on stage, not the ususal setting, (acoustic) guitar and violin only, the main voice, the backing voice, but it was, to put it simple, elevating. They had some songs to play. Not only from Robert Forster’s latest album, they also brought some „ancient“ Go-Betweens-stuff to new life: „Draining The Pool For You“, „Head Full of Steam“ from two of their classics. Later on Robert sang „The House That Jack Kerouac Built“, and I never liked it that much as I did yesterday.  Robert is a good entertainer, too, he knows about „furchtbaren Kaffee“ on long German train rides,  and now we all know why he has always loved putting  the word „rain“ in some of his song titles – thanks to the genius of John Fogerty. Karin added subtle beauties. When she sings „ba-ba-ba“, it sounds like part of an unforgettable breakfast conversation. The art of „en passant“, and one time, I swear, I heared her play a little counter melody from a song from Dylan’s „Desire“. If this was a bit hallucinatory, then you might get a feeling, how things were running wild. No eccentricity involved, just that great vibe from start to end. Passion and understatement. The venue was crammed full of people, I was dancing with the feet on the ground, and the head full of (good, very good) steam. Close to the end we were all humming along reading surfing magazines.