Lo & Leduc rehearsal in Hasliberg

What have we learnt last summer? Exactly, if Lo & Leduc promote strange sounding unknown bands, then we can look forward to very special and great moments with the Bernese duo. These concerts are not to miss. And it was no April’s fool! Just differently to Tzatziki Pashas this time the duo wasn’t standing on stage only with three more musicians. For the surprise concert at Hotel Wetterhorn they squeezed the complete nine member band on the small stage.

Admittedly, even we first were unsure, but among the name Baba Ganoush we only found some kind of eggplant puree instead of a band (yes, we goggled 😉 ). We didn’t get disappointed: For the whole Lo & Leduc band it was from the band room of onto the small Wetterhorn stage. I hope, the concert visitor, who we told about 10 mins before show start, who she had to expect, did like it after all. She didn’t seem very thrilled in the first moment. Most people came at a venture, but we were already twitchy of anticipation.

Almost on the day, three years after they had released their successful work “Zucker furs Volk”, Lo & Leduc have released their new album “Ingwer und ewig”. Next to the album release show at Bierhübeli, also the rest of the tour was immediately sold out. There were several additional concerts added and only for the second concert at Zurich Kaufleuten will be tickets available at the box office. On tour Lo & Leduc will play in front of about 800 people. So we enjoyed this small show even more.

A sold out live rehearsal in front of about 200 people. It was hot in the small event location, and it should become even warmer as soon as Lo & Leduc were jumping and whirling around on the small stage. We kept ducking away and stepping back. They all seemed very cheerful and full of anticipation to perform again, but you also sensed the nervousness. After all they presented their new songs to a live audience for the first time.

Of course the new songs were standing in the front, with which the band is keeping their recipe for success. The style hasn’t changed too much compared to the last album. From the beginning they took the chances to make the audience dance along and involving them into the show. Soon the first single of the new album, “Mis Huus dis Huus”, was played. Next to all the new titles the forerunners as well as several songs from the old “Update” albums weren’t missing on the setlist. These old albums can’t be bought, though they are still available on their website for free download [have a look here].

The older titles they played partly complete, partly medley-like in short versions. Some as usual, others in new versions. And they kept teasing the audience with playing their hit “Jung verdammt” shortly, very shortly. Well, later they played it completely after all. Next to the eloquent lyrics by the two of them and the spontaneous freestyle of Lo, the band thrilled with great solos. This time Leduc won for once at their “Rock Paper Scissors” battle during “Räuber u Poli”. He was overjoyed that he could use the big hotel bed and Lo had to sleep on the sofa.

It was a great concert. It couldn’t have been any closer. It was intimate and funny, and we had a lot to laugh. The atmosphere was so super. Thereby Leduc was quickly out of breath and realized that he was lacking condition. If anyone knew a good app, he could get fit with until the release party? However Lo was more annoyed that the bridges for the songs weren’t set so well yet or he couldn’t think of any suitable introductions. For sure he had to think about something until the release party. Also the light show didn’t completely work out yet. But hey, wouldn’t they have mentioned all the time, what was going wrong, no one would have even noticed the bodges. But this made everything even more fun.

About two full hours later the concert came to an end after all. If it would have been for us, the release party could have already been the following night. We definitively didn’t have enough of Lo & Leduc yet and were already looking forward to the big show at Bierhübeli. I got a task by Lo then: I should look out for the differences in the shows and tell him, what I thought was better.

Well, let it be Thursday then!