Reinhard Mey concert

Yesterday I took the train down to Hamburg (and back again) to go see Reinhard Mey in concert. Met up with A and her friend U for a bit before the concert (we sat in very different parts of the hall) and also shared some of the train journey back. Meeting up with them was very nice.

The concert itself was good, too – a lot of songs I did not know (I am not up to date with his current releases), and the usual mix of very funny, very contemplative and sad, rather solidly weighted towards the contemplative and sad. Of his new and contemplative/sad songs a long ballad about trains stands out most in my recollections, and there were some rather the-beautiful-horrible-pain songs about various people who are nice/kind but not recognized for it, or who are broken/breaking without anyone recognizing it/the potted plant at the doctor’s office as a symbol for pain. They were all very nice songs, don’t get me wrong, but they were … a tad too heartfelt-y languishing in their collective amassedness. There’re only so many weltschmerz songs you can take one right after the other and still apprechiate the brilliance of each one.

Brief flashes of fresh air were provided by some funny songs he did, including a brilliant list song of the jobs he has at home, a somewhat contrived (I felt) song about men in hardware stores, and a nice song in the encore about a fictitious music police that you can call when somewhere around you horrible music  is being played (restaurants, elevators,…).

This wasn’t the first of his concerts that I’ve been to, and its the one I liked the least, I am sorry to say – but then that might also be me and the general grouchiness I have settled into during these last months of continual writing. It’s hard to enjoy things properly when part of your brain keeps telling you that you could be working/ought to be working right now. I know break times are important, but somehow it doesn’t feel like it when you’re behind schedule and there’s so much work and writing and thinking to be done.  And on that note, back to work.