Mac DeMarco + Tonstartssbandht @Bi Nuu, Berlin

Tonstartssbandht (8/10)
Start 20:15 / End 20:45
The special guest in charge to open Mac DeMarco’s gig in Berlin is the American band Tonstartssbandht, a duo formed by Andy and Edwin White, two brothers from Orlando, Florida. Andy plays a 12 strings electric guitar and is the lead singer, while Edwin sits at the drums and quite often supports Andy with vocals.
They opened the concert with a long medley, whose first section was Alright (listen here). They define their music as boogie rock, a mix of psychedelic experimental pop and rock filled with several hard rock riffs. For a few aspects not so far away from the hardest rock of Jane’s Addiction.
After not even a minute all the public was completely captured by their catchy but not obvious melodies and by the attitude shown by Andy on the stage, that was dancing while playing, giving constant display of huge doses of auto irony: the duo ended its performance submersed by applauses.
Tonstartssbandht played just half an hour, but this was still enough to leave the public enthusiastic: super warm up to Mac, looking forward to see them play again – but hopefully longer – in Berlin.

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Mac DeMarco (9/10)
Start 21:10/ End 22:25
Mac DeMarco comes again to Berlin to promote his third work, Salad Days. This young Canadian songwriter is gaining an always increasing popularity and his fan base is expanding quickly: the gig in Berlin was sold out since weeks. BiNuu is a perfect venue for a relatively small-sized concert, where the contact between the artists and the public represents an important factor for the end result of the performance.
Salad Days has been evaluated more than positively from the critic: it is doubtless a great album, yes aligned with his previous work 2, but it also evolved, more structured and refined.
The underlying motive is always a big dose of irony, immediately reconfirmed from the way Mac actually behaved as he entered the stage and opened the show with – guess what – Salad Days. It seems that the guy doesn’t take himself too seriously, starting from the improbable outfit – far beyond hipster standards – that he and his band chose; as a matter of fact, slack is the adjective most often used to describe him and his music.
The setlist chosen for this gig, started with a minor delay due to a problem with one of the amps, was as expected dominated by pieces extracted by Salad Days, but of course also several songs from 2 have been selected. During the whole show Mac interacted with its public, invited his friends to go up to the stage and, close to the end, he jumped on the crowd that kept him up, surfing all around the venue. Mac chose to close the gig with a tribute to Neil Young: he asked the public to kneel as sign of devotion to his majesty Neil and he sang Unknown Legend, accompanied by the choirs of his fans.
Once again, Mac DeMarco offered a fantastic show. I bet that also his next date in Berlin – scheduled for the 21^st of November at Heimathafen Neukölln – will be sold out. Cheers mate!

Venue: Bi Nuu
Price: 14,20€ at Pushen.Tickets.de
Setlist: Mac DeMarco

Berlin, 24.05.2014