I saw Crying and the Hotelier in Zurich last night; unique trip for me, as I only discovered Crying a couple months ago, and I am not even a fan of the Hotelier. But I met up with a friend in Zurich, and it is only about an hour and 15 minute drive for me from southern Germany.
We arrived to Dynamo as Crying was beginning their first song. The band was fun and sincere, one of the reasons why I got into their music in the first place. As I said in my 2016 AOTY list, Crying is unique among most of the music that I listen to in that they are not overly serious (or depressing). It is refreshing to see and hear musicians play for fun!
They played the majority of their most recent album Beyond the Fleeting Gales along with a couple from their debut Get Olde Second Wind. While the songs from Gales were great live representations and very close to the studio tracks, the songs from Get Olde sounded radically different, and better. Crying's genre is often called "chiptune," a word and scene I was not familiar with until a couple months ago. But the live versions of the old songs are far more rocking and less Nintendo. Crying closed with my favorite song of theirs:
My only real complaint is that all the synths and bass are were on a track, and not performed live. The guitar work was ridiculous and the drumming was solid, but I wish all the instruments had been performed live rather than pre-recorded.
Here is my video of "ES", and the live version is awesome and far better than the studio recording from 3 years ago:
The Hotelier was tight and energetic. I definitely preferred their live show to their recordings, but they still don't really grab me on an emotional level. This is surprising, because the "scene" that I follow so closely loves the Hotelier and many ranked their 2016 album Goodness one of the best of the year.
I listened to Goodness repeatedly in order to better appreciate it and get ready for the show, and the songs were all better in concert. But the songs that really stood out to me and impressed me the most were from their prior album, Home, Like Noplace is There. This is the song I haven't been able to get out of my head since last night:
All photos by me, and you can find the rest of the set here.
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Crying and The Hotelier in Zurich
2/07/2017 06:41:00 AM
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