Ottmar Liebert @ Westhampton Beach PAC

My Dad and I arrived early in Westhampton with the only train possible in the afternoon which was around 2pm and gave us plenty of opportunity to explore the town by foot. After having walked about 2,5 miles we had found downtown and the Performing Arts Center rather early. Not wanting to be considered as stalkers, we looked for the beach. In downtown Westhampton I asked a couple how to get there and they looked at me rather astonished when learning that we wouldn’t have a car. They described another walk down two roads for about 1,5-2 miles which now made us smile instead and indeed 20 minutes later we were there. I wanted to walk barefoot on the sand and feel the waves hitting the land but I can tell you that it was the hell of cold. The afternoon we spent in the local Simon’s Café which in compariosn to the usual Starbucks offers a better quality and comfortable armchairs.

What a show @ Westhampton Beach PAC followed in the evening!! How emotionalizing, how quick and easily the spark hopped over from the group to the audience and back. Ottmar and his band themselves seemed to enjoy it right from the beginning. The PAC is a local theatre that in late autumn and winter nonetheless attracts a lot of the inhabitants from the surrounding towns. It was sold out and the atmosphere was fantastic. The stage set up was kept simple, no candles, no cloths in the beack of the stage. It’s just the band, Ottmar, Jon and Davo together with string quartet sitting in a half bow, enlighted by ever changing coloured lights (Steve Stephen). When taking pictures during all the songs and creating a mosaic out of them, you in the end would see all the colours of a rainbow.

The string quartet adds a welcomed classical touch to Ottmar’s music, very suiting for this calming time of the year. Personally I enjoyed the sound of real instruments very much. I would have loved to see Jon Gagan play upright bass as well, but have to admit that the Laklands create a soft and warm tone. Jon’s play is amazing in every respect, his ability of taking himself back, of offering the basic colours (together with the string quartet) of an acustic painting to which Ottmar and Davo then add the details.

Of all the songs Ottmar and the band played Bells and Morning Arrival in Goa impressed me most. Bells from the new Winter Rose-album started with Carla Ecker playing a violin solo and for some time it’s like a conversation between her instrument and Ottmar’s guitar. The song is beautifully smoothing, even more in the live version and Davo Bryant’s hand clapping that sets in in the middle of the songs only adds to it.

I had chosen the beginning of the second part of the show to take some photos from the back of the theatre where I could move without disturbing people. The starter of the second leg, Pavane already made it difficult for me because no matter that I already had liked this song before very much, to witness it played live is exceptional. It starts with Ottmar and Jon and this always will be amazing to hear: one guitar and one bass, nothing more, creating such a deep soundscape.

Finally I had to drop taking photos when with Morning Arrival in Goa not only one of my all-time favs came, but also, together with Bombay and Lush/Albatross the first tune that ever seduced me to Ottmar Liebert’s music. It was a moment that makes you shiver. I was standing in the back of the theatre and could only listen, yes, and watch the band play. Amazing with which means Davo created the ambient sounds!!
Davo Bryant’s simple kept percussion set up is wonderful. He's just sitting on his cajon on the right side of stage, most of the time using nothing more than his (taped) fingers to play (cajon, cymbal). Remarkable also how he plays with brushes a tambourine placed on a djembe with a towel inbetween to soften the sound (La Luna). Davo is a wonderful percussionist of Luna Negra. When asked by Adam, he himself called it a special "chemistry" between him, Jon and Ottmar, and Ottmar said so as well in one of his blog entries. All three of them have such a tender kind of playing their instruments, even when the music gets rougher (Duende del amor), it seems as if the fingers would hardly touch the strings or the cajon, as if they were flying over them. Ottmar laughed when hearing that, saying that even his mother once told him to look more in pain when playing...

While it's still valid what I wrote about Barcelona Nights the night before at B.B. King’s in NYC, I have to correct myself in so far that the spectators in Westhampton recognized four songs right away, the three others being Heart Still/Beating, Santa Fe and Duende del amor. Others got intense applause afterwards, to name two: Carrousel and Pavane. No need to mention that the band received two standing ovations that night.

Carrousel, by the way, has yet become an Ottmar Liebert classic, no?! The Tangos rhythm gets into the bodies of the listeners and makes them want to dance. It also offers a nice opportunity for some cool percussion and Ottmar’s hand clapping makes it quite Spanish. What made people shout out spontanously were two parts during Duende del Amor and Barcelona Nights when it was Ottmar and Davo chasing themselves to climaxes. Most of you have seen this before, Ottmar playing rasguados, watching his percussionist, not being able to stop himself from smiling.

Duende del amor by the way was started in a rather unfamiliar way. First I thought it would be Winter Blue from the new Winter Rose album in a sense. But Ottmar denied that, said that instead it would be a new Bulerias he's working on. But he could satisfy me in that way to assure me that Winter Blue indeed has an underlying Bulerias-rhythm. Later we chatted a bit about the hypnotizing effect of that rhythm as well as of some other songs of Winter Rose such as Pavane. Oh, and we also agreed on the high remix potential of Winter Blue.

Very unfortunately the band had to leave early for the scheduled show in Sellersville the next day. Instead, Adam’s Mum took us to Jamaica, not a bad equivalent either. ;)