AnnenMayKantereit filled the Berlin Wuhlheide twice with a lot of energy and special moments.
On August 18th and 19th, the German indie pop band AnnenMayKantereit played two sold-out concerts in Berlin’s Wuhlheide. Around 17,000 people gathered in front of the park stage at 30 degrees and sunshine to sing and dance together with the people of Cologne.
fans united
There was an almost confusing crowd of visitors to discover on site, who otherwise would not necessarily be able to get together. At concerts by artists like Harry Styles or Metallica, you might know what type of person you’re going to be in a crowd with. Not so with AnnenMayKantereit. Whether in a punk jacket or floral skirt, adult or youthful, man or woman — the audience didn’t seem to think of classic pigeonholes.
Apparently there was something for everyone live, because with a few exceptions the band got the crowd going well. You’d think the melancholy of the lyrics to songs like “Pocahontas” or “Gegenwart” would be lost among these reveling crowds, but some emotion just finds the right expression singing along — not to say shouting — at the right time. The audience on Saturday was living proof of that.
New elements & intimate atmosphere
Of course, the focus was on singer Henning May, whose characteristically rough voice hardly differs live from the studio recordings. However, what can be clearly separated from this is the support that the group got in the form of strings and horns on the stage. Songs like “Maybe, Maybe” and “I’m Not Going To Dance More Today” were given a surprisingly new and pleasant sound.
And despite 17,000 energetic people, the people of Cologne managed to create an intimate atmosphere that put the simple subject matter and beautiful lyrics of their songs in the foreground. So they sat for a few tracks at a table that is probably the same where they wrote their previous album together and let the people in front of the stage during “Es ist Abend” experience like a time together in the evening hours with the band might look like.
For an encore, the crowd was really animated again and the last people in the crowd were there with the desire to move during the final song of the show. “Ausgehen” ended with an applause that made both the heavily used palms of the hands and the ears half-deaf for a moment and sent the audience home laughing happily – at least until the post-concert melancholy threatens to set in.