Long Distance Calling

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2019-04-05 DE – Cologbe - Kulturkirche

Seats & Sounds Tour & Avoid The Light Anniversary Tour

After two mostly sold out tours in support of their latest record, Boundless, German Post Rock luminaries LONG DISTANCE CALLING return on stage for exclusive special shows to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their sophomore Avoid The Light. Dubbed as Seats & Sounds Tour, LONG DISTANCE CALLING are about to present a facets of their musicianship never shown before. The band has set up three German shows at three selected and special places (two of them were churches) with hand-picked guest musicians and a special lightshow as well as the one or the other surprise sound-wise. They promised us a classy evening of finest instrumental Post Rock with a dense atmosphere and a barnstorming energy.

Since we could not attend any of the Boundless shows we did not want to miss those special events. Once again we took the highway towards Cologne to the :: Kulturkirche :: (the other side of the protestant church in Nippes, a district of Cologne. The Lutherkirche is a cultural venue which provides new aspects to concerts, events, readings, comedy and cabaret, film and arts), by the way, my first visit at this special place. This evening was, as expected, totally sold out. A long queue was winding around the church long before the doors opened. Fans were eager to get in early for the best seats in front of stage.
The trip itself… let’s cover up in silence. You know: Cologne, Friday afternoon,, traffic, highways, to find a PARKING… Anyway, I arrived early enough to get an overview and instructions were we would be allowed to take photos from. Important stuff as I will return 4 days later to this church for Devin Townsend ;)

:: pics :: LONG DISTANCE CALLING ::

I was told that 450 tickets were sold. Too many, if you ask me. There were definitely not enough seats for this amount of people. The gallery was closed. Many fans stood in the aisles, interfering the sight of others. A call from the organizer to squeeze a bit on the pews passed more or less unnoticed or did not develop a noteworthy improvement, when people followed. However...

:: LONG DISTANCE CALLING :: entered the stage on time under thundering applause and kicked off the evening with Into The Black Wide Open from the self-titled third effort of the band. The show was actually divided into two sets. The first part featured quite a few songs from the most recent album Boundless, but we got also pleased with a part of a brand new song and Very Last Day from the debut, among others.

It followed a 10 minutes break to take a breath and then LONG DISTANCE CALLING went on with the second part and Avoid The Light, which was played in its entirety with the exception of the Jonas Renkse sung song The Nearing Grave. This was a decision I did not understand, because the band could have easily played this song as an instrumental track to complete the album. Especially, since LDC have added Flux from the TRIPS album instead. So, time was not an issue. That was a bummer anyway. The show was eventually closed with Metulsky as the last encore, of course with standing ovations.

As it is known for the band, there were hardly any announcements. Guitarist Flo only introduced two songs (not even the new one) and the two guest musicians: cellist Luca and second drummer Aaron. The other announcements he made were all about to say thank you to the fans for showing up, making this shows so special and for their longtime friendship and support.
The second drum-set and the cello definitely enriched the sound. Also the light show was great, but band and visualization got a bit lost in too much smoke. Well... Just to quote someone: Post Rock and (a lot of) smoke always goes hand in hand... ;)
Overall, it was a fantastic concert evening and surely something special to most of the fans. Well done LONG DISTANCE CALLING!
The show next day in Hamburg will be filmed for a tentative DVD release, so let’s cross the fingers that things turn out well.

Band: David Jordan (git), Florian Füntmann (git), Jan Hoffmann (bass), Janosch Rathmer (drums), Aaron Schrade (live drums), Luca Gilles (live Cello)

Setlist: Into The Black Wide Open, Very Last Day, In The Clouds, Timebends, Like A River, On The Verge, Neuer Song, Out There // Apparitions, Black Paper Planes, 349, I Know You Stanley Milgram!, Sundown Highway, Flux // Metulsky Curse Revisited