Tales of an Amorphic Destiny

Jeff Martin – LOGO, Hamburg

July 30th, 2008 at 12:17pm James

With our annual pilgrimage to the north of Germany for the Wacken Open Air festival almost upon us, we couldn’t believe our luck to discover that Jeff Martin would be playing a gig in Hamburg the very night before!

Jeff’s solo gigs in county Cork last year were fantastic and with Hamburg only an hour’s train ride from Wacken the timing was perfect – we weren’t gonna miss this one!

Once we’d arrived at the Wacken festival ground and set up camp, we celebrated the Sunny’s safe night-time traversal of the roughly 1000 kilometres from London with a couple of well-earned Becks. Then it was time to settle in for a rejuvinating daytime nap.

Waking up refreshed, we took a bus into the nearby town of Itzehoe and caught a train back into Hamburg for the show. LOGO was reasonably easy to find and after sorting out our tickets we stopped for a quick photo for posterity.

Yep, that’s Jeff in the background having a ciggie break during soundcheck…;-)

With a little time to kill, we went into town to try to find some reasonably healthy food in anticipation of the comparitively unhealthy few days that lay ahead. We found a pub with a lovely beer garden – perfect for dinner on a balmy German Summer’s eve!

We could’ve sat in that beer garden all night long, but soon enough it was time to go. We got back to LOGO in time to catch most of opening act Indian Tea Company, a local 3-piece who obviously draw some influence from Jeff’s previous band The Tea Party.

Their songs were a little less intricate but nevertheless they sounded pretty good. Their vocalist in particular had a very powerful voice, and they rounded off their set with an excellent cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black”.

Following The Indian Tea Company’s set, Just about everybody in the club, (ourselves included) headed outside to either escape the heat or to smoke. Not long after we all piled back in, Jeff took the stage with percussionist Wayne Sheehy to rapturous cheers and applause from the German crowd.

After so many years as a live performer it seems that almost impossible for Jeff to put on a bad show. Tonight was no exception, with his unique voice as haunting and soulful as ever, ringing out over his trademark eastern-tinged melodies.

This time around the set focussed less on covers, with an almost even mix of Martin’s solo tracks and those from his Tea Party years. Jeff chatted between songs, thanking the crowd and saying how happy he was to be back in Hamburg. Judging from the extremely positive response after every song, the crowd were happy to have him back too!

Wayne’s percussion-work was similarly well-received. His vast array of different drums and cymbals makes him a very unique performer and tonight he was playing with gusto, even breaking a few sticks in the process. Not something you normally see at a totally acoustic show!

Requiem sounded beautiful as ever and was introduced as a song that was originally written for a friend, but interestingly turned out being for Jeff himself. Save Me

was a crowd-pleaser as always, with the whole room singing along.

We were also treated to a new song, a ballad called Line in the Sand. Apparently from Jeff’s forthcoming album, the track was similar in style to the music on Exile and The Kingdom

and sounded quite cool.

Jeff’s love of segueing continues unabated from the last time we saw him. Nearly all of the tracks he performed, (most notably the brilliant Fire in the Head) drifted off into other songs at one stage or another and to great effect.

Towards the end of set we heard The Kingdom, which Jeff described as the best explanation that he could give for his disbanding the Tea Party, and then the show proper finished on an incredible high with the

always amazing Black Snake Blue

s. The energy of this song live is utter phenomenal, and the crowd loved it – probably the closest most of us will ever get to a southern gospel church singalong methinks.

We’d been told curfew was a strict 12 midnight so after Jeff left the stage I was ready to head off, happy that I’d seen another amazing show. Fortunately the normally strict German rules seemed to be a little more flexible tonight, and Jeff and Wayne returned for one of The Tea Party’s finest – Sister Awake

. Then as we’d seen previously in Ireland the night was rounded off with a Drum Jam – Jeff swapping his guitar for a goblet drum and following Wayne’s outstanding percussion work.

We made it back to the station in time to catch the last train back to Itzehoe which left on time but ended up being quite uncharacteristically delayed due to a police incident somewhere between Hamburg and our destination. I guess this wasn’t the best night for the Germans’ legendary timekeeping.

We eventually wandered into the Wacken campground at around 3:30am, both bleary-eyed but on a high and feeling a little surreal after seeing one of our favourite performers right before the biggest festival on the heavy metal calender. Sometimes life is just too good.

There’s a few more photos from the gig here.

Entry Filed under: Europe, Gigs