Spontaneous German Concert | Alaina Smith

Gemma, Bailynn, and I with the Elbphilharmonie behind us.

On our first day in Hamburg, everyone noticed a giant building that looked like an ocean wave in the middle of the Hamburg skyline. The next day on our walking tour of the city, our tour guide Eddy informed us that the building is called the Elbphilharmonie and it is home to the world’s most acoustically advanced concert hall. Being a concert lover, I was curious to see how the acoustics compared to other concert venues that I’ve been to, but didn’t think I would have the chance to.

After class on Friday, Mrs. Paige mentioned there was a concert in the Grand Hall that night if any of us wanted to try to get tickets. Bailynn, Gemma, Mrs. Paige, and I decided we wanted to go, so we made our way to the Elbphilharmonie. When we got there, we were the second group in the ticket line and were able to get four of the few remaining tickets. With a decent amount of time before the concert began, we went to a bistro across the street and ate dinner. As we were leisurely making our way back to the Elbphilharmonie after dinner, we pulled out our tickets and realized the concert started at 7:00 pm, not 7:30 pm as we all thought. At this point, it was 7:05 pm, so we sped up to Paige Pace, which is the insanely fast speed Mrs. Paige walks at, hoping we would make it before the doors closed. We ran up many flights of stairs looking for an entrance near our seats as greeters directed us in German before seeing the confused look on our faces and switching to English. We found our seats just in time for the show to start.

When we purchased the tickets, I thought we were about to see a German rock band. None of us were expecting what happened next. A frail 65-year-old man slowly made his way onto the stage and said a few words in German. He proceeded to a table with two laptops and started to play electronic music. Standing in a circle with confused looks on our faces, a German man came up to us and explained the music to us. The old man on stage was Manuel Göttsching, a pioneer in Krautrock music which translates to “cosmic music”. Before the 1960s, German musicians had been coping musicians from other countries and did not have a music genre they were known for. In 1968, the psychedelic rock mixed with electronic music gained a following in Germany after appearing at the German Rock Festival. Göttsching’s band, Ash Ra Tempel became popular in the 70s and was very influential as the genre progressed. After the brief explanation, we decided we would stay and see how the second half would be.

As we made our way back to our seats, Manuel Göttsching, a drummer, and a bassist took the stage and began to play. The music was very similar to the first half of the set but sounded fuller. Throughout the show, the acoustics in the Grand Hall sounded amazing! When I closed my eyes, I couldn’t tell which direction the sound was coming from. The listener is engulfed in the sound no matter where they are sitting. While the music was not my favorite, being able to attend a show in the Grand Hall was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend going if you are ever in Hamburg.