Black Sea Dahu on tour in Austria
By Susi Ondrushova
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the Covid19 outbreak a global pandemic. A day later, Austria records its first fatality, in some federal states the ski season ends early, schools and universities switch to distance learning and the first lockdown in Austria means an end to culture and nightlife as we can. In 2022, two health ministers and three federal chancellors later, the vaccination rate in Austria is 52.9% (= triple vaccination) and there are new corona measures that mean a return to normal concert and nightlife. With the exception of Vienna, where 2G rules continue to apply in restaurants and clubs, the green passport control and the obligation to wear a mask are no longer applicable. Stand shoulder to shoulder with a drink in your hand in front of a stage and attend a concert? Yes. Finally. let’s try that And in this never-ending winter to catch up on the lost concert power of the last two years.
FM4
Paul Mark
admittedly Black Sea Dahu is not a band of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy. For some, the last few months have been a mental challenge. It’s normal for crowds to feel unfamiliar and strange after such a long period of ups and downs. Maybe a band that requires a certain amount of concentration from the audience and whose music isn’t suitable as background music for Smalltalk Saturday Fun Night Out is just the right thing to dare to enter a concert hall again after two years. There are no mosh pits to worry about.
Concerts are free spaces. A crowd of people spreads out in a room, wanders from one viewpoint to another with the better sound, meets friends, makes acquaintances, goes to the bar, to the toilet and back into the hall. The Black Sea Dahu concert has been postponed several times, and singer Janine Cathrein calls the current Austrian tour of the five-piece band from Switzerland a “Leap of Faith”. Going on tour is a risk, are you surprised by new corona measures “on the road” or do you have to turn around again due to an infection? Will people who bought a ticket a year ago come at all? On Friday Black Sea Dahu performed at the Carinisaal in Lustenau, yesterday at the Posthof in Linz, on Sunday they will be performing at PPC Graz and the beginning of the week will be celebrated at Porgy&Bess. Before the band starts the 9 hour drive back to Zurich.
The Swiss Federal Council also lifted all corona measures in February. The time of planning certainty for the live industry industry has finally arrived, but it doesn’t feel like it yet. Janine Cathrein answers the FM4 interview when asked how she is doing with this new/old tour reality: “Most of all, it feels like you don’t know exactly how to run, how to walk, anymore. It’s all a bit shaky and uncertain and actually you want to be super happy. But should we be really happy now? We don’t quite get out of it, but I think that’s another situation where we have to get used to it. Somehow announced how each step goes.”
Black Sea Dahu will play at PPC Graz on March 6th and at Porgy&Bess in Vienna on March 7th.
Eva Conversioner about Black Sea Dahu on the occasion of their 2019 tour.
Wandering between the middle Posthof hall, the newly renovated bar area, where free beer will be served that evening, and the disinfection column by the toilets, the topic of conversation among visitors seems to be “Mask yes or no?” It is next left to everyone. A few visitors also keep their masks on in the concert hall. At least one person (spoiler: me) who has heard enough Drosten and Science Busters episodes and has internalized wearing a mask will forget to take off the FF2 fabric and clumsily pour half a liter of soda on themselves when trying to quench their thirst that evening. never mind Then the drink seeps over the mask in the direction of the neckline, leaving a water stain. You can’t move much as the band is playing the title track of their new album “I Am My Mother”.
Black Sea Dahu’s new album is about empathy. Working on “I Am My Mother” was a kind of self-discovery trip: “During the Corona period, I tried to find out: How am I? and who am I? What behavioral patterns do I have that show up again and again, that maybe stress me and that I want to get rid of? And where do they come from anyway? can i change this If yes how? And I wanted to shed some light on that. The album is all about understanding and explaining. And “I Am My Mother” is my answer mostly because it’s actually used as an insult. Especially in movies or in books where some man says to his wife “You are like your mother” or “You are becoming more and more like the mother” and this woman then storms out of the room and is offended. And is that a drama? Actually, you could just take the wind out of the sails and say “Yes, and now?” You’re also becoming more and more like your mother. That’s who we are. We have to accept it and maybe try to see the good in it. In every bad trait we inherit from those around us – where we have control over who we are around – there is always some good. That’s a big issue.”
FM4
find the good. hear the good. This Saturday evening it’s a seat in the back right of the hall. Although Black Sea Dahu have lost one band member since the release of the album, they have more instruments on stage than ever on this tour, as Janine Cathrein tells during the concert. Guitar, bass, drums and violin shouldn’t be missing from Black Sea Dahu, obviously the double bass, a harmonium set up in the middle of the stage and even a ReVox tape machine hidden on the right. It was also planned to use a music box with punched tape, which was “punched” with your own composition in the tour bus, but the American import proved to be a bad investment.
Homemade things could then be examined at the merch stand: The band meets in their father’s studio to screen print their shirts and “Black Sea DaHoodies” or sew bags and print a songbook with their lyrics and chords. So that the concert-goers can replay their songs at home. At home. Where you dreamed of concerts for two years, of dancing on beer-covered floors. Where you clicked through YouTube recordings of your favorite bands sitting cross-legged with a laptop on your lap. This home, where now “Affection” sounds from the speakers while planning the next concert trips.
2022, don’t disappoint us.