I think I first came across Bilderbuch in 2015 or 2016; I remember sharing their track “OM” in a “New Music Monday” collaborative playlist at work. Their rich, genre-bending pop sound invited obvious comparisons with Falco, and I loved it. When I visited Julian in hospital in Austria at the start of 2019, I remember seeing their name on a poster in Innsbruck. It was probabaly for a gig or an album release. I jumped back into their catalogue, and found myself listening to “Checkpoint” on infinite repeat on my train journeys through the snow for the rest of that trip.
Since then I was waiting for them to play a show somewhere closer than Cologne, and last year they finally touched down in Amsterdam in March. I was still in deep burnout at work, and despite loving the band, and having bought a ticket as soon as I found out about the gig months before, I wasn’t excited on the day. I had to force myself to go into town. I skipped the support act (Kässy). As a latecomer, I had to squeeze myself into a corner of the Oude Zaal at Melkweg to get a barely decent view.
The gig was good, though. They kicked off with the powerful riffs and playful solos of “Softpower”, and carried on with the groovy “Dino”. Singer Maurice Ernst started off in a shirt and tie. He teased and flirted with the crowd and lost the shirt part-way through, but then gained a tight black crop-top. There were a ton of German fans in the audience, and a lot of singing along. Their live version of “Aber Airbags” is an extended, slow and trippy guitar solo tour that turns lively and up-tempo half-way through a 15-minute run, bursting with exuberance and a driving, bouncy beat. And of course they played “Spliff” as well. Amsterdam, innit.
Set list:
- Softpower
- Dino
- Gigolo
- Drugs
- Bungalow
- Willkommen im Dschungel
- Aber Airbags
- Maschin
- Ab und Auf
- Checkpoint
Encore:
- Digitales Wunder
- Spliff
- Bluezone
