Hundreds live at Waschhaus Potsdam – why this band is gonna make it

by | indieBerlin

We were down at Waschhaus in Potsdam to check out Hundreds and support band Wooden Arms. It was good to finally catch Wooden Arms live as they’re a band I keep hearing good things about, a UK band who are on the German Butterfly Collectors label: which is probably why they’re touring a lot in Germany these days.

Wooden Arms’ atmospheric indie rock appeals perfectly to the Hundreds crowd

Although generally speaking a six-piece, the band are touring in Europe with four of their members due to logistical limitations. But that doesn’t do much to limit the sound of the songs. Wooden Arms specialise in atmospheric indie rock with orchestral leanings, and they appeal perfectly to the Hundreds crowd – the more cerebral end of the electro crowd – and warm up the crowd nicely for the band that let’s face it pretty much everyone has come to see, Hundreds.

The Hamburg brother-sister duo has become hugely liked in the few short years that they’ve been present on the music scene. Tonight they’re playing as a three-piece, with a guest musician playing percussion and noisy electronic bits.

Hundreds come across as seasoned and assured performers despite their reasonably short career

Starting slowly and building, with the percussionist first on stage setting up a beat, then Phillip Milner coming on and adding lush piano strokes to the gathering storm of sound, finally Eva Milner appears and they launch into the first song. The crowd is won over even before the band start, and everyone gets into what turns into a warm, assured touchy-feely electro session.

Click the pic to buy Aftermath from Hundreds!
While Phillip and the third man throw up a wall of sound, with programmed beats and textures being tussled and reconfigured by Phillip’s lush piano chords and dial tweaks, and the third man’s live electronic percussion and heavy bass stabs, Eva becomes the human face of the music with her warm, measured vocals and occasional spontaneous outbreaks of movement. Top marks too for whoever was doing visuals, with a thousand shards of refracted light bursting into and out of one another on the screen at the back as well as on Eva’s body as she moved in and out of the lines of light and shadow.

Intellectual, grown-up electro songs for intellectual, grown-up electro people

Featuring a mix of songs from both first and second albums, Hundreds come across as seasoned and assured performers despite their reasonably short career since the release of their debut album. Apparently though they’ve been peforming together at family get-togethers and the like since they were very young, and perhaps it’s that which gives them the instinctive understanding and trust that shows through so clearly.
Hundreds are a great band and they seem to have found their niche – intellectual, grown-up electro songs for intellectual, grown-up electro people. I see a long and happy career ahead of them.

Review by Noel Maurice // Photos by Mia Morris

 

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