Till Brönner

Last weekend, we traveled to my brother-in-law's wedding near Stuttgart. A nice side effect of this trip was that we got to see Till Brönner in Esslingen last Friday night. The setting was idyllic. It was a gorgeous evening. For the jazz festival, they had set up a really large tent in a plaza in the Altstadt (old city). There was excellent food and plenty to drink. The varied crowd assembled and were quite nice. The opening band was that of Joo Kraus, and they seemed to play light jazz versions of tired 80's songs (like Toto's "Africa") which were pleasing and not very challenging to the ear. We also thought that perhaps the sound was a little too similar to Brönner's, and maybe the festival would have better booked a more different band. Brönner came on right at 9 (how punctual, how German!) and really cooked. The sound was excellent, just right to fill the plaza. The first song was the first track from Oceana, and a good set opener--A mid-tempo ballad with plenty of room to stretch. On the second tune, Brönner sang a quick, scatty lyric with his Michael Franks-like voice, then the band took off like a rocket. He has the chops. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the jet lag threatened to crash the car on the way back, so we couldn't stay nearly so long as we wanted. Till, please come tour the states mate!