White Lies Concert Review

While I was at home, coughing like an 83 year old chain smoker, my friend KG attended a White Lies gig. Although the concert didn’t go exactly as planned, her night of music certainly won out over my night of respiratory illness…

He said to lose my life or lose my love: melancholic words like that just sound so much better when they are not spoken lazily by a tired looking IB student sitting in front of a laptop. Instead, close your eyes and imagine that you are sandwiched in a very mismatched crowd of people and from onstage these words are sung in a deep, yet soft voice with a heavy drum beat and slow growl of a guitar accompanying it in the background. Yes! Let’s do grow old together and die at the same time… Thankfully I am not old (Editors Note: This is highly debateable), so my time has not come just yet. However the time has come to spend another Monday night not at home being a good girl attending to her studies, but at a White Lies Gig in Munich at the Backstage Werk venue.

When Martin and I arrived shortly after 8pm, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of people that were already waiting outside. It had never occurred to me that White Lies would be so well known here in Munich where Lady Gaga and Flo Rider reign supreme. No one was of the same age group. Well not entirely. Some looked my parent’s ages, some were college students and a fair amount ( mainly girls) barely seemed to be 16.

The opening band Darker My Love were good in their own right. Funnily enough, I thought they were British at first judging by their accents, which was only slightly embarrassing when the lead singer announced they were from California….whoops.  I didn’t find too much to complain about, only that the lead singers microphone was slightly too quiet and his voice just sounded a tiny bit whiney after two songs and I had the urge to plug my ears.

Eventually, White Lies trudged onstage after a painful 30 minute wait in which the crowd grew more and more impatient. Finally, there was an explosion of sound as the band launched into their first song “Farewell to the Fairground”.

Already, even at this early point, one could tell that Harry was having problems singing. At first I thought it was simply because he had just begun and wasn’t warmed up yet, but with each passing song it became apparent that some thing was not right.  By song four which was “To Lose My Life” his voice had become very scratchy and you could tell from the pained look on his face, singing was hurting him. As the song came to a conclusion, he quietly whispered some thing to his band mates then addressed the audience to say, “Sorry guys, but I feel like shit. I love Munich, but I simply can not sing on, I apologize” and with that he and the band walked off stage.

An official looking woman came on stage a few minutes later confirming that which we had already been told, the concert would not go on. However she promised they would be back in either February or March and we were too keep our tickets as they would be valid for the next gig. Still, no matter how sick Harry was, he sounded great. Any band that is as obsessed with death as I am and can sound that amazing despite a sick lead singer is definitely worth seeing.

Just  make sure to remember that White Lies will not leave you with a upbeat and optimistic feeling in the pit of your stomach but  rather a feeling of that fear getting on hold you!

It’s always a bummer when a band has to stop halfway through their set, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a bit excited at the fact that they’re coming back to Munich at the beginning of next year. For all of you Müncheners who, like me, were not able to catch White Lies this first time, they will be returning Sunday the 21st of February with Enter Shikari at Backstage Werk. See you there!

Death – White Lies