The More You Live, The More You Love

UNHEILIG Gipfelstürmer (UNIVERSAL INTERNATIONAL 0602537706129) In recent months, there was a lot to do. Less than a week after announcing Gipfelstürmer in September, Der Graf announced to stop after the upcoming tour with Unheilig. The book will be closed on September 10, 2016  with a grand farewell concert in Cologne. Besides the fact that he wants to spend more time with his family, the main drive has to be the lack of challenges. The Eurovision Song Contest earlier this year had to be the platform for a possible breakthrough in the non German speaking countries, but the German Eurovision audience threw a spanner in the works. Gipfelstürmer is the eighth and last musical work of Der Graf. The new songs partly follow a thematic approach, where the beautiful and rugged mountain world forms the framework of the tracks. Der Graf keeps improving and perfecting his style, without neglecting the emotional side of life. He used a welded writing break to wrap his images, thought...

On December 12th, the new album of Unheilig, entitled Gipfelstürmer, will be released in three different formats. A one cd version of the concept album, containing the following tracks: 01. Der Berg (Intro) 02. Hinunter bis auf Eins 03. Zeit zu gehen 04. Weisheiten des Lebens 05. Zwischen Licht und Schatten 06. Glück Auf das Leben 07. Wie in guten alten Zeiten 08. Alles hat seine Zeit 09. Echo 10. Mein Berg 11. Goldrausch 12. Held für einen Tag 13. Dem Himmel so nah 14. Wir sind die Gipfelstürmer 15. Hand in Hand 16. Der Gipfel (Outro) A limited deluxe edition containing a double cd in digipack containing the one cd version and a second cd with production demos. And a limited special fan edition (only 5000 copies) containing the following items: - the limited double cd in digipack - 3 piece 10" vynil version (180g) - individual piece of the stage banner from the Best Of tour - DIN A1 Poster - 1 big sticker - Button Set - Postcard Set I ordered...

Around seven we left our hotel for the concert at the Dortmund Westfalenhalle. It was a ten minutes ride with the U Bahn, and we arrived at the hall just to witness the last three to four songs of ·F·R·E·I·. At ten to eight the intro music of two old German songs, Lilly Marlene and one unknown to us, were played and then the countdown followed for the last concert of Unheilig’s Lichter der Stadt II – Letzter Halt! Tour. In two hours Der Graf and his band played a varying set of songs from the bands history. A great setlist which was a lot harder than the first Lichter der Stadt tour of last year. Many of the ballads were replaced by older louder songs like Feuerengel and Freiheit. Although Winter seemed to be gone for quite some weeks now, the song still was surprisingly in the setlist and the video played along on the screens. After a slow and a bit uncertain start Der Graf came loose. Certainly when one of the woman at the front row threw him a towel. He wiped his ...

Just a week to go and we leave for Dortmund. On Saturday the eleventh of Mai we visit the famous Westfallenhalle to witness the last indoor concert of the Lichter der Stadt II – Letzter Halt tour. We are really looking forward to the concert. The highlight of a weekend in Dortmund.

Unheilig Lichter der Stadt / Live (Universal 0602537157259) Unheilig is my sensational discovery of this year. I know the band excist for twelve years now, but until March of this year I never had heard of this German band before. Within months I had all their albums and in June we visited the openings concert of the Lichter der Stadt Tour. And now they released Lichter der Stadt / Live, shot and recorded in the Rhein Energie Stadion in Cologne before an audience of 30,000 people. Compared to the concert in Meppen the stage looks more slicker. The luxe box is a real treasury, with the concert on double cd, on dvd and a second dvd with behind the stage scenes. The images are great and the spectator is drawn in the concert. Overviews are followed by close-ups of band and crowd, which turns this registration not only into a document for the public but the band as well. The sound is excellent and the bombast, like in Grosse Freiheit or the Rammstein alike songs Herzwerk,, Na...

Unheilig announced a winter edition of their succesfull 2012 album Lichter der Stadt. The album will be released on the 23rd of November in a 2 disc edition. The tracklist is as followed: Disk: 1   Das Licht (intro)  Herzwerk  Stark 2012  So wie Du warst  Tage wie Gold  Wie wir waren (feat. Andreas Bourani) Unsterblich  Feuerland  Lichter der Stadt  Ein guter Weg  Ein großes Leben  Brenne auf  Zeitreise (feat. Xavier Naidoo) Das Leben ist schön  Eisenmann  Vergessen  Die Stadt   Disk: 2 Sonne (Schiller feat. Unheilig) Auf ewig  Stark (2012 Henning Verlage version) Unsterblich (spezial version) Live bei den NRW Lokalradios Unter Deiner Flagge Lichter der Stadt  Unsterblich  Geboren um zu leben Tage wie Gold  So wie Du warst  Grosse Freiheit  Ein grosses Leben  Vergessen Ein guter Weg  Für immer  Stark  Mein Stern ...

September already and it seems the year is filled with a lot of new releases. The last top 10 I presented came from July, and at that time Unheilig and It Bites topped the list. Just two months later and several new releases have found their spot in the new top 10. Even surprisingly is the new number one. After so many years The Fixx finally wrote a new studio album, which is one of the best they ever made. Also it is thirty years ago the band released their first album Shuttered Room, which still is one of my favourite eigthies albums. 01. The Fixx – Beautiful Friction 02. It Bites – Map Of The Past 03. Unheilig – Lichter der Stadt 04. Clock Opera – Ways To Forget 05. Rush – Clockwork Angels 06. Nik Kershaw – Ei8ht 07. No-Man – Love And Endings 08. Marina And The Diamonds – Electra Heart 09. Big Big Train – English Electric (part one) 10. Dead Can Dance - Anastasis

Unheilig, Lichter der Stadt tour Support by Staubkind & Andreas Bourani 30 juni 2012, MEP Arena, Meppen, Germany An evening in Meppen. Oh how hard it was to get to the stadion. The parkings turned to be full so in the end we parked our car along a road. From there it was a 1.8 kilometer walk. Since we had to wait so long in the traffic jam, we arrived when Staubkind was already playing. Unfortunately we hardly knew the songs, so no setlist. What I heard was a band sounding like a clone of Unheilig. Time to have a drink, which turned out to be a journey on itself. Nearly 15 minutes waiting to get two drinks, and a girl at the counter which showed to be a bitch. The way she was serving the customers, if I was her boss I kicked her out right away. The stress overtook her totally and she abreacted it on the customers. Beerglasses were put down on the counter with such force that the content overflowed the glass. She nearly threw the change to the customers, and ignored people...

In the eighties I was a great fan of Die Neue Deutsche Welle which brought us bands like Nena, BAP, Spider Murphy Gang, Rheingold, Ideal, D.A.F., Falco, Trio and DŐF. Only a couple survived over the years and I stayed interested in BAP over the following years. But since the start of die Neue Deutsche Härte it seems some good German bands are coming up. One of these bands is Unheilig. Formed in 1999 by Der Graf, Grant Stevens and Jose Alvarez-Brill (ex De/Vision). In 2001 they release their first album called Prosper. The group gradually develops a good sense of marketing, by, especially with their later albums, delivering different extracted versions, often limited, of their albums and singles. When Stevens and Alvarez-Brill leave the band Unheilig becomes a bandwagon project of varying composition, on which Der Graf depends his musical escapades. With their seventh album, Grosse Freiheit, Der Graf is able to build a bridge with the German public, whom embrace the album and send ...

The fifth month of 2012 already on it’s way and I haven’t presented a top ten sofar. So here it is:   01. Galahad - Battle Scars 02. DeeExpus – King Of Number 33 03. Ultravox – Brilliant 04. It Bites – Map Of The Past 05. Unheilig - Lichter der Stadt 06. Keane – Strangeland 07. Mothlite – Dark Age 08. Clock Opera – Ways To Forget 09. Gazpacho – March Of Ghosts 10. IQ – IQ30 Live De Boerderij