Deafheaven @ Junkyard (Dortmund)

Round about one year after the release of Infinite Granite, Deafheaven are here at the JunkYard in Dortmund to grace the audience with their new album for the first time. I was very excited to see how the new songs would sound live and shuffled between the older songs.

Slow Crush opened this evening heavy and hazy. The whole stage was foggy while purple and blue lights accompanied the heavy Shoegaze Slow Crush delivered. They were a great opener for this evening and by the time their set ended, the crowd was in the perfect mood for the headliner.

Then Deafheaven entered the stage. The trio of “Shellstar“, “In Blur” and “Great Mass of Color” opened the show and the crowd was up for it. The live version of Infinite Granite is significantly heavier than the studio version. George (Clarke) looked and moved like an animal which just wanted to be let go while performing.

“Honeycomb” is one of my favorite Deafheaven songs in their discography. A song can’t end better than this. Fact on the side: since I first saw the video, I just can’t listen to the song without the beautiful pictures of San Francisco in my head.

It is really a nice thing that “From the Kettle unto the Coil” found its way into the set list. Released back in 2014 as an interim single and on the sort-of live album 10 Years Gone I have the feeling that it finally gets recognition it deserves.

It is always interesting to see which songs are kept on the setlist from the previous album. “Worthless Animal” being one of them was a big highlight for me this evening. I could listen to the finale for hours.

“The Gnashing” and “Mombasa” closed the “official” set. “Mombasa” is one of the highlights on Infinite Granite and the climax works even better in an incredibly loud live setting.

New Bermuda is my personal hidden champion of the Deafheaven discography. “Brought to the Water” was the first song to end this show. The piano outro was omitted so the band could go directly into THE Deafheaven song “Dream House“. “I want to dream”, and this night surely helped a lot of people to do so.

Setlist Deafheaven:
Shellstar
In Blur
Great Mass of Color
Honeycomb
From the Kettle unto the Coil
Worthless Animal
The Gnashing
Mombasa
Brought to the Water
Dream House