...WANDA

Austro pop taken to a new level

On February 11th the Austrian band "Wanda" gave their first official concert under their new label "Problembär Records" at rhiz, a small but nevertheless prestigious venue for new pop music.

I'd never heard of "Wanda" before, which is a shame, and if not after this concert than after their performance as support for "Der Nino aus Wien" on May 13th at WUK everybody interested in fresh Austrian pop music should (and will) know about them.

From the first chord of the first song "Tu' mir weh, Luzia" ("Hurt me, Luzia") it was clear that the evening would be a success. This is easy to say, since most of the audience was already familiar with the music - thus fans - but even fans might be disappointed if the performance does not match their expectations. But the presence of lead singer (and name donor) Marco Michael Wanda was inescapable as well as the joy the band apparently had throughout the concert, visible even for Wanda first timers like me.

From left to right: Lukas Hasitschka, Christian Hummer,
Ray Weber, Marco Michael Wanda, Manuel Poppe
Photo Credit: Benjamin Meyer-Plutowski

Marco Michael Wanda, who writes most of the songs and lyrics, is already a master of ear-catching melodies. He proves that in almost every song (like "Bologna"), but especially in those which were accompanied by the audience. They gave two frenetically acclaimed encores ("1 2 3 4 - Es ist schön bei dir zu sein" "1 2 3 4 - It is good to be with you" and "Schick mir die Post schon ins Spital" "Send me the mail to the hospital"), the latter almost completely sung by the audience.

The rhiz is admittedly only a small venue, there were a approximately hundred guests or so. But nevertheless, to muster such a dedicated fan base is not a small achievement for a band that young.

Learning from the best

All songs were skillfully produced by Paul Gallister, who, according to their Facebook page, met Wanda and his companions at a cab drive, where they arranged their future collaboration. This is a fortune for us, since Paul Gallister himself possesses plenty of experience as lead singer on the stage. He is not only a scholar of classical rock music like "The Beatles" but also a professional educated composer. Therefor the collaboration of "Wanda" together with Paul Gallister is a perfect match.

It is always difficult to write about the actual sound of the music. There are a couple of videos on Youtube, which deliver a better impression than words can do. About the song "Easy Baby" a commentator wrote that this music reminds him of "Falco", which is an impression I share. There is definitively something 80-ish to this music. The music of Marius Müller-Westernhagen came to my mind, but the lyrics of "Wanda" are much better, either funny or intelligent (often both), than those sometimes asinine or even insulting ("Dicke" "Fat guys") by Westernhagen. Maybe the resemblance is merely physical, since Wanda, as well as Westernhagen, knows how to appear on the stage.

It is about time for "Wanda" to play at greater venues and hopefully on the radio. Paul Gallister told me, that they played half of there oeuvre on this evening. So maybe the best is yet to come.

"Wanda" is Christian Hummer, keyboard; Manuel Poppe, git; Ray Weber, bass; Lukas Hasitschka, dr; Marco Michael Wanda, voc.