Hard Rocks and Swooning Maidens. A Concert Report.

Of all the concerts I have seen, this by far is the concert that left my heart thumping the most. I have to admit! I am now smitten with this band. I am a confirmed groupie. Let me explain what happened…

 

The Band: They changed instruments but when I took notes this is what they all were playing,

Limonita-Flute

Melusinae-Harp

Lanvoc-Frontman lead vocals

Bruzo-Clarinet

Winfrie-Drums

Friewin-Big Lute Thingy

I arrived at Bree stage to find a crowd already assembled and the band playing a warm up song before the official introduction. The tune was so bouncy I couldn’t help but to begin dancing right away!

Music like this I had not heard before, it had a persistent beat and was quite lively.

But I have yet to describe the band so let me do that now, there were two of the big folk, elves I think, at the back of the stage and five hobbits, 3 hobbit lads in the middle and two hobbits lasses at either front corner. They were all wearing the same stylish red and white outfits.

 

They played a rousing song about fighting, the crowd all began dancing, A stirring and heartfelt ode to standing your ground when under attack!

Then they performed a song and sang in a very strange language…must have been something from a far away land. The audience seemed to enjoy it even though we had no idea what the lyrics were.

They sang a song about setting fire to rain, but I can’t think how one could do that without asking a Wizard to help. I did like this tune, I’d like to learn it!

 

Next they totally rocked the stage with a song titled “Sympathy for the Dark Lord”- Which was made more exciting for us hobbit ladies dancing at the front of the stage when the lead singer jumped off center stage and began singing to the crowd. We danced like we were hobbits needing a very large pie or two! Then swooned under the attentions of Lanvoc! I was not the only one fainting!

 

The day drew to a close they played a tune called “Losing my Religion”- What ever one of those is……I hope he finds it soon, maybe it’s been left at the Mathom House?

A love song followed, it sounded like an old Elven lay about love through difficult times…But it stirred the hearts of the audience! Again Lanvoc jumped off the stage and sang for the small gathering of dancing Hobbit-lasses. Ohh I had another swoon he was soo handsome!

Then a delightful song followed about a Hobbit trying to decide if to go on adventures or not, never having seen Rivendell, friendly dwarves or Golden Halls. Another toe tapper that had the entire audience joining in with the catchy chorus.

More great music from the band flowed, with many dancers in stage area and beyond. Folky upbeat numbers are very popular with our concert series audiences.

Followed by a calm and delicate strings number, after another number in a strange language but this time yours truly could understand some of it. Ciao Bella was a tale about a man/hobbit-lad saying good bye to his love as he has to go and fight for liberty. It had flowers and mountains in it too. So I think it was fitting considering the hosts of our event!

Then they played a song about Hitting Babies! How strange not to mention wrong…But I think it was about lovers again. I remember this song from Ministock….I changed the words a little, maybe I shouldn’t have but I didn’t know the real ones. I was singing “Kill that Crabain One More Time”- I had killed an awful lot that day! I was getting a bit silly in the head.

But back to the concert I am supposed to be writing about: People had begin to release fireworks! Also there at the back of the stage area on the fence, was lined up the chorus line of Die Meisterbarden von Bree! How lovely to come and support an competing band! I had noticed during the concert series that many band members would support other bands in turn. The music flowed, dancers danced, it was a very successful event!

I enjoyed “The Highway Man”.

I loved a song played called Hobbit Hobbit! Well I would, wouldn’t I? They even called out the names of the small folk in the crowd! The Rocks really know how to get a crowd up and dancing, excellent at interacting with their audience. I would love to come and see these guys again! This was amazing.

The Band played some soothing tunes as we drew to the close of the show, they play a traditional last tune, a funky number and yet stirring.  They signed off with the quip “We will see you at the big event when we bring the Rock to Weathertop!”

If you missed this band and want to catch up, you stll can by visiting this link:

A Rock and A Hard Place. Thanks to Pineleaf Needles.

Thankyou Floradine for the screenshots used in this article.

 

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Interview:

 

What prompted you to start a band?
It started out as jam sessions of ppl that liked music, and at some point a few of us decided to take it to the next level and do regular concerts – so we slowly developed into it. After we started we picked up new members, some left and now we’re 5 active members with some joining every now and then for a show.

How did you decide what to call the band?
We picked the name after a song of the rolling stones, which is a band we like very much. We used different names before like POL (playing out loud) and the ladies and lords of the strings. But we decided to go for a more poetic name now.

Do you compose or transcribe your own music?
All of our members transcribe music, we don’t really compose new music, but some songs we rearrange to give them a new twist. We mostly play music we transcribed ourselves. I should probably add here that I wrote my own transcribing program to have an alternative to fefe’s converter (BruTE), I’m still looking for help on writing a graphical user interface so I can finally release a windows version.

How about original music?
Even though some of us play real life instruments we’re not really composers. So we rather rely on the professionals there. We do write our own lyrics sometimes though.

What genre does your band like to play the most?
We play all sorts of genre’s .. as long as it sounds good and is transcribable .. maybe the word is eclectic.

Do you regularly hold public concerts? And if so, when and where?
We regularily play on fridays around 5pm servertime over on our home server Dwarrowdelf. We announce short term only though and usually end up with a random audience that was passing by – but that way we can also not play if we don’t feel like it.

Do you perform with a band outfit? If so, how did you decide what to wear?
It changes over time. Glorgnorbor/Lanvoc usually chooses those for us, whenever there is a festival we try to get something new. So we try to go with the seasons there 🙂

What is your favorite part of performing music?
Listening to it – especially after converting a tune and just listening to it on the abcplayer it’s a thrill to see how they work out in the game. Also the lyrics are fun. A song with costumized lyrics can be an entirely new thing. Ultimately of course it is nice to see the audience enjoying our shows.

If you could say one thing to encourage others to start playing music, what would it be?
Music is the language of the soul … Hehe honestly it’s very rewarding to play together with others and enjoy each others music. We learned a lot about so many new songs because of the music in lotro. It may be a bit difficult at start, but it is very rewarding in the end – it will lead to a lot of unsuspected things like new friends. Try it and you will see!

 

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