John Maus

John Maus, Berlin 8th April 2011

John Maus gave the most intense performance I have ever seen. The minimalism of all the other aspects of his show basic music, vocals with so much reverb that you could not understand what he was saying most of the time, mundane or morbid non-sense lyrics, signing over the playback from his CD, plain plain dress.

He entered the stage as the first track started and just started to scream intensely, not into the microphone, just screaming while jumping up and down. And he was really screaming. As hard and as angry as he could. he screamed all his lyrics and when not doing this was jumping around from side to side or making he-man type poses with what looked like every muscle in this body tense. By the end he was sweating and looked exhausted.

The crowd loved it. He seems to have a small but financial fan base. It was very affecting. To be near such unmitigated violence (which was directed at nobody, perhaps himself?) leaves one a bit shaken.

I was very impressed.