Lisa Hannigan will be familiar to many of you as Damien Rice’s duet partner and background vocalist. However, since Rice broke up with her, both on personal and on a business level, she has been up to her own thing. She released an album in 2008 titled Sea Saw which is indeed a gem. Luckily I took the chance to see her live in Oxford around that time.
Her second album Passenger reached number one in the Irish charts. It was released in the US, Canada and the UK last autumn and will be released in Germany on February 24 via Play it again Sam / Rough Trade. To celebrate this Lisa Hannigan played an acoustic solo show at Schokoladen, Berlin – her first show in Berlin ever (if you discount touring with Damien Rice).
Schokoladen is quite a small place and by the time I got there the queue outside was massive. Luckily, I was on the guest list and could sneak past the people waiting to get in. There were so many waiting in fact, that Lisa Hannigan decided she would play the same set twice for everyone to get a chance to see her. The nice people at Schokoladen let me stay for both sets (which were identical except for the encore).
Lisa mostly played songs from her recent album on acoustic guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Schokoladen’s cosy stage provided the ideal setting for Lisa’s sophisticated songs. She also seemed much more comfortable than the last time I saw her at the o2 academy in Oxford (which is about the size of Lido, Berlin).
I wasn’t the only one surprised so many people had come to the gig, Lisa clearly hadn’t expected it. With the release of Passenger in Germany next month, it won’t be long until a full band tour.
