Halfblind Henry live im Artliners

“Something good is a-coming round the bend,” a song by Halfblind Henry begins promisingly. When Henry picks up the guitar, that's true: something good comes along, but you don't know exactly what beforehand. By the way, Henry doesn't necessarily either. At his concerts he mostly plays his own pieces, but he always brings along exciting souvenirs from his extensive forays through music history, be it Leonard Cohen, Little Feat, T.Rex, Bo Diddley or Lou Reed - the repertoire is always good for a surprise. Henry's playing grows from the mood of the moment and creates music for the moment. The accomplished guitarist and fearless singer is sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, sometimes gripping and sometimes cautious. When he is on stage, he is always completely present. For him, making music is his job and purpose, he always puts himself at the service of the song, sees himself as a medium between the song and the audience.
Halfblind Henry sounds as if he grew up in London in the sixties and seventies and had previously spent a hundred years in the southern states. The list of musicians who inspired him starts with Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Lovin' Spoonful and the early Bee Gees and doesn't end with Howlin' Wolf, Captain Beefheart and Scott Walker. He writes his own songs and performs them personally. That's why he's often referred to as a singer-songwriter, but as he says: what does that say? About the singer or the songs?
Henry is a musician, but also a storyteller. Like a chronicler, he observes his environment and processes his impressions into texts that can be profound, sarcastic or surreal; the music complements the words, is part of the story. He draws from all sources of Anglo-American song tradition, but is not limited to any genre and is always open to experiments and unexpected twists. The fusion of different elements can also be found on his fourth and latest album "Inside the Gates of Splendorville", where electronic sounds and noise collages meet the familiar instruments, and can also be experienced in his stage performances.
Halfblind Henry develops his considerable musical range in solo performances and of course especially in concerts with his band, the "Instabilities", a loose association of like-minded musicians, just as accomplished, fearless and adventurous people who come together in ever new constellations to realize Henry's musical ideas. Whether it's a guitar and double bass, an acoustic trio, a classically trained string section that meets a big band brass section, whether a bluegrass violin refines the songs, together with a jazz guitar and a Japanese improviser on drums: there is no original line-up, but every line-up is an original.
Halfblind Henry & His Instabilities usually start quite normally with a set list, but then play something else from the repertoire. Or even outside the repertoire. "Something good is a-coming round the bend" is always true, even if you don't know exactly which "Instabilities" are coming on stage and what they're going to play.
When it comes down to it, the band adapts specifically to the venue or the course of the supporting program. Halfblind Henry & His Instabilities play on stages of all sizes, in bars without a stage or on boat trips. As a party act, the Instabilties ring in the evening with a large cast until Henry plays the last guests under the table all alone at dawn. Solo or with a band: a Halfblind Henry concert is new every time, different every time, and never disappoints.