The Politics of Magic

Berlin celebrates 75 years of Rio Reiser and RPS Lanrue at the Volksbühne

Rio Reiser would have been 75 years old on January 9. To mark the occasion, a tribute concert was held the night before at the Volksbühne in Berlin with TON STEINE SCHERBEN, Ella Josephine Ebsen and other friends, fellow artists and companions.

They will all pay artistic tribute in different and very personal ways to their beloved friend and probably the most talented German-speaking music poet. But in the program co-designed by his brother Gert Möbius, fortunately Rio himself is given the stage first. We see and hear him on two screens during a concert recording: “We were born to be free”. This is what Rio wants us to remember today. In these times of looming tyranny, what is more important than understanding, remembering and standing up for this? He knew what was important and, above all, how to use his voice to convey it to the heart of the people: the politics of magic.

Throughout their creative/artistic lifes Rio, Lanrue and the SCHERBEN spun some of the most binding spells in German music history. The ingredients drawn together from slips of thype to pecure a potent potion – remedies for the heart and souls for those with a political disposotion  – for those like themselves, ravaged by pain. The lost, the lonely without rights of passage, stumm, ohne Stimme, prayed upon in isolation, battered and bruised into a suffocating submission, accused of something or another they should not be.

An impossible dilemma that sought a political solution in a young democracy.

And this is exactly where we miss Rio so much today, and why he is so needed today – Claudia Roth, patron of the evening, says this in her opening words, speaking from the heart.

This is a good, strong start to the evening, which delights, touches and elicits strong applause from old and new fans in the sold-out venue for over three hours.

Sometimes loud and rocking, sometimes quietly accompanied by piano sounds, artists such as Mieze Katz with Jan Plewka & die schwarz-rote Heilsarmee, die Irrlichter, Florian Paul and die Kapelle der letzten Hoffnung and soloists such as Stoppok and Sebastian Krumbiegel performed their serenades – mainly cover versions of Rio’s love songs “König von Deutschland”, “Junimond” and “Für Immer und Dich”. Bernadette La Hengst brought the song “Jenseits von Eden” to the point with a hotly rtyhmized version, in which a choir of more than twenty people chased powerfully oblique and polyphonic through the deserts of abysmal human history from one to the next of the many visually stunning lines of the text.

Touching moments as Josi, Ella Josephine Ebsen, who grew up with Rio as a family in Fresenhagen, sings alone on stage. She lost her father RPS Lanrue in June last year. With her song “Ich geh weg” she commemorates both friends, Rio and Lanrue.

At midnight, TON STEINE SCHERBEN with Kai Sichtermann, Nikel Pallat, Funky K. Götzner, Angie Olbrich, Marius Le Mestre, Martin Paul and Birte Volta will play a series of well-known Scherben hits such as “Guten Morgen”, “Irrenanstalt” and others as the crowning highlight.

They will end with Rio’s beautiful song “Übers Meer”, which all the performers on stage and the audience will sing along to. There will also be champagne and balloons – salute and thank you for a wonderful evening.

As they bound us then, they bind us now – a magic that when understood will resist all designs and desires of autocratic tyranny. We are not going back!