Stephan Zinner: Blues and stories at its best

Created: 09/22/2022, 18:11

By: Rudolf Ogiermann

With well-tempered rage: "The devil, the girl, the blues and I" is the name of Stephan Zinner's new, very musical program.

The 48-year-old is accompanied by Peter Pichler.

Photo: Südpol Entertainment © Südpol Entertainment

Many know him as a theater and television actor ("Police call 110"), but Stephan Zinner also does cabaret - and music.

From now on he is on tour with "The Devil, the Girl, the Blues and I".

There's something sad about the blues by definition, and the man on the stage at some point mentions that this word also means something like "Don't give up, keep going!", which implies a previous misfortune.

But this evening is as lively as an evening in an establishment like the Lustspielhaus can be, apart from a few well-placed melancholic moments.

Stephan Zinner's new program "The Devil, the Girl, the Blues and I" only plays with these meaningful vocabulary, but is pure joie de vivre.

Bavaria and blues go together perfectly, Trostberg, Zinner's home town, becomes "Trosttown", the intersection that has not long since given way to a roundabout becomes "Crossroad" and - why not - Rewe becomes "Riewie".

And right in the middle of it all is Zinner, who tells stories in text and music.

It is a very musical evening, the (short) pieces between blues, some rock and country are connected by wonderful observations, which the actor and cabaret artist presents without any wrong note.

Of course it's about the family, the wife, the son, the daughters and their friends.

The (slightly) older man and the younger generation, “topless zones”, mountain tours on which he is “the tensing”, the flirting once in the disco and today via Tinder.

Zinner is sometimes a perpetrator and sometimes a victim, takes, "because it's a bit twitchy", snobs in a headlock, lets himself be initiated into the science of preparing a gin and tonic ("Take a risk!"), but gets a bloody nose as he hits the emergency stop on the treadmill.

Sure, sentences about cyclists and food bloggers can also be heard elsewhere, but rarely with such well-tempered anger and in such a beautiful Bavarian language as here.

And then the songs.

This is where the blues are most likely to come out, this is where Zinner is most willing to show his vulnerable side, singing about the transience of life ("It doesn't matter whether you're a king or a fool, at some point it's time to say 'Servus'"), about the strongest man in the world world in which, "deep inside", the small child is, reinterprets the line "Only the Good die young".

In between, fighting against the omnipresent Internet ("I love you, you are my God, without you I'm dead") and the "experts on everything".

Not to mention a lively "Shitstorm, Shitstorm!" to the melody of Tom Jones' hit "Sex Bomb".

In addition, the gifted musician lets go of the various guitars, there's singing, crashing, howling and sometimes the ground trembles.

In the lonesome cowboy Peter "Pete" Pichler, Zinner has a partner who is as humble as he is effective.

who provides the background with all sorts of instruments from the harmonica to the banjo.

You don't always understand every word sung - but you don't have to get the blues from it.

Certainly not on a night like this.