An all acoustic night with Dashboard Confessional and Cory Wells at the Hansa 39 (Feierwerk) in Munich

Last week I was out for a special treat: Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba and Cory Wells – an all acoustic night.

The solo acoustic tour of Dashboard Confessional was announced in early June and only one month later some of the shows have already been sold out. By the time the European/UK tour started, it was almost completely sold out.

In Munich they played at a really small and intimate venue, which gave the show a very ‘friends and family’-like vibe.

Cory Wells is a singer/songwriter from Redondo Beach, CA, playing mostly acoustic songs. The perfect addition to the set. By the time Cory Wells was announced as support for the tour most shows have already been sold out, so it’s hard to say how popular he already is in Germany. That night a few people have heard of him before. Safe to say that after his performance he had many new fans. The line at the merch table after the show was pretty long and he really took his time to talk with everyone.

Cory Wells just recently released his first full-length record ‘The Way We Are’.

“Four years in the making and I cannot be more proud of this collection of songs. It portrays sadness, anger, despair, happiness, uncertainty, regret, and so much more. It’s my life. It’s your life. It’s about what it’s like to be human. Without the bad, the good would mean nothing. It would just be normal. I hope people can appreciate the emotions put into this record as well as the various feels and styles it represents. It’s the way we are.“

What caught my attention when I heard one his songs for the first time, was how raw and powerful his voice is. According to his vita on facebook, Cory Wells grew up playing metal. He took a musical turn of directions though, after discovering one of Dashboard Confessional’s live performances.

Compared to the recorded songs, the acoustic set is more stripped-down, because it’s only guitar and vocals. But believe me, that’s all that the singer needs for his performance. He put a lot of heart and soul into his performance. You could actually feel what he probably felt, when he wrote the songs. His music is genuine, honest and comes from the heart. He played a few songs from his EP ‘How To Tear Apart The Ones You Love’, like ‘Fear’, ‘Avoid The Blame’ and ‘End Of A Good Thing’, but also new tracks like ‘Wildfire’, ‘Patience’ and ‘Walk Away’.

Cory Wells has already announced tour dates for the UK and Germany for January 2020. Make sure to check him out live in a city near you.

This tour sold out pretty fast, which probably had many reasons. For one, they played really small venues and what’s far more important, DC has a strong and loyal fanbase. Dashboard Confessional look back on a career of twenty years. After an eight-year break, the band released their latest record ‘Crooked Shadows’ in early 2018.

The small venue made that night’s event very up, close and personal. Most of the time it felt more like the meeting of a bunch of friends, where one of them brought a guitar to perform some songs. People came from near and far (Canada, UK, etc.) for this tour. Only the first and the last song of each show are set, Chris Carrabba stated at the beginning of the show, the rest develops. The night started out with ‘The Best Deceptions’ and ended with ‘Hands Down’. The roughly two hours in between were filled with songs the fans chose, like ‘Saints And Sailors’, ‘The Good Fight’, ‘Remember To Breath’, ‘Heart Beat Here’, ‘Don’t Wait’, ‘Screaming Infidelities’, ‘Vindicated’ and many more. After every song, he took his time to give everyone a chance to utter his wish and chose one of the suggestions. What really blew me away, was how the audience sang along every single word of every single song. His performance had a lot of goosebump moments for me.

Dashboard Confessional already announced US tour dates for the 20 years anniversary tour and according to Chris Carrabba, there are also plans for a return to Europe next year.