DAS BUCH DER VON NEIL YOUNG GETÖTETEN

Concert reading with Ludwig Blochberger

NAVID KERMANI "The Book of Those Killed by Neil Young" is more than just the most beautiful, cleverest, craziest book ever written about rock music - it is a hymn to life. It begins with the infamous three-month colic - night after night, the narrator's newborn daughter writhes in convulsions. The only effective antidote: the songs of Neil Young. For father and daughter, a journey begins through the Canadian musician's cosmos towards lost illusions and fleeting moments of happiness. Writer Navid Kermani interweaves the everyday life of a young family with the big questions of life with a light touch and, as if by chance, it becomes clear where fragments of paradise can still be found: not only in music.

NEIL YOUNG One evening in 1997, the 14-year-old teenager sneaks into the living room of his parents' house and grabs Neil Young's Decade album. In bed, he listens to the sounds of the singer, who was born in Canada in 1945, consciously and intimately for the first time with his headphones. It was to be the beginning of a long, never-ending passion. Since then, the former Viennese choirboy has never let go of Neil Young's music. Only a short time later, he bought his first guitar and taught himself to play. Like in a Woody Allen movie, he fantasizes about the bygone days of "good old rock 'n' roll". He could do next to nothing with the pop music of his generation. Neil Young becomes his obsession - soon all his music albums fill his cupboard. In 2001, he was finally able to see his idol live with Crazy Horse at the Waldbühne in Berlin. On the concert recording, you can hear his jubilation among the 22,000 spectators. In 2017, he plays a "Tribute to Neil Young" concert at Berlin's Prachtwerk with the specially founded band Genießen & Leiden. With a reading from Navid Kermani's "Das Buch der von Neil Young Getöteten" with live interpretations of Neil Young's songs on the guitar, Ludwig Blochberger starts a new attempt to pay tribute to the "Godfather of Grunge".

Ludwig Blochberger (*1982 in East Berlin) The stages of his childhood: Dresden, where he sings in the Dresdner Kreuzchor, then in Vienna where he becomes a member of the Vienna Boys' Choir and performs with them all over the world. Singing led him to acting - beginning as Prince Edward III in Claus Peymann's 1998 production of "Edward II" at Vienna's Burgtheater. At the age of 17, his family moved back to Berlin and he studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. Offers of roles for stage and film/television followed immediately. "The Manns", "The Lives of Others" and "The Last Train" are a selection of his award-winning films. His roles include the young Helmut Schmidt, Wernher von Braun, Pope Innocent III, Sebastian Haffner and Rudolf Höss. Again and again he plays theater. In 2007, under the direction of his father Lutz Blochberger, he took on the leading role in the world premiere of the tragicomedy "Heil Hitler!" by Rolf Hochhuth. He worked closely with director Hans Neuenfels for many years. As Baal (2007) at the Munich Volkstheater or most recently at the Vienna State Opera in "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" (2020-2024). He was Inspector Riwal in the ARD crime series "Kommissar Dupin" and Inspector Tom Kupfer in the new edition of the ZDF series "Der Alte" (2015-2021).