Bochum, Germany - July 12, 2005


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Chris Williams:

Hi all,
well here is our review from the fantastic Bochum concert last 
night. 
After a long leisurely breakfast at Konni`s home, we all set off in 
Konni`s car for the short drive to the venue, stopping off of course 
at the flower shop so we could all buy some for Chris !! We arrived 
quite early and had a long wait for the gates to open, but 
thankfully it was well in the shade, as it was very hot yesterday. 
The time soon passed as we chatted with friends. 

The first thing we noticed as we took our seats was that the stage 
was very very low :-)))) and we had a perfect view of both the 
centre stage and the piano. The actual venue was am ampitheatre and 
it was very nice.  The venue was packed and I doubt there was an 
empty seat anywhere, apart from the very sides which was cordened 
off anyway. 

It was really a much better start to the concert than the previous 
ones that I have been to this last few days. The old introduction 
from last year,of 'When Winter Comes' is soo much better than Chris 
just suddenly appearing on stage. I really love this intro, it sets 
the scene so well......(if you read this Chris......THANKS ;-) It 
makes such a nice start. 

As Mylene has already said, Chris was dressed in all black, but with 
no leather jacket on, as it really was hot. at several points in the 
show, Chris could be seen wiping his face with a towel...he must 
have been really hot as well !! 

From the word go, Chris`s voice was superb,and I love it that he has 
added another of my 2 mega favourites from `The Road To Freedom` 
album.............'Once Upon A Time' and 'Here For You'. There is 
one bit in 'Here For You' that always brings tears to my eyes....it 
is mostly the actual words, but also the powerful way in which Chris 
sings the lines. It is the last bit, where he sings about 'I trying 
not to show but seeing you go is the hardest thing I have 
known , ....gosh that line is sooo powerful, and it always bring 
back to me the day our first child left home to start her nursing 
career, and the utter wretched feeling as Stewart and I walked away 
from the university room that she was having to stay in(it was a 
horrible room). 

Jumping back alittle now.....(the memory is not soo good now at my 
age ;-) ....after the second song, Konni suddenly jumped up and ran 
to the stage with a rose for Chris...he liked it very much :-) From 
then on, several people gave him roses and we were lucky from the 
side we were sitting the security guards let us, but on the other 
side the secuity were very tough and tried to stop people doing 
this.....and at one point Chris saw them and told them to let the 
lady up with her flowers. 

There was alot of clapping right from the start, so it looked like 
it would be a very good show...and it was :-)

The introduction to Five Past Dreams is now getting much longer, as 
is several of his other chat bits. Chris does look alot more relaxed 
this year. 

At one point Chris said that he thought that the audience was all 
waving at him...till he realised that we were all trying to push 
the 'bugs' away from our faces !!!! At this point he produced a can 
of 'bug spray' and sprayed it around himself and  then towards the 
audience !! he then got some in his mouth and had to cough and made 
a joke about it, then took a drink and was ok after that !! 

The Britney Bit seems to get longer and longer evernight now...it 
seemed to go on for ages last night as Chris made his way around as 
much of the audience as possible. Every single person in the 
audience were 'up on their feet' for this section. 

I can't remember exactly when the first people stood up, but it was 
pretty early in the second half, and much earlier than in previous 
shows. 

Borderline went down extremely well, and the people just clapped and 
clapped and clapped after the finish. Chris always looks soo humble 
as he stands at the front of the stage while the people clap for so 
long...the way he puts his hand on his heart...it is soo sweet. 

At Carry Me.....which I just remember I think this is the song where 
people first stood up, and at the end of the song, again tremendous 
applause and then a group of us started singing the song back to 
Chris...it was lovely and he really enjoyed it , you could see, and 
he even turned the microphone toward the audience and he smiled down 
at the 'fans' who were singing it. he actually let us all sing quite 
a lot of it before he started the next song !! 

In actual fact, Chris was in a very smilie mood last night and 
smiled at lots and lots of people...maybe it was beacuse he could 
actually see alot more than normal as the stage was on the same 
level as the audience !!

When Revolution came, Chris said that people could stand up and 
dance, well many of us were already ;-) but there was no area 
infront of the stage as the edge of the stage was right infront the 
first row !! I think during this section of the show, 99.9% of 
people were standing...much more than in previous nights. 

It was such a shame that at 22:00hrs Chris said that he wanted to 
sing more songs for us all, but that as there were houses all around 
the venue area , he had to be finished by 22:00 hrs. :-( It acual 
fact it was 22:07 when he actually finished !! No 'extra party 
songs' ...but still a fantastic night. 

I think it was far better than Calden or Weimar..the atmosphere was 
so great. After the show we had a nice chat and a long drink, and 
finally Konni drove us all back to her house and we went straight to 
bed. 

Now this morning in a while we will be leaving again for the drive 
to Krefeld and again I can sit back and let a more experienced 
German driver to the driving !!!! 

take care all,
Chris (W) thebluehealer !! and travelling CdeB reporter !!


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File last modified on July 29th, 2006