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Claudia Schreiber:
Tuesday morning at 7 am (!!) I started my journey to Riga with a flight
from Cologne to Berlin, then 2 hours later I flew from Berlin to Riga.
The second flight was quiet turbulent due to the storm over Europe, and
I’m a little concerned about the flights back today….we will see!
Once arrived to Riga –which, if you ask me, looks much like eastern Germany
in the late 60s- I took a taxi for the short ride to the hotel. Of course
I tried to get a little sleep there but it did not work..so I went to have
a pretty little meal, and soon it was time to dress up and drive to the venue.
The venue was ok, nothing special but with a little surprise: there was a
little “supermarket” inside where you could buy all kind of softdrinks as
well as sweets and so on…
When the doors to the inner part of the venue opened, I went to search for
my seat cos I was curious to see the table! Yes, you have read correct, I
was sitting at a table!! There were 2 rows of tables in front of the stage,
then the “normal” seat rows came. I can tell you I did not like it at all…I
even don’t like to sit at all, but a table?!?
Anyhow, I met 2 nice girls from Sweden, who were sharing the table with me,
and we chatted the time away. They came all the way from Sweden just to see
Dave again which they had met at a Smokie concert in Dublin in November. Ever
since then the blond girl tried to meet him again and finally the other girl
found out that Dave was playing the bass for Chris as well. Of course they did
not know any other song but LIR!
The concert started with Chris playing solo, and the first song was In a country
churchyard. (Cloth report for Chris W.: He was wearing a light blue shirt with
darker blue stripes as well as a leather jacket at the beginning).
I had heard that the concert was cut down to 2 hours due to restrictions of the
venue which was a real shame. Due to that Chris only played 5 or 6 songs solo,
including Natasha and Moonlight & Vodka. The audience appreciated M&V quiet a
lot, but all in all I felt more like visiting a funeral then a concert-the people
were not having a party at all and it seemed to be real hard work for Chris to
cheer them up. Much harder than in Germany I can tell you!! But I think it’s
also a problem of language-many many people here don’t speak no English at all
or just a bit. And I would not go to a concert also if I don’t understand a
single word…
My biggest disappointment was to see that Chris left our Borderline. It’s a song
that I can’t here often enough…when Chris walked around the audience during LIR
people began to relax a bit and started to clap along better.
The show went on and another favourite of mine, the Leader trilogy was done. And
although the video skipped in the end –before the bomb fell down- people were
really moved by that song.
When it came to The words I love you of course I prayed that Chris would invite
us to dance finally and I could leave my table but he didn’t. I can well understand
why, these were not the kind of audience who dance at all…it took another 3 songs
until he tried to make us dance, but for 2 songs it was only the Swedish girls and
me standing in front of the stage, which was really embarrassing somehow. But who
cares, I will never meet all those people again, let them think what they want J.
Then suddenly Chris began to talk of the international women’s day and the band
started LIR again! The whole song was sung again (in a slowmotion version, that’s
at least how it seemed to me!) and after that there were about 50-80 people standing
and dancing in front of the stage finally.
Much too soon the show was over and we took a taxi back to the hotel, where we sat
in the bar chatting (and drinking *smile*) up to 5 am this morning!!
Now after this mail I will go back to the airport and hopefully get home safely.
And of course start to look forward to the next trip!!
Many greetings from Riga
Claudia
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