Concert Review: Beautiful Dreams Concert on May 7th, 1996
CdeB Mailing List Concert Review
Copyright (c) 1996, Willem de Waal
All rights reserved
WOW! What an experience! Beautiful Dreams Concert, Botanical Gardens, Durban, South Africa.
I am now going to give a fairly detailed account of the concert, which will include some of Chris's comments from the stage. If you are still to see this concert, you might choose NOT to read any further, because it might spoil some of it for you!
For starters, let me describe the venue: As the name implies, a huge garden, more like a park, with lots of huge old trees, all ingigenous African, with a massive lawn in the middle, surrounded by very tall Raphia Palms. This lawn now covered with blanke ts, and people drinking champagne, wine, beer, eating sandwiches, snacks, cold meats ... A "capacity" crowd of about 1,200 people (my estimate!). Packed under a full moon in a clear windless sky. And at the one end the singer on a stage.
The atmosphere was incredible. My guess is that the average age was somewhere between 30 and 35, and it was just mellow!
The lights dimmed, and the opening strains of "Carry On" started from the piano. And this is where he stayed for 3 songs: Carry On, Here is your Paradise and Sailing Away. Just the piano, the singer and his song.
Then he got up, chatted, joked, got his guitar and played the intro to "Transmission Ends". Then he stopped, and explained what the song was about - The end of the world as we know it, probably due to a massive nuclear explosion, and somewhere, millions of light years away, someone (or something) seeing the flash of the explosion. "Pretty grim stuff" as he put it, but still a lovely song.
Then back to the piano, and "The Head and The Heart" and "Moonlight and Vodka", each time explaining what the song is about. Apparantly performed "M & V" in the Kremlin last year (?) - said it was very popular there!
And then some joking about the Irish, followed by "Danny Boy" - and he really does this well!
Then back to the guitar, and some general chat, eg.
CdB: "What would you like to hear?"
Crowd: "Patricia!!!"
CdB: "I'm afraid I had a religious conversion recently - can't do
that song anymore! Anything else?"
Crowd: "Spanish Train!"
CdB: "NO!! That song is banned here!"
Crowd: "Boo! Not anymore!"
CdB: "What? Oh - well, I can't remember all the words anyway!"
Then a story of when he sang in Kiev "Where the chickens come from" and went to visit an ancient 12th century monastery.
"There are vast catacombs in the foundations of this monastery, and I went to walk around in these ... apparently more than 15 000 monks were buried here! Anyway, I was walking around these catacombs, when an old man suddenly appeared from the shadows, pointing a finger at me.
'You're Chris de Burgh, aren't you?' the old man asked.
'Yes', I answered.
'You're a well-known singer, aren't you?'
'Yes!', I said, somewhat flattered that even this man knew who I was.
'You're going to Spain soon, aren't you?'
'Yes, indeed', I replied, surprised.
'Well, be careful, cause there's a Spanish Train that runs between...'"
What a lovely intro - the crowd went mad!
CdB: "Any other requests?"
Some guy right in the front must have shouted "Lonely Sky!", because Chris asked:
"Do you know the words? Well come on then - come sing it!"
And the guy went up to the front of the stage, and sang "Lonely Sky" with Chris de Burgh!! Horribly off tune and all, but the crowd loved it!
This was followed by "Snows of New York" with everybody joining in the chorus. Then back to the piano, and "Borderline", "A Spaceman came Travelling" and "The Risen Lord" with "The Last Time I cried".
Then the string quartet was introduced, and the Beautiful Dreams part of the show started.
He did "Missing You", "Carry Me Like a Fire in your Heart", "In Love Forever", "Lady in Red", "In Dreams", "Always on my Mind", "Goodbye to it all" and "I'm not Crying over You".
The quartet left the stage, he took up his guitar again .... then: "Desperado" (by the Carpenters and then Eagles, I think ...). And what a beautiful rendition of this beautiful song!! You could tell from the hush in the crowd - this was brilliant!
This was followed by "Eleanor Rigby" - and they loved this as well.
And then the long awaited "Patricia the Stripper" - everyone got up and danced and sang along at the top of their voices - what fun! And then, since he had us on our feet anyway, "Don't Pay the Ferrymam".
"Good night everybody!" and off he went. But they wouldn't let him go. So he came back, and did "The Traveller" off Eastern Wind. One could tell that very few people there actually knew this song, but they seemed to have enjoyed it anyway.
And then his "personal gift to your beautiful country: Riding the Rainbow". And I am really sorry to say, but it's NOT that great! It somehow reminded me of that old song "This land is your land, this land is my land" - not the tune, just the style.
He left again, came back again, and did "Where Peaceful Waters Flow" - and again everyone joined in. Then he repeated what I had seen him do before with this song: While the crowd sings the "la-lalala-la-la-laaa-laaa" he sings little one or two-line phra ses from some of his other songs. Really effective and beautiful.
And then, the final final song - "Hey Jude!" which of course was a show stopper.
And that was it. People sat around afterwards for more than an hour, just enjoying the party, the picnic, the fellowship. And evryone seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
What really struck me about the whole concert was that Chris seemed to really be enjoying himself. This was NOT a moneymaking concert. He could have chosen a much larger venue, like a concert hall, or sports stadium, but he CHOSE not to. CdeB memorabilia was on sale at only one small stall: Programs and T-shirts. No CD's or other stuff.
The objective from the outset was that everybody - artist and audience - enjoy themselves, and appreciate the wonderful music. And this objective was achieved 100 percent!!
If you get the oppertunity to see this - DO SO!!!