Concert Review: Zürich, Switzerland - January 16, 1999

Hannelore Breinich:

Hello everybody,

this is gonna be a very long review of the Art on Ice event, Chris played in Zuerich the past 3 days, so you should be offline and patient, *grin*, or you shouldn't continue reading. But in any case, you should read this one:

The event, where Chris played for more than an hour was more than two hours long and will be broadcasted on Swiss TV channel SF 1 on next sunday, Jan. the 24th, at 20.05 CET to 21.45 CET(8 pm). So if you have a friend, who lives in Switzerland or close to it, get them on their feet to record it, unfortunately I have to do the same. It was brilliant!!!

I just arrived 40 minutes ago, and what can I tell you, my friends, this was a really big thing for Chris in Switzerland, it was a landmark in his career as an artist and entertainer, and I'm very thankful that I could join it. OK, get your seatbelts fasten, now the journey begins...

Saterday, Jan the 16th,1999

I awoke with sunlight in my eyes, first because of the wonderful show yesterday and second because some sun rays got me right in my bed, it was a bright and sunny day. And through the music in my mind I could hear some birds celebrating the new day. So up I went, for I had a huge sight-seeing program planned for today and tonight would be the final show , but I never thought, it would be such a big one.

The air outside was still very cold, so it cleared up my mind immediatly. I walked to the Zuerich lake, through the shopping street of Zuerich, the Bahnhofstr. People with shopping bags, dressed elegantly, crossed my way, but I was not interested in shopping. I took some photos and made my way through the squieling noise of some old trams, all painted blue.

The lake was glistening in the sun, the imposant mountains far away in the background. I watched the doves flying by but the wind freshed up, so I went back to the city centre.

I strolled through the narrow old streets with it's old buildings, not damaged from any war, only from those who wanted to build better ones. I was very lucky to get the notes-songbook of The Love Songs, that I was not able to find in Germany so far, in a well sorted music store there, so one more reason to be high, and I tell you, I was!!

I visited some churches and then decided to go up to the top of a church tower, the Big Muenster.

There were 178 stairs to climb but the view was fantastic.

All those chaotic twisty roof tops and edges below me (some people were sun-bathing up there), the lake with the mountains in the distance clearly to see, the two rivers dividing the city and the beautiful villa up the hills.

The view was so breathtaking, that I stood up there for 40 minutes, enjoying the weak winter sun and let my spirit fly over those roof tops, remembering the undescribable wonderful last half year I had... It was in so many ways the time of my life, that I'll remember as long as I'll live...

Well, I'll stop here, going straight on to the concert, I'm sorry, but I was taken away with those memories...

I got to the huge Hallenstadion by tram, the venue was quite full, for CD was a little late; the show was sold out, there were about 9000 people, all seated, the ice field and stage below us. This show was supposed to be recorded for TV and it was saterday night, so everybody was dressed up quite nice.

They were all very relaxed, mostly middle aged, only a few children, cause the tickets were very expensive (48 to 138 SFR, which is 30 to 87 Euros, or 34 to 98 US$). But the show was worth it.

The'd also offered some VIP arrangements with 5* hotels and busses transfers and a all star meeting after the show, I don't know the price for that, but it was sold out in a few days. So it was definetly also a big thing for all business people.

I was very excited about the things to come. The show on thursday had been very nice, Chris was in great voice, the band played fantasticly, the sound and light show were brilliant, but the presentation and "fine tuning" between the artists had not been perfect and still to improve. Well it had been the first show of this kind for everybody. Yesterday had been much better, the inter-reaction between the presenter, the skaters and Chris was improving, everything felt very natural, but it was gonna be topped by this last show.

The show started with a short video review of the one from last year together with some live singing of Jeff Turner and Sandra Studer, then the skaters drove in. The ice artists came from Russia, Finnland, Germany and Switzerland, most of them former or current world or European champions and they danced gracefully..

The ice and the stage background were flooded with lights of changing, intensive colours, especially red and blue, sometimes supported by laser flashings, twistings and symbol paintings, a first quality light show, so beautiful to watch. It emphasized the performances on ice in perfect harmony. I enjoyed it very much.

The music varied from pop to dramatic classic, but was not live, only the singing was live, but supperb. A singing highligth was, as the Swiss musical star Monica Quinter sang the Titanic song My heart will go on. There were two comedians on ice from Russia, who also did some acrobatic performances, the audience really loved them, they got a very strong response, as did Denise Biellmann, a Swiss ice talent and world champion with her solo performings.

After one hour there was a 20 minutes break and then after 2 more performances, the Swiss presenter, Christine Maier, a beautiful lady dressed in red, announced the highlight of the show, world star Chris de Burgh. He got a warm applause.

He's been staying in a dark corner of the stage, hidden from some equipment, and folks, yes he was dancing to the previous spanish song Bailando, while watching the ice performance and chatting with Peter and Chris Andrews and trying to get his fingers warm in the cold venue. And he definitly was a bit excited. I had my night binoculars with me, so I could see him there.

He started with Here is your paradise on the piano, with Maria Butyrskaya dancing to it. I can't report so much about the quality of that dancing, cause, as you can imagine, I was fixated on the music and the stage.

There were two video screens, showing everything on stage close up. I tried to make some photos, but I'm not sure how they will be, because unfortunately I was too far away from the stage and we were not allowed to use flashlights during the ice performance. As I mentioned before, the sound quality was really amazing, just perfect and the Hallenstadion is definitely a wonderful place for concerts, as Chris said later, it's one of his favourite venues in the world and the public there were always fantastic. You can not only hear but literally feel the applause and feet stamping coming from different corners like waves, and Chris really got them going in the next songs that night.

After the first song, he welcomed the people with "Gruezi miternand" (a Swiss hi all together) - and he did it perfectly - the folks were delighted. Then he got them going with his announcement, that the show will be broadcasted on TV so that they should show everybody on the screen, how a audience in the Hallenstadion could sound like.

The second song was It's me and I'm ready to go, with full band, featering Olver Höhner on ice.

Chris did the presentation between the songs together with the previous mentioned lady, to whom he sang a part of The lady in red, because of her beauty. He did it very natural, communicative but also in a professional style. He was superb! So much better than at the first show. They were working together with no problems, completing each other, as if they knew each other for years.

Then he sang the beautiful Snows of N.Y., a song for a friend, like he felt to have here a lot tonight.

The ice performers were Mandy Wölzel and Ingo Steuer, a couple, and this was the first highlight of the show, they were brilliant, really inspired by the way Chris did this song with all it's dynamics.

Then he introduced the next song with : The next song will take us to France, maybe Paris, the Notre Dame it's a very romantic song, so I hope you'll enjoy it.

And he sang Lonely sky, you could hear the people saying "Ah!, such a beautiful melody!" as it started. The applause was fantastic. The Finish dancers receiced flowers from the audience and forwarded them with lots of thanks to Chris, being fans of his.

He did some jokes, including those with Clinton and the current impeachment thing, then he said:

It's time for some rock'n roll and started Blonde hair, blue jeans. This happens to be one of my favourite songs during a concert and peaople started to clapp along, you could almost see the energy floating down to the skaters Pasha Grishuk and Sasha Zulin and they reacted strongly to it. Chris said afterwards: Wow, they were fantastic, I'd see fire on the ice.

Unfortunately, the Swiss audience didn't sing along at all, I don't know if it's typical there or if they just didn't know the words, but I'm sure a lot of them didn't know his music at all or at least not so well, so those gigs together with the TV broadcast will surely make him more popular there and he will have a lot of new fans out there.

Well it was also a new experience for Chris to have to share the attention of the audience with the skaters! And at this last show I really had the feeling that the musicians and skaters were a good unity, harmonizing wonderfully and inspiring each other vice versa, as well as with the audience.

This was followed by Don't pay the ferryman, performed by a young russian talent.

Then he introduced The lady in red as during the summer tour, (he also began to sing When a man loves a woman). The band played it in old style as on the album Into the light.

And the skater Dennis Biellmann - wow- she was incredible. She was perfect. You have to see her, you can't really describe this. Such an elegance, grace, velocity, jumping and twisting - this time I was carried away with her and not with Chris.

The audience went crazy, the applause and feet stamping wouldn't end. Afterwards Chris said: "What an honour it is for me to perform for such a fantastic audience and such fantastic skaters, world class every one of them."- and he really meant it.

The next song was Say goodbye to it all, and the presenter said: " Now it's gonna be twenty ladies on ice" and Chris joked: "Twenty, one for each of us!" He was in great mood now. The skaters were the Swiss Starlight team and another russian couple.

He continued immediatly with High on Emotion, which he sang with all words himself, including the chorus. It was brilliant! This was the finale, so all skaters came on the ice together, performing some "best of" things. Everybody was in great spirits at this time, and the folks finally stood up to clap and shout along. After the song the standing ovations continued for minutes.

As the presenter thanked Chris for his performance, the audience went crazy once again, all skaters stood there applauding Chris, and you could see, that they were really impressed.

Then the presenter called Chris back, asking the audience, if they wanted to hear him once again, and of course we wanted.

So to the first encore Chris said: The next song was also written and recorded from some world stars, and I'm sure you know this one. And he sang Hey Jude, in an incredible performance as always. And this time, some started so sing along.

The ice artists were doing again some best of-performances, and the audience was high on emotion!

Then Chris said: Thank you very much Zuerich, good night! And he was carried away out on the ice from some skaters, who ran with him across the whole field, with Chris sitting on their arms. Great fun for everybody. And off he went.

But this night they wouldn't let him go like this, as they did on the first. All the time standing ovations and shouting for an encore.

So Chris decided to come back for an extra encore. He did Missing you in the old-fashioned, faster way. All the ice artists were sitting close to him on stage, singing and clapping along. And he included : I'll be missing you Zuerich! And he was serious about it. And then it was time to say goodbye. Hope to see you again soon!!

After the concert I spoke shortly to Alan, the guitar player, and asked him about a Canadian tour, but he said, nothing was clear on that, whether if nor when, August could be.

And I caught up Chris just before entering the car to drive to the VIP-meeting or the airport, I don't know, got an autograph on my ticket and handed him a letter where I told him of all my friends thinking of him this evening. And off he went, yet freezing like hell, and in a real hurry.

Well, that's it my friends, hope I didn't bore you with this long review, but some of you may find it interesting to know, what happened on this special evening.

And now we have to wait so long again. But I'm glad I can talk with all of you in the meanwhile, you're a great bunch of people.