Concert Review: Dortmund, Germany - November 9, 1999
Katja Overbeck:
I left my home at 4.15 pm to drive to Dortmund.When I arrived it was not difficult to find the others. I only had to look for the people who stood next to the entrance :-)There were Markus, Astrid, Chris and Stewart and Claudia.Dani came a few minutes later.We sang along "so beautiful" until they let us in and I left the others because I had a ticket for a seated place.A short time later my friend Sandra arrived and my friend Susanne with her boyfriend.We went to our seats and took a look at the people around us.Oh my....terrible...only older people, looking as they were in the opera.We had seats in the first row of the galery and Sandra whispered to me : " What will happen if we try to stand up and dance?" I took a look behind me and said :" They will kill us!" The problem is that my friend Susanne has some problems with her health and she gets claustrophobic when she stands in a crowd. This is the reason why we always have seats in a concert.So we decided to wait until the concert had started and go down if there was enough space in the standing area.Finally the concert starts and Chris started with WITOY and LITW. And I had to sit down!! I tried to stand up but immediately someone behind me shouted : "Hey, sit down! We don´t want to see your back!" *Keep cool, Katja! Grrrrrr* I looked at my friends, we all looked down into the standing area - a lot of space! We used half a minute to grap our things and run down into the standing area. And then we could enjoy the concert! Yes, it was Chris as I love him! Many fast songs mixed with slower parts and many of my favourite songs. We danced and sang and clapped our hands all the time and had really great fun.Sometimes I took a glimpse to the galery where we sat before- silence there. No motion! "Hey", I said to Sandra" I think they all died of a heart disease over there!" That was after Chris had sung "Revolution" ;-) It was a great concert, three hours filled with music, jokes, stories and a voice that becomes better every year. All people seemed to enjoy it ( ok, not really all *looking to the galery* ;-)) and it was good to see Chris again live on stage.At 11.15 pm the concert ended and we were tired and hoarse.After a short good-bye we all left the hall and drove home. So now we have to look forward to the CCCC and I´m sure everybody will enjoy it! Chris has lost nothing of his magic, he is a great entertainer and the songs of QR are wonderful concert songs. He played many songs from the new album and all sounded really good ! Even WITOY ;-).And yes, Jeri, he sang "The Same Sun" and I thought of you :-)The only song that I missed was Brother John.I had really loved to hear this Brother John/House of the Rising Sun Mix.
Astrid Nolde-Gallasch:
Wow, what a concert, what an atmosphere!!! I am almost lacking the words to describe the magic of last night. Besides, I am way too tired with only a few hours of sleep and then back to work the next morning....
The set list of the concert was almost the same as in Oberhausen, so I'll post just a few comments of what I remember in particular.
Meeting up at the main entrance 2 hours before the concert.. everybody was there: Markus, Katja, Dani, Rüdiger, Sven, Claudia .... and to my surprise even Chris and Stewart Williams! They were both very tired as they had been in Stuttgart the night before and had only very little hours of sleep and a long drive. But we kept them awake with our singing. After a while I noticed a girl looking over to us, and then she came over and asked "Are you the mailing list?" Yes, it was Heike! See - you don't need buttons to recognize list members, loud singing works perfectly!!! *grin*
The atmosphere already before the concert was incredible. There were far more people there than in Oberhausen. When the gates opened, we practically got pushed inside, and people ran like crazy to make it to the front row. We made it to row four or so, and that was still good enough. :)
The Westfalenhalle used to be Europe's biggest concert hall, now there are others that are bigger, especially the Kölnarena where Chris will play next week. But the Westfalenhalle has always been Chris's favourite concert hall in all of Europe. He has celebrated big, incredible parties there, I remember the time when he sold it out three days in a row during the Into The Light tour. Yesterday, we could tell that it has been his dream for a long time to repeat this success of earlier days in the Westfalenhalle for one special night. And we made his dream come true, as he repeatedly said at the end of his three hours show. The hall wasn't quite sold out, but it was VERY full if you look at the standard of recent concerts. I would guess that there were around 10,000 people there last night.
What also struck me as surprising was the amount of young people who were there. There was a young couple standing right in front of me, I would guess no older than 20 or 21 years. They were celebrating like everybody else, they knew all the words, everybody was jumping with the fast songs and burning sparklers with the slow ones, I just thought wow, this is like it used to be in those old days.... :)))))
Chris was quite talkative, he extended some of his stories from Oberhausen a bit. During the intro to "My lover is", somebody threw a little stuffed sheep on stage. Chris said "oh, look, a flying penguin!", then Alan (the guitarist) picked it up, Chris saw what it was and gave it to Tony (the drummer). "That would be for him, as you know, he comes from a farm in Wales, where they have all these sheep. Baaaahhhhhhh!" Sheep sure seem to be the running gag of this tour!
At some point of the concert, somebody at the front held up a big white paper. Chris read out loud what it said "Could you please play Love Is My Decision?" He looked puzzled .. "oh, that's the one from the movie, hmmmm, I don't think I remember this one." And then he tried, but only really got the melody and some words.. but he promised to fulfill this request at a future concert.
During the solo part he also played "A Spaceman Came Travelling" which was the only extra song to Oberhausen. He also sang "Tender Hands", but this time with a working guitar in his hands.
The song that stood out for me was again "Quiet Revolution". The way he reintroduces the band with it is just fantastic. He starts singing this all on his own, after the solo part, then during the song more and more band members join him, until it is the full band on stage again. This song is so powerful!!!
Another concert favourite is "I Want It (And I Want It Now)". It really gets the crowd going, fantastic!!! (Yes, you were absolutely right, Terri.)
During the "lalala" part of "Where Peaceful Waters Flow" he made us laugh when he sang "I wish you all a merry Christmas - and a happy new year - the biggest party of the century - on December 31st - and the biggest hangover of the century - on January 1st." He also said something about being on a beach for New Year's Eve. Sounded like he is looking forward to the holidays - well, he's still got 10 more days to tour in Germany !!!!!!
What I remember most from last night was how amazed Chris was about the power of the Dortmund audience. Many times he just stood on stage in disbelief of what was going on. He had been dreaming of the magic, but he just couldn't believe that it had really happened. He was walking over to his band members, as if to tell them "See? I told you this is going to be great! Look at this!" And the band was really high on emotion too. For the first time ever I have seen Alan Vosper (the other guitarist) interact with the audience. Usually he is the quietest of all band members, but this time he seemed to really love to get going!
Overall, this was a fantastic night, and we will have to give our VERY BEST to top this at the Cologne concert in 10 days. But I am sure, we will be able to do that.....