Concert Review: Duisburg, Germany - April 1, 2000
Astrid Nolde-Gallasch:
Well... I am back from the so-called "concert" at Radio Duisburg's birthday party. If it wasn't April Fool's Day today, I wouldn't believe what I saw there. The only description for this evening is just ... a joke.
When Thomas and I arrived at the park there was a total traffic chaos. Lots of cars were leaving, but still no parking seemed available. On top of that, it was raining like crazy. We somehow made our way to the entrance. We got into a hall, but before I could manage to look out for Heike and the others we were told to leave the hall again since they had to "clear" the place again before they could open it. Which meant standing in the rain for another hour. *sigh*
When we were finally allowed in, I made my way to the front of the stage and luckily found Heike, Markus, Hannelore, Ruth etc... We waited another hour or so before the "concert" began. We saw Chris Andrews come on stage and check the usual things. Everything seemed "normal". Really.
There were a lot of people in the audience who were attending for other artists, like Sabrina Setlur (a German rapper) or the "Abba Revival Band". The audience really seemd rather mixed. Markus knew that Chris would be the first one on stage, so thankfully we didn't have to wait too long. I had some little girls standing next to me, maybe 12 or 13 years old, who asked me if Chris was going to sing live.... What a question, is what I thought. Oh how wrong can one be?
Then, at a quarter past seven, Chris came on stage. He started with "When I think of you", and we were singing along, clapping, dancing, until we realized that... hey, what was this? He isn't at the micro, but he is singing? Peter Oxendale doesn't have his hands on the keyboard, but we can hear it? Yes, you guessed right. It was full playback. Oh well.
He sang Nothing Ever Happens Round Here (the shorter single version, obviously taken from the CD too), and High On Emotion. That one was the most obvious playback version, at the end when the music fades away, Chris was moving his hands downwards, as if to say to play quieter now ... What a joke!
And then, that was it. Chris and the band left. Some radio guy said that we were so lucky that Chris actually could join the party, because he had another BIG concert the same night, in Münster, where thousands of fans would be waiting for him right now. And so that's why he has to leave right away, with the helicopter... Ha ha. Very funny. Not.
We left the "concert" right after that, and everybody seemed more than disappointed. Ok, what can you expect for 15 DM, but still... If this was the "warm up" for the Canadian tour, then I sure hope that he'll warm up a bit more until the first concert there on Wednesday.
Thomas, who attended the "concert" a bit further in the back of the hall, told me that people around him were actually booing and shouting "stop it". In my opinion, appearances like this are damaging more than if he wouldn't have played at all. I'm sure the two little girls next to me weren't too impressed either. It's a shame, he missed the chance to make new fans in this mixed audience.