Concert Review: Gelsenkirchen, Germany - May 27, 2000
Astrid Nolde-Gallasch and Daniela Braun:
Ok, where shall we start.... the setting in Gelsenkirchen was beautiful. An amphitheater built on the bank of a canal, with the stage being actually on the water itself! There were boats passing "backstage", and some of them (a police boat!) even anchored to enjoy the concert from there!!! And on the other side of the canal there were a lot of people enjoying the concert for free! The stage was connected to the audience by 5 bridges, so actually we all were quite a bit away from Chris and the band. But that didn't matter at all, everybody had a fantastic view and there was enough room for everybody to move and dance. And how we did!!! Nobody was sitting throughout the whole concert... we were all celebrating Chris on our feet for 3 hours and 15 minutes!!! It was a gorgeous show! The middle part was much longer than usual, he played "The Tower", "Transmission Ends", "Borderline", "Let it be", "Without you", "Spanish Train" and "A Spaceman Came Travelling". During this part of the show we went over to the side and had a little chat with our friend Peter. It was so nice to talk to him again, even if it was briefly, and great that he remembered us right away! And btw, he hates the song "Without you". So does Dani. LOL
All of us from the list (Heike, Thomas and Martina, Nicole, Heike from Melle, Katja and Susanne, Bob and his sister, Morten, Ruth and a friend, Sandra, Marietta and her husband, Claudia, and we, Dani and Astrid) were standing in one group together and it seemed to be the first concert where there weren't any "weird" people anywhere around us. Everybody was singing along, clapping their hands and enjoying themselves! During "Snows Of New York" we all put our hands together and had great memories of Cologne. This is definitely "our" song! :))) Some others from the list also were standing right at the front (Jeffrey and his girlfriend, Hannelore and her friend, Diana, Sven and Uwe, Konni and her friends). I have also seen Marius and Silke, although they probably didn't see us. We never managed to see Angelique.. where were you???
At the beginning of the concert Chris was complaining about the cold.. he didn't dare to take his jacket off, and he was just pulling his sleeves over his hands between the songs to get them warm! He told the audience to put their hands under the shirt of the person before them... to warm them up of course! ;) But at the end of the long show, he and the band all had their jackets off, and wearing short sleeves too! They had definitely played themselves warm!!! And at the very end, during the encores, Chris invited the audience to climb over the barriers and come to the very front of the stage!!! That looked so very dangerous, because there weren't any barriers separating the people from the water! The security guards didn't look very happy, but they had the situation under their control pretty fast. Nobody drowned except some toy sheep... *grin*
Well, all good things come to an end, so after the show we decided to drive to Gelsenkirchen downtown to have a quiet drink and talk for a while. We found a nice (and cheap!) little pub, had a few drinks, took a few pictures and after a while at last had to say goodnight. Must have been around 1:30 or so... We drove back to Bocholt, while 9 people (or was it 11?) are probably still staying at Heike's house right now. I wonder if they ever got any sleep at all.. hello Morten, you awake? Don't miss your train! LOL