Concert Review: Cologne, Germany (Nokia Night Of The Proms) - November 17, 2001
Astrid Nolde-Gallasch:
Well, yesterday the Nokia Night Of The Proms was in Cologne, and a few of us on the list were there. It was an interesting show, surely different from any CdeB concert or anything else that I had ever seen...
The mixture of classical and pop music is very strange. Finding yourself waltzing to Liszt and the next moment singing along to Don't Pay The Ferryman is something one needs to get used to, I guess... LOL
At the entrance of the show, everyone received a miniature torch, and it was incredible to see the whole hall using them during the ballads. The choir was giving instructions how to wave the torches, or blink them, and everyone followed. Very effective!
Chris played 4 songs altogether: Lady In Red, Snows Of New York, Don't Pay The Ferryman and High On Emotion. The crowd really really enjoyed his music, and he was the only artist that everyone wanted an encore from. Even the Meatloaf fans (who were much more numerous in the hall than the CdeB fans..) seemed to enjoy Chris's faster songs a lot and they shouted out loud for an encore. No luck though.. right after Chris there was a break.
Before the break I was standing in the crowd in front of the stage, but during the break I managed to switch places to a free seat next to Claudia. It was nice to sit for a change, and watch the rest of the show from a different angle. In between the classical songs, Laith Al-Deen (German soul singer) sang two of his hits in the second half. And then it was time for Meatloaf. I believe Meatloaf just sang 4 songs too, but he was stretching them to such a length that he sang for something like 45 minutes! Strangely enough, the Meatloaf fans seemed to be much more quiet during his appearance, as they were when Chris was on stage!
After the final (Land Of Hope And Glory, and then "We All Live In A Yellow Submarine" sung by all artists of the evening), something very strange happened. The artist had left the stage, Claudia and I were standing at our seats, clapping just like everyone else, when I heard a voice yell in front of me: "Hiya! How ya doing? How ya doing? Shake hands!" I looked down, and there was Meatloaf, climbing up the barrier and reaching his hand towards me! I have no idea why he so desperately wanted to shake my hand.. maybe it had to do with me wearing a CdeB t-shirt? It was a very funny moment though!
Lore Müller:
As Astrid wrote already, Chris´ performance was really great. By the first sounds of LIR he (in black trousers and black shirt) entered the stage with great applause from the audience. After LIR he greated as usual with "Guten Abend! Wie geht´s? Es ist schön, wieder in Köln zu sein." (Good evening! How are you? It is good to be in Cologne again.) And then in English he said that he had many friends in Cologne and he would sing a song for friends. So he did. Then he said it was time to dance and he did the two other songs with very much power and excellent voice. Almost the whole audience (about 15.000 ? people) seemed to sing and dance then. And then the shouting for encores! I hope it pleased him very much!
All those who are going to the Nokia-concerts in the following weeks can really look forward to Chris´ performance. But, after 2 Nokia-Concerts on TV and 3 live, I want to tell you, I didn´t enjoy the programme as much as the years before. I missed John Miles doing duetts or singing alon with other singers or playing guitar or mouth-organ. I enjoyed his "Music" once more!!!!!!!!!!!!! I missed the moderator´s jokes, the classical parts were too classical for me, not so powerful as last years, not so many torches than the years before and the view from the parquet to the orchestra and choir is very bad. The years before we had seats (more comfortable anyway) and could look from above on the musicians. I had been looking forward to Meat Loaf, too. I have never seen him live before but have seen him on TV years ago performing his "I would do anything for love, but I won´t do that". And he did it in the show. He performed all his songs like in theatre, interesting to watch, I enjoyed his songs (not really songs, compared with what I am used to ), but his show was long enough for me (and for all the others?). No crying for an encore.
When I was still in bed this morning, my husband turned on the radio and we listened to a report on WDR 2. Good but short critics about Meat Loaf and long and super-good critics about CdeB, who also spoke about how he enjoys doing his part during the concert. They played part of LIR and the whole "High on Emotion" but without the shoutings for an encore. BTW: The Kölnarena had already fastened big posters who showed Chris de Burgh and the tourdates 2002. And WDR Radio who does a quiz every sunday-morning always offer tickets to the winner and today they offered tickets for next year´s CdeB-Concerts, too.