Concert Review: Ragley Hall, UK - July 21, 2001

Astrid Nolde-Gallasch:

"The Really Rocking Ragley Rendezvous" (RRRR) - try to say that out loudly, and very quickly! Melanie had a blast when she found out that Dani and I (the German ones) could do it better than herself! So here comes my review of a weekend that was nothing short of being PERFECT !!!

Thursday evening - Dani arrived at my place to spend the evening with me and Thomas, as we live much closer to the airport and our plane was early in the morning. We spent a lovely evening together, building up the excitement for our trip...

Friday morning - We got up early, packed the last things together, made sure we didn't forget our tickets (!!!), and off we were for the airport. We took one of these cheap airlines (buzz) and everything went fine in Cologne. Only one hour till we landed in Stansted! From there we took the train to Orpington where Melanie was waiting for us. At lunch time we were already at our destination.. this is such a quick way to travel!! Melanie is the best host one can ever imagine.. she served us a lovely lunch and lots of chocolate cake for dessert!! :))) We spent the afternoon just relaxing in her lovely garden.. enjoying even a bit of sunshine (what a rare thing in England!!). Of course we listened to lots of Chris de Burgh all day long (from the CD player or just playing ourselves on the piano...), and our excitement was getting bigger and bigger... Diane had already sent our t-shirts to Melanie which was great, because we could wear them all day the next day and wouldn't have to get changed on the field.. ;)

Saturday morning - Keith (Melanie's husband) served us a real English cooked breakfast! A great way to start this terrific day! We had to wait for Melanie's children who came back from France on this day around lunch time, before we could take off to Ragley Hall .. the waiting seemed endless, but finally there they were! A quick hello and goodbye, and off we were!!! Travelling up North, and suddenly the weather changed to be more cloudy, and we even had some rain on the road, when I noticed that I had forgotten to bring my raincoat! Just a t-shirt and a jumper ... ah well, it just HAD to stay dry then! (And it did, thank god!!!) There was a lot of traffic on the road, but we managed to arrive at Ragley Hall at the predicted time around 4:30 pm. We immediately saw our group (easily recognizable by the white t-shirts) reserving the spaces at the front of the queue. Now I know about good British manners and standing in queues all the time, but when else should our group come together and chat together, if not now? So we climbed underneath the barrier and joined them all at the front. A few minutes later, Andy and his wife Dawn and their friends arrived too, and they did the same ... No doubt that some of the British people got a bit annoyed about it, and I do understand that some of our group were embarrassed about it too .. still, no harm was done, and there were still two hours to kill before we would be allowed into the field! We had a great big picnic together at the front of the queue, and it was so great seeing all our friends here together! Apart from Dani and me, Tina, Anke, Nugie, Sandra, Diana, Marietta and Yogi had also been travelling from Germany ... Beatrix and Maarten had been travelling from Holland .. and then there were all our British friends Diane from Cornwall, Jan and Trev from Hull, Chris and Stewart (W.), Andy (whom I had wanted to meet for a looooooong time!!!) and Dawn, Ann Jackson (who already saw me last year at the Royal Albert Hall, but was too shy to say hello! Glad she said hello this time!) and of course Melanie and Keith. I saw Sheila and her friend John Collins standing further back in the queue, but could only quickly wave to them. Never managed to see Douglas Smith, and am a bit disappointed that he didn't come over to say hello at least ... would have been nice to put a face to a name that I have known for so long! We also said hello to Heike Meyhoff, Sven and Uwe, who seemed to have their own little meeting set up for this day. I also could say hello to Claudia and Elke, whom I had met in Volendam just last month. It's amazing how many people were there on this day...

The gates suddenly opened much earlier as predicted, while the band and Chris were still having their soundcheck! By this time, I had walked away from the queue, so I hadn't really seen what was happening. But apparently the security guards had messed it all up by letting people in way too early.. even taking their tickets.. and later on blamed them all for "rioting" into the field. Everybody had to walk back to the gates, where I had been waiting all the time, trying to figure out why the security guard wouldn't let me in, while all the others of my group were already there... very strange. At last the ok was given, and we could make the run up to the front of the stage. We managed to put our ground shield just in front of the stage, a bit to the right side.. wow, so close!!! In the meantime I had managed to talk to Chris Andrews (CdeB's personal assistant), who invited me to bring the group for a short meet and greet by 7 pm. I had kept this meeting as a surprise, as I didn't know whether it would really turn out or not ... but I'm sure glad that it did!!! We spread the word around, and for the rest of the audience it must have been a strange view, when 20 people from the front row, all of them wearing the same white t-shirt, suddenly got up and walked away ... Chris and Stewart had "adopted" a little 8 year old boy, whom we took with our group, so that his parents would keep their places at the front.

We were allowed into the backstage area, but still had to wait a couple of minutes while Chris was busy talking to other people. Finally he walked over to us. Chris Andrews said "they're just here to say hi".. so Chris came with a wide grin and said "Hi!". We said our hi back, and I quickly picked out the waterproof t-shirt pen that I had in my pocket (just in case...), gave it to Chris and asked "how about, if you sign the t-shirts that we made just for this day?". He happily agreed and for the next five minutes he was busy signing everybody's t-shirts.. even adding two XX for the ladies! We took a lot of pictures during this signing, and it was a lot of fun! As they were running late (as usual..), we had to leave then again and get back to our places. To my complete surprise, we had no problem getting back right to the place where we had been before. Nobody had tried to "invade" our front row places in our absence... this would have been impossible in Germany! Wow!

A bit more chatting and celebrating, and then finally it was 8:05 pm, and Chris came on stage! I'm glad that Douglas managed to get the whole track list (how on earth did you enjoy the concert, with typing into your psion all the time???). While admittedly Chris had a lot of sound problems during the whole concert (maybe because of the interrupted sound check earlier on) ... the atmosphere was incredible, and the only thing I can compare it to was the Bonn concert three years ago. We were on our feet from the very first minute on, and nobody complained about it. Instead, people behind us stood up themselves, and within an hour and a half, it seemed to me like the whole field was on their feet, dancing!! I also didn't notice any trouble with people not being able to come to the front for pictures... there were a lot of them on our side, and we always let them through to get a good shot of Chris!! We were dancing and singing for the whole concert, which really lasted unbelievable 3 hours and 15 minutes!!!

Personal highlights for me were the duet with Shelly Nelson, the surprising new cover versions ("Long Train Running" by The Doobie Brothers was fun, but did not really match Chris's voice imho .... but I really enjoyed the medley of "And I Love Her" / "Too Good To Be True" and "Pretty Baby" that he did at the beginning of the unplugged section. Fantastic!!). During the solo section, somebody shouted for Satin Green Shutters, and Chris replied that this lady had been requested this song for years, but that he really couldn't remember it ... hmmm, then why have we just heard it (again) last month??? Instead he played Lady In Red for the 2nd time ... and that was the moment when the front row seemed to stand still (in shock?). "A Spaceman Came Travelling" was also very good.. and now it seems that the "oh oh" between the "nanana" (most of you will know what I mean..) is finally established in Britain too. Chris loved the atmosphere in the audience, and at the end he thanked us for the love and support that we showed him, and you could see that these words came straight from his heart. He really meant it.. this was such a special night!

After the 2nd encore (Where peaceful waters flow and Hey Jude), there was a big firework! We had to step a bit to the side to watch it, as it was directly behind the stage, and the roof of the stage took our view. Still we managed to see a bit of it, and of course it was lovely! Unfortunately some people had to leave quickly ... but a few of us still stood there for a while, chatting about the brilliant concert we had just seen! Those who were still there signed the backs of our t-shirts.. it's just too bad that there are a couple of signatures missing from those who left earlier.

Keith was a great driver on our way back home.. and somehow it took us only 2 hours to get back to Orpington, even though it had taken us 3 hours for the other way! Guess the roads at night weren't as busy.... still we were so tired by the time we arrived (2 am), that we headed straight to bed.

Sunday morning - we were sleeping as long as we could.. then spent another lovely day at Melanie's. We had a great lunch cooked by Keith, together with all her children. We also spent some time reading the reviews from the list that had already come in and spent more time just sitting in the garden, relaxing and chatting about the weekend and how wonderful everything had been! It was hard to say goodbye, when Keith took us back to the airport in the afternoon ... but I am sure that we will meet soon again! Then at the airport we found out why those cheap airlines are so cheap ... nothing seemed to work at all! First the plane seemed just delayed.. then they were talking of technical problems ... then they were talking of waiting for another plane coming in from Düsseldorf ... then we saw a mechanic working at the problematic aircraft right in front of our eyes ... then suddenly we were allowed to board .. when we were in, the captain told us that the mechanic had just repaired the aircraft in an hour, when it usually takes two hours ..... eeek, not really trustworthy!! Normally I really enjoy flying, but since last night I understand those who are afraid of flying ... to make matters worse, when we had finally landed, a lot of steam seemed to come into the plane through the air condition. I just wanted to get out, but we were in the 2nd to last row, and the only exit was at the front.... Ah well, at around midnight we were finally at home, and Thomas had prepared a great midnight dinner for Dani and me, that we took outside, because it was such a lovely, warm night! A perfect ending to a perfect weekend!!!

*Whew*, that was a lot to write.. if you're still reading here, thanks for listening!!! All I can say is .... the rendezvous at Ragley really rocked!!!!!! :))))

Diane Perry:

Well,my husband Andrew,myself,and our 12 year old daugter Alice left Cornwall for Stratford upon Avon on Thursday morning, we were camping and so there was a lot to pack, sleeping bags, saucepans, kettle etc. I ended up with lists of lists that I had to make (does that make sense?) but at the top of every list was "T-SHIRTS" written in red pen and underlined as I was terrified that I would forget the t-shirts that we had had made for our list member gathering at Ragley Hall. Especially as I had put them out of the way on top of the wardrobe in case my two cats Thomas and Fluffkins decided to do a wee on them.(Yes,that could have been a possibility!)

We arrived at our camp site in Aston Cantlow about mid afternoon and immediately set about erecting the tent as the clouds above were looking rather dark and menacing. It went up surprisingly quickly for a change as the ground was damp and so the tent pegs went in the ground very easily. That job done we decided to take the short walk through a meadow and St. John's church (which is where William Shakespeare's parents were married) to the village. It was so typically English with many half-timbered and gabled houses with well kept gardens with pots and hanging baskets absolutely dripping in summer flowers. We loved the way the new houses blended in so well with the older buildings.

But I couldn't wait for Saturday to come around and finally it did!!!! We drove the short distance to Ragley Hall and arrived at the grand black and gold painted gates at 3pm. We had spied the very imposing looking Ragley Hall through the trees at the top of the hill on the way. Just as we arrived in the car park Tina, Anke, Sandra, Nicole and Diana turned up and we all went over and said hello to Jan and Trev, and Chris and Stewart who we immediately recognised because they were already wearing their t-shirts. The excitement was really building now!!! A little later Astrid and Dani, and Mel and Keith, and Andy turned up and it was really good to meet everyone and put faces to the names I knew so well. Then came a surprise!! Astrid told us it may be possible for us to go backstage and meet CdeB himself!!! Just before 7pm we all made our way behind the scenes, waited a few moments while Chris spoke to some other people, then it was our turn. I was completely dumbstruck, I opened my mouth to speak but no sound came out (sorry Malcolm!) if I didn't have Chris's signature on my t-shirt I would have thought I'd dreamt the whole thing. Thank you so much Astrid, I will never forget it!

I made my way back to Andrew and Alice in a complete trance with a huge grin on my face! Anke the wine you gave me to taste was really good. Sorry I wasn't concentrating! Sheila from this list made herself known to me and I had a little chat with her and John which was lovely. There was then a rather upsetting incident which rather cast a shadow over the event for me. Just before 8pm a couple came down the main aisle to the front of the stage and dspite angry protests from the people around us the security men just ignored the fact that they had pushed in and just told them to move out of the main aisle, this was when they decided to stand right in front of me!! I suddenly realised the angry shouting I could hear was coming >from Andrew who had tried hard to get a good place for me as he knew how much it would mean to me and he wasn't prepared to let this chap get away with spoiling it for me. It was awful, but the man got the message and moved behind me.

As the concert started I tried to put the incident behind me and enjoy a concert that exceeded my wildest dreams!!! CdeB was on amazing form with so much energy, he and the band were smiling and joking and obviously enjoying themselves very much. In fact Chris was laughing so much about his comment that Peter Oxendale was a sex symbol of his generation that he couldn't sing 'A Woman's Heart' and he had to start again! Highlights for me were 'When I Think of You', 'Two Sides to Every Story' with Shelley Nelson, 'Oh My Brave Hearts' and 'In a Country Churchyard'. All too soon Chris was singing 'Hey Jude' and I knew it was over.

I hadn't been paying much attention to Andrew during the concert and I was surprised to find him in a grumpy mood. Apparently some people around him had had too much to drink and had spilled beer and cigarette ash over him and generally made a nuisance of themselves. I'm afraid this meant that we left in a hurry before I got chance to say goodbye to everyone. Sorry about that folks, but I hope to meet you all again one day. There is one consolation though, Andrew has been feeling guilty about rushing me away and he's brought me breakfast in bed every day this week!

As for Alice, much to her annoyance she knew all the words to every song because she hears them so much and she just couldn't help singing along. She said "I suppose Chris de Burgh is quite a good singer for his age", which I think is quite an honour coming from her as she thinks everyone over the age of about 25 is well past it!

Much as we liked the Stratford area we couldn't wait to get back to Cornwall, we live just a few minutes walk from the sea and it seemed strange to be so far inland.

I sincerely wish that everyone from this list will get to see CdeB live one day as it really is an amazing experience, and I know just how lucky I am.