Concert Review: Magdeburg, Germany - October 1, 2002
Khodadad Rezakhani:
You know that due to laziness or lack of interest or whatever, I failed to go to any concerts after my infamous Koeln incident. Well, last night the spell was broken by Ms. Christiane Eggert when she took me (figuratively!) to Magdeburg to see CDEB in action again. It was an interesting experience, and long overdue (the last time I saw the man live was 1998, remember Bonn people?). I missed my favourite Mr. Taylor. I don’t like the new guitarist that much, but Al Vosper is fun! I think the problem is that the new members are not used to CdeB yet. Anyway, the concert was better than I expected. Although I like the new album even less than I liked QR, I think any song sounds good live, and other than the title track of TIE, this law also applied to last night’s concert; even heavily synthesised guitars of Bal Masque sounded good! Chris sang for 2.5 hours with two encores (Say Goodbye/High on Emotion and the Snows of NY). He did not sing some of the songs I looked forward to, Spanish Train and Patricia, which was surprising. He did not sing any songs from PoT, Spanish Train, or Crusader albums, all three my favourites. He did a nice version of the Sailor with the whole band in front of the stage which was nice, and his Kasachuk dance following Natasha’s Dance was amusing. Since I was standing right in front of the stage, he heard all of my loud comments and I think hated me for them. He said he cannot sing my requested song, The Tower, since he does not know the lyrics, but he sang Broken Wings. He did take notice when I corrected his pronunciation of Gluehwein!!!:) I would not go to much details since Christiane is going to write more. Just that we enjoyed the concert, and especially the part when he bent down and kissed Christiane’s hand! I told her she should not wash that hand for the rest of her life, but due to practical barriers, she refused!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, I came to peace with CdeB last night. I think he is a great performer. I still believe he needs to take his fans more seriously and to understand that sleeping on the water does not always lead you to land. So, with that, I end this disorganised email and hope to see some of you at a later (Albert Hall) concert.