Concert Review: Augsburg, Germany - July 7, 2003
Chris Williams:
At about 18:15 hrs we heard Chris start the sound check and we found a little gap in the wooden fence, where we could actually peer through and see Chris, so we took it in turns to watch the sound check !!! If only he knew ;-) We also noticed a large area right in front of the stage that had been cordoned off for some reason, again that would become obvious later on. Well everyone was waiting to get in, and although it must have been a good 19:00 hrs the gates still did not open, and when they finally did, they searched everyone's bags, and this of course took a long time, but me being inginuative as usual, managed to get my 'usual' in :-) And they seemed to let cameras in anyway. Then the trouble really started to happen, as we could not find our seat numbers anywhere. We asked security and they could not find them anywhere either :-( and finally they sat us on some seats that were miles (well not literally) from the stage, and minutes later some other people arrived and told us that we were in their seats !! So back to the security again, and by this time we saw people standing in the cordoned off area, right in front of the stage and we asked if we could stand there, and they said no , that you had to have a special ticket for that, so we asked how to get a special ticket and they did not know. By this time, I was getting a little annoyed, as no one seemed to know anything and the place was filling up quickly and I had visions of not getting a seat anywhere :-( Finally another security guard was called over and he told us that our seats although they were in row 3, seats 1, 2, and 3, they were in actual fact in different blocks completely :-(By this point I was very annoyed and asked to speak to someone who knew what was happening and finally a supervisor was called over. Again we went through the whole thing and I again asked why we just could not go and stand in the area in front of the stage. 'Oh he said' would you like to stand down there ' ? YES please we said, then he said 'oh no problem' you may stand there !!!!! So finally we went down and stood there, where we had a nice view of the stage, although the stage again was high, like in Seigen, but thankfully the security guards kept us all a distance from the stage so that helped the view. There was no support act, and Chris finally arrived on stage at about 20:10hrs, again dressed in white shirt and black jeans. Soon he was singing away and we were clapping along as usual. The venue was sold out at 2400 seats, so it was pretty packed. It seemed that Chris was in a very good mood that night, and he appeared to be very happy throughout the whole show, chatting and joking about !! At the end of 'St Peters Gate', when he expects the audience to sing back to him, it was really funny, as there was only 2 small groups that actually sang back to him. That was about 3 or 4 in the front row and Stewart, Andrea and myself a few rows back, and after we had all finished and lots of people had clapped us all, Chris said, 'oh they come everywhere with me, they are my band' and we all laughed !! Somewhere in the show, Chris told us that he had travelled down from Mainz on the train that day, and that they had tried some sausages that I think were supposed to be a kind of local taste and he had liked 2 of them, but the other 4 were not so nice :-( At one point in the show, it seemed that a group of people had arrived late and were looking for their seats when Chris spotted them, and made a big joke out of it !! I bet they must have felt embarrassed !! But it was not a nasty joke, it was all in fun for sure and when Chris thought that they might be leaving he suddenly sang one line which was ' Don't Leave Me Know' ....the song that was mentioned in Man On The line a few weeks ago. I wonder if he will remake this song and release it later. Again the same patter before 'Save Me' and the rest of the show was very similar to the previous 2 , but for me, this was the best of the 3....maybe coz I could stand and dance from the very first song, I don't really know, but something was 'special' for me that night ! At one point, we could see all the flies and bugs, all around Chris's head and he joked about covering himself in Mosquito spray everywhere before the show. he was in very good humour that night. Only too soon, the show was nearly at the end and at this point, Chris invited all the people from the side views of the stage to come to the edge of the stage and dance. Lots of people ran to the sides and were obviously enjoying themselves. You could see Chris was real pleased :-) For the security I guess it was a major headache though !! In the very final encore, Chris was obviously suffering with his throat again as he missed a couple of high notes, but who cared, we were all having a great time. Finally it was time for Chris to leave the stage for the final time, and then just as Chris Andrews stood on the side to escort Chris off, he decided to run back onto the stage and jumped up on his piano stool to wave goodbye to everyone again !! And finally the last show for us was over :-(( and we started the long journey back to Andreas place. Everything was going well until we hit major roadworks on one of the autobahns and were held up for about an hour, so we finally rolled into bed at about 4 AM that next morning, having to get up at 08:30 hrs to get ready for the long journey home. After a long leisurely breakfast, we packed our bags and Andrea took us to Stuttgart where we were to catch the train for the 3 hour journey to Nuremberg airport and finally the flight back home. Our overall impressions of our fantastic weekend was:........it was extremely tirering, but well worth all the money and the added hassle of the long train journey after our departure airport was changed. All I can say is that as both our 2 children are now grown up and self sufficient for once in our lives we can spend money on ourselves and enjoy our own selves for once :-))) And one final word ;-) If I personally had to put the first 3 concerts in order it would have to be. The best one was Augsburg, the second best was Seigen and a very very close third would be Mainz !!