Concert Review: Killarney, Ireland - August 20, 2005
Tina Märkert:
Our trip was ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC with the concert being the highlight of our holiday! Four weeks ago we didn't even know we'd be spending a holiday in Ireland in August. It all started when late at night I read on the list about the Killarney concert, and enthusiastically suggested to "the Girls Gang" to take the chance and do a trip to Ireland. ok, the next morning in broad daylight the idea did seem quite crazy. But by then Sandra and Diana, who coincidentally had the week of the concert off from work, had also taken fancy to the idea :-) It only needed a bit of psychological pushing *g* to make Sandra cancel her losely planned holiday to Holland. (I guess the still available front row tickets made the trick - who wants to be at the northsea when CdeB in Ireland plus front row plus a holiday in Kerry is the other option? *g* So 3 of The Girls Gang became "The Crazy Girls". With the tickets secured, booking plane tickets, deciding about our 5 day trip along the west coast of Ireland and finding B&Bs kept us busy emailing for the time ahead. Then last Tuesday our trip started with the flight from Frankfurt-Hahn to Kerry. Leaving from a foggy Germany, we arrived in beautiful sunshine in Ireland. We got our hired car (big thanks to Sandra who's so brave to drive on the 'wrong' side) and off we went along the Ring of Kerry. The landscape is stunning. The only annoying thing were all the other tourists who had the same idea LOL Loads of coaches and cars who all stopped at the same viewing places, spit out their load, everyone taking photos, in again and at the next viewing point the same procedure. Luckily we found a lovely beach where we spent the afternoon sunbathing, pity that I didn't bring a bikini, the water was so warm it would have been great to take a swim. Next day we did the rest of the Ring of Kerry, which was the only cloudy/rainy day. After that the weather became absolutely fantastic! For the following 3 days we had sunshine sunshine sunshine. I even got a sunburn (in Ireland that is(!). We drove and walked through the most fantastic landscape which became more isolated the further we got. All the time we were surrounded by fantastic views: sea, cliffs, waves, beaches, mountains, lakes, and lots of sheep. For me it was the first visit to Ireland and I liked it so much I'll surely go there again for a walking holiday. We finished our coast tour on Saturday afternoon and drove to Killarney. There we met with Claudia S. (thanks for suggesting the pub, the food was really good!) and drove to the venue. Inside we met more wellknown faces: Chris and Stewart, Melanie Edwards, Stefan and Annette, Sybille and friends, Andrea and friends, Jutta (or Ela? sorry I always mix you both up), Ilka, - and sorry whom I forgot. We took our seats, most of us in front row. Great to be surrounded by so many list friends! oh, and we saw again a guy whom we had seen first thing when we drove into Killarney: someone wearing a CdeB tour shirt. aha! It turned out, he's also on the list, Andrew from Dublin. (hi, where's your review? *g*) I was wondering if all people would be in the hall right in time at 9:00 pm (with all the hussle about the wrong stated time on the tickets). Chris startet around 9:10 pm, with people still coming in. For the first half hour, after every song there were some more entering. This time Chris didn't greet every one personally ;-) would have taken him half the concert to do so LOL In fact it kept quite a coming & going all through the concert (which I personally found a bit disturbing for the songs, but maybe they do that in Ireland). Luckily the stage was quite low and we could see Chris well (except when he played the piano). The atmosphere was amazing. You could sense how thrilled the audience was to have Chris back playing in Ireland. He was greated by much applause although the people were not so much clapping during the songs. But with the old songs the audience kept singing every line! That was so great! It sent shivers down one's arms. Often we turned round and watched the audience being one big choir. Surprisingly they didn't do so with the newer songs. It seems Chris latest albums are not to well known in Ireland. Maybe he should start giving concerts again in Ireland, to make the people notice him again. Or at least to prove what he mentioned in the concert: that despite some newspaper reports he's still very much alive :-) Surely someone else will fill you in about the set list, I'm not good at remembering those. What made the most impressions on me: hearing Lonely Sky and Spanish Train, both with the great Irish audience choir! And biggest surprise of all: when he came back after SONY to do the Beatles encore, instead he started Patricia!!! That really made the audience go crazy :-))) It was an absolutely thrilling, fantastic concert! As someone else already said, for me too it was THE BEST concert of this year! (ok, me not really representative, having seen only 3 concerts) Chris sang for nearly 3 hours and to me it seemed he really did enjoy it, although quite exhausted in the end, having given his best! After the concert, still high on emotion :-) we wanted to go for a drink, and as there was a 70ies/80ies Disco Night being held in the same building, we decided to have one drink there. To our surprise we liked it so much that we stayed until 2:00 am in the morning, when the dance music ended with the Irish anthem. - What a great night!!! and what a great holiday it was!!! Without Chris we would have never decided on this trip, and like so many concert weekend trips with the Girls Gang before, it became another great experience of new places and a fantastic concert together with the girls (from now on known as The Crazy Girls of The Girls Gang *g*)