Concert Review: Esbjerg, Denmark - April 10, 2008
Thomas Gamradt:
Hi everybody,it's a pleasure for me to be able to write the first concert review in this brand new forum. Martina and I had tickets for Esbjerg for April 10th. What a great coincidence, because my birthday is April 11th and what better way is there to spend the evening before? So on we went to Esbjerg, only a 3:00 drive from home. We arrived at the hotel at 15:45 and first checked out our *tiny* room with cute little beds that where just a little broader than me (had to be careful not to turn around too much...). But who cares, it would do for one night.On we went to find the hall, Musikhuset Esbjerg. It was a mere 500m walk through the shopping street, so really easy to do. A poster of "Chris de Burgh med band" was hanging there without any sign of cancellation, the evening could come. After having lunch in a takeaway with a few tables, which was way better than I had expected from the looks, we relaxed for a while and then walked to the hall to arrive at 19:40. The venue is quite small, only about a thousand seats. Really great to have such an intimate concert.We took our seats in the fifth row and finally at 19:55 people started to rush into the hall. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry to leave the lobby before that. As we should soon see, things are a little different in Denmark.The concert started sharp at 20:00 with the Storyman theme. A few minutes later, Chris came on stage solo playing the first verse of Storyman and then In a country churchyard and after that welcomed the audience and even read a small sentence in danish from a letter that he "got by pigeon". I speak no danish, but it probably was "It's great to be playing for you here in Esbjerg". On he went with the solo session and we could relax in our comfortable seats. Chris did his best to animate the audience to sing a little, but apart from clapping hands - no chance. Talk about north germans being hard to warm up... Chris himself however was in an absolutely great form. His voice was just perfect, no trace of the trembling that I sometimes heard in the louder notes.The next songs where - Carry me - Borderline (again, no applause during "how man can see the wisdom in a war") - Natasha dance - The same sun (a wish from a couple from Bielefeld) - Sailing away Then he did his Britney part singing The lady in red, followed by Leningrad.During "The grace of a dancer", Nigel came on stage playing the keyboard and after that with "Where we will be going", the rest of the band followed.What was already evident before became even clearer now: The sound in Musikhuset is just perfect. Chris' voice alone was already great, but the full band was just awesome. Every note from every single instrument was clearly heard (at least until they turned up the volume a little to much like they always do at the end of a concert).The next songs where - One world - Missing you - A spaceman came travelling - Spirit (I love this song and it's instrumentation and it sounded soooo great in this hall ) - The leader, the vision, what about me - The words I love you - Bal masque - My father's eyes - Living in the world Which, if I remember correctly, concluded the regular part of the concert at exactly 22:00.After maybe 30 seconds of clapping everybody came back on stage to continue with some uptempo songs and Chris asked the audience to stand up and dance. Some people rushed to the front (probably from germany ) and most of the audience stood up. The first four rows in front of us however stayed seated on our side of the stage until a few minutes later Chris came and again made a gesture to get them up, which they then promptly did.The encores: - Say goodbye to it all - Don't pay the ferryman (you know this line where everybody sings "Don't do it"? Well, not the danish...) - High on emotion Don't get me wrong, the audience was in a good mood. It was just totally different from the concerts I had been to so far.I now expected the concert to end with some uptempo songs and maybe Hey Jude or something like that. But now we where in for a really big surprise.He played "The lady in red" for the second time this evening!!!This time with full band, red lights and everything.And - second big surprise - the whole audience was singing with him !!! Martina and I stood stunned looking at each other and thought "OK, where's the camera, this can'tbe for real".But it was. And the last song was Snows of New York before the concert ended at 22:20. So, quite an unusual concert (we missed Storyman!) but nevertheless a great one with Chris and the band in great mood and shape (Oh btw, because I think some of you care: Chris wore grey trousers and a white shirt with thin light blue vertical stripes). After the concert we went looking for a beer. The first two pubs had already closed at 21:00, the next one was absolutely packed, but then we found one where I had a Carl's special (yum yum) and Martina an Apple Cider. Finally, at midnight Martina presented me with a 15 year old Laphroaig single malt whisky for my birthday. Wow. Those of you who know a little bit about whisky will know what that is.On friday, we went back to Hamburg after some shopping in Esbjerg. Read this till the very end? Thank you, and remember to write your own review after your next concert.Thomas