Concert Review: Leipzig, Germany - August 22, 2008
Chris Williams:
Hi all, Well here is my review of Leipzig!! First let me say it turned out to be a very very stressful day for me ? . Let me explain!! Like I said earlier we spent the night in a rather expensive hotel at Stansted airport, so we would not have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive to the airport. Mistake number 1!!! We still had to get up at 05:45 to check in at 06:00hrs, and as we just walked up to the check in desk, we were told that there was a 2.5 hr delay on the flight and it would not leave until 10:20 instead of 07:55. We had of course already checked out of our hotel when we found this out, so had to settle down in the airport for the long wait. It seemed for ages we had to wait and I was sooo tired.....then the next announcement came that the flight would now not leave till 10:50........3 hours late. I was now beginning to get stressed as I knew we had a 2 hour car journey once we reached Berlin and we soo wanted to see some of Leipizig before the concert. Once on the plane, I actually fell asleep for about 1 hr, which really is not normal for me at all!! Finally we arrived in Berlin airport, had to wait for ages for our luggage and then had to find the car rental area which was about another 10 minute walk right on the edge of the airport. So then when we arrived there it seemed that at first the lady could not find my car rental reservation, but after about 3 minutes she found it, and finally we thought we were on our way.......................mistake number 2 !!!!!!!!!!!!! We finally found the car, loaded all the luggage in, plugged in ‘Garmi’ my friendly SAT NAV system, and then found out that the cigarette lighter did not work..............so consequently no SAT NAV system? So off I have to go again, on the 5 minute walk back to the rental desk and finally the we get a car that works!!! Actually they upgraded us to a bigger car which was quite nice as the first one was very small and we could not even get our 2 suitcases in the boot. The upgraded one was a Opel Astra so has a nice big boot. We finally load everything back into this car and then we were finally on our way. Thankfully the actual 2 hour journey was uneventful, and we arrived at our hotel at around 17:00 hrs completely shattered and me completely stressed out with a terrible headache as well. We had no real time to actually explore the area at all other than to grab a bite to eat, before getting ready for the concert. When we Arrived at the concert, you could say that I was still pretty ‘stressed out and tired’, and here I apologize to everyone who came up and spoke to me if I did not seem to be ‘completely’ with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We also met Claudia who we found out had also had a terrible journey and so was stressed out as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said hello to Andrea and Sibylle or course, Pauline, Kirsten, Claudia and Will and a few others whose names I cannot remember right now...sorry. Just as the show was to begin it started a few drops of rain........which was quite a surprise as it had been 27c on the journey from Berlin. Then an even bigger thing happened that was unbelievable. Suddenly the security started laying out a row of chairs right in front of the front row of seats where quite a few of our friends and us were sitting, and along came people and sat in these seats. None of us were happy about this, as we had paid top money to get good seats and our seats had row 1 on them. This was the ‘final’ stress for me and also Claudia, and she went and spoke to security, and then slowly they made the people who were sitting in front of us move, but still around 6 remained seated there in front of other people and one even had their umbrella up!!! I felt soo sorry for those people who had their front row view blocked. People along the front row were obviously unhappy and this was all happening as Chris was starting his first song .....and he stopped the show for a moment to walk down to find out what was happening and then he went back to the stage and made a joke about the people sitting on the front seats were getting free beer.....but then got serous as he said, that if people wanted to move seats could they please do it after the song had finished and not in the middle of it. He then said he would restart the first song again. So finally the show started for real and so did the rain on and off!! The stage was quite low compared with the others on this tour and we had a lovely view of the whole stage and orchestra when the second part started. Chris was dressed in black leather jacket and black trousers and had a white shirt on with a pink pattern on. His voice was in superb form and the set list was the same as all the other shows. Chris was given lots of gifts during the first halve of the show!! But surprise surprise none from me this tour...apart from one rose one night!!! During the intermission it started to rain and then it got heavier and heavier and when Chris came back on and started singing Missing You it was sooo wet, but we just pulled on our rain gear again and sat and enjoyed the show anyway. Just before Chris sang ‘Carry Me’ he said he wanted to say something important, and asked the conductor of the orchestra to translate it into German. He told how a little 8 year old girl had gone missing in Liepzig 2 days ago and had been found dead in a ditch. He was of course very emotional at this point. It was sooo sad. The he sang Carry Me. The rest of the show went uneventfully, with Chris still walking round the area during LIR despite it pouring with rain!! The fast part of the show, we were thankfully under the lip of the stage, as the rain got even worse then....and guess what................it stopped raining as soon as Chris stopped singing. I’m not joking here!!! It really did. We took a tram ride back to the hotel with Andrea and friends, had a nice glass of wine in the bar and then went to bed. Hope you enjoyed my review and my somewhat stressful adventures of the day!!! Take care all, Chris(W)thebluehealer and 'roamimn CdeB' reporter !!