Concert Review: London, UK - May 5, 2009
Sandra Pleyer:
This time there were only two of our ‘girls gang’ travelling to London: Tina and myself. For me last weekend a three week holiday started, with a London trip at the beginning, a Majorca holiday in the middle and another CdeB concert at the end. I really had been looking forward to these weeks off from work very much. On Saturday Tina and I took the plane from Cologne to London. It was the second time I had booked a ‘Travelodge’ hotel and once again I was really pleased with it. This one was situated nearby ‘bank’ station, from there the city was easy to reach. The hotel was really clean and the price for the room was so cheap, I still can’t believe it. That was very good value for money! We spent the next few days with sightseeing and shopping and enjoying the ‘spirit of London’. Wow, this city is so amazing, I just love it. Let me think, what did I do: I went to Bourough Market and Spitalfields Market – both were lovely – I did two guided walks, one in ‘Hampstaed Heath’ and another one around ‘Westminster’ and I went to ‘Kew Gardens’ (Botanical Garden), which was so beautiful in the spring time. Ah, by the way, the weather was quite good throughout our stay. A good amount of sunshine , pleasant temperatures, and only one shower at one day. Apart from sightseeing I did a lot of shopping. As the exchange rate for those countries who have the Euro is so good at the moment many things are cheaper now than in Germany. So shopping turned out to be a real pleasure. The evenings I spent together with Tina. We went out eating, strolled around the city by foot or went around by bus. Monday evening we went to see the musical ‘Mamma Mia’. I had seen it before in Germany and I loved it, so I wanted to see it again in English. And I wasn’t disappointed: It was such a great show. If you leave this show you just have to be ‘High on Emotion’. This evening Krystina Myles did a gig at 10 pm in a small bar at Picadilly Circus, just a few metres away from our Musical theatre. So we took the chance to see her perform there after the musical. It was a very very small venue, only one small room with about 30 seats , but we were lucky and still found a table for us. Krystina had already started. I enjoyed watching her performance. She definitely has a very good and strong voice! After her performance, which lasted until 11 pm, we had a nice chat with her. We told her that we were in London to see CdeB the next day. She really seemed to be impressed to see people at her gig from abroad. We asked her if she would be in the audience at the RAH. She denied, but told us that she had been to the soundcheck in Manchester. There she had taken the chance to give Chris demos of her new songs. After having said goodbye to her we took the bus back to the hotel. The next evening it was finally time for the concert at the RAH. I made my way to the fan meeting at a pub nearby the venue. I was happy to see familiar faces as well as new faces. Hi folks, it was nice to meet you there!!! Soon it was time for the concert. When entering the RAH I was again impressed by this beautiful beautiful venue which is so suitable for a CdeB concert and even more for a CdeB concert with orchestra. Our seat was ‘only’ in row 8, but I was really content with it as we had a good view at the stage. And the concert itself: I don’t want to go into too much details as these have been mentioned before, I just want to give a few personal impressions. I found Chris quite talkative at the beginning (much more than during the last tour in Germany) and I liked that very much. I remembered my first concert in the UK and that I found it quite difficult to follow his words, as he talks much quicker than in Germany. But meanwhile I got used to this and it isn’t difficult any more. I was surprised that the cover songs got such a good reception (applause and cheering after the first tunes), but probably the reason for that is that these songs are better known in the UK than in Germany. From these covers I loved ‘The last thing on my mind’ and ‘Turn Turn Turn’ best. But I’m still hoping that he will sing ‘Africa’ during the ‘band only’ tour in Germany!!! When the orchestra was on stage Chris said at one point, that it is so impressive to sing at the RAH with an orchestra, and yes, I thought this as well. This was really special for me. I think the orchestra was really good although that I must admit that during the dancing part I didn’t notice it anymore. But I did notice Peter Oxendale and Neil Taylor at one side of the stage. What a pity that they weren’t given the chance to appear on stage for one or two songs. But they seemed to enjoy the gig, tapping their feet and clapping. Peter seemed to be even filming some songs with his photo camera. And with ’Footsteps’ a wonderful concert ended. Chris introduced this song with the words: ‘That’s the story of my career’ (or at least similar words). For me these words somehow showed his gratitude for his career and I liked these words. And at this moment I also felt gratitude for what I have experienced through Chris’ music! Then the lights turned on and after chatting for a while we had to leave the venue. Together with some other community and mailinglist friends we went back to the pub where we had gathered before the concert. Some more chatting there and soon it was time to return to our hotel. And the next day we had to return to Germany , some fantastic days in London were over.