Concert Review: Magdeburg, Germany - September 28, 2009
Andrea Lucas:
The Stadthalle in Magdeburg was a bit strange, but in the end we found our seats. My seat was in row 6 on the outside, far away from the stage, but the view was OK. Of course after arriving there, we said hello to Jason and had a very nice chat with him and some other fans being there. It’s always nice to talk to Jason who is just soo friendly and the tour wouldn’t be the same without him!!! The concert started shortly after 8 and Chris was greeted with loud applause. I was curious about how the audience would be, as mainly a bit older people in former Eastern Germany don’t understand or talk English. Of course during some part of the concert, I think it was at his intro for “The Mirror Of The Soul” he said “You speak very good English here in Magdeburg”. And of course at the beginning of the concert he mentioned how nice it would be to be back “in your beautiful town”. There weren’t any standing ovations, but after a couple of songs some people stood up and often there was loooong applause after the songs. Or spontaneous applause at the beginning of songs, like at “The Long And Winding Road”, as people recognized them. And he got the first flowers already after “Missing You”. A security guy watched the lady (and the others) bringing gifts to the stage, but everyone behaved. Another gift he got during the second part, I think a lady gave it to him after the acoustic part, was a handknitted scarf with the colours of the German and Irish flag. As he sat down at the piano to sing “Borderline”, he used it to “clean” the piano and said something like “A housewives work is never finished…” No idea what the lady who made it thought about that, but at the end of the concert he took it with him as he left the stage. My personal highlights during the first part of the concert were “Turn, Turn, Turn”, “The Long And Winding Road”, “Without You” and “Leather On My Shoes”. The sound with the band is just great! Very different from the orchestra sound we’d had before, but very good. After “Without You” people clapped like mad and Chris said “It’s a great song, isn’t it?” And to sing this song you would need to have the tight Hosen, not Hoden… Some times during those songs Chris “only” sings without playing the guitar, he is moving his fingers as if he would play the guitar, but I didn’t see him doing this yesterday. Not sure if I only missed it, because I was sitting quite far away from the stage on the left side. The acoustic part was great. “Love Of The Heart Divine” was fantastic and I love the little extra parts from Tony on the bongo drums. As he introduced the band, we missed the drum beats that Tony gave his colleagues during the last concerts. And I thought it was quite funny as Chris introduced Al. He said that the boys from the band would be international sex goods like himself and that women worldwide would bang on Al’s door – to get out!!! Again Tony did some Irish dance steps as he came on stage. Another think I really like is the interaction between the band members during the concert. They seem to have such a lot of fun. The solo part started with “Borderline”, then Chris sang “Carry Me” (did I ever mention that I LOVE that song???) and told the audience some “good news”. It would be a swine flu free zone in Magdeburg, but that we should still be careful if we would see a pig sneezing… He mentioned that it seems like the media always needs something to scare people. Again, after telling us that Christmas would be in just about three months, he sang a couple of lines from his new Christmas song. Actually the morning after the concert in Merkers the melody of this song was in my head all the time. As after “Peaceful Waters” the band came back on stage, some people from the right side went forward to the stage. At first it were only two ladies if I saw that correct and security tried to make them go back, but then more followed and quickly the area in front of the stage filled up. Chris said it would be too early, but it wouldn’t mind. Well, there wasn’t much he or someone else could have done. He still went for his walk, which was really long, it took ages until he came back on stage. Something I found was very, very nice and sweet was that once he was on stage again, he went over to Bianka and held her hand for a long time while ending the song. She had given him flowers before and she and her mother were at the front too. And besides “I love you”, he also sang “Ich liebe dich” at the end. I LOVE it to hear him talk in German!!! The dancing part seemed to be over very fast last night, but of course it must have been as long as always. Too soon it was time for “The Snows Of New York” and “Footsteps”. At the beginning of “Footsteps” they tried to start the globe from behind the piano, but it was stuck a bit and they needed to remove something from the piano or move the piano a little bit. Again it was a good concert and I enjoyed it a lot. Chris must be very tired from all the concerts (we are too…), but still he’s always doing great shows!!! While we were standing in the lobby area of the venue after the concert, I saw a lady I’ve talked to before the concert. She was interested in a CD and didn’t know which one to choose. So I helped translating a little bit and it was her first CdeB concert. She was quite excited and I told her that she should have a good time. As I saw her after the show, I walked over to ask if she liked the concert and she was very happy and enjoyed it a lot. She was able to move forward to a better seat during the show and told me that Chris almost touched her as he was on his LIR-walk. Claudia, Chris W, Sibylle and I said goodbye to Jason, took a taxi back to the hotel and had a couple of drinks in the bar. It was a really funny night and almost 2 o’clock as we went to bed. Talk about being tired….