Saechsische Zeitung - July 9, 2005


Albums

Songs

Concerts

Press

by vh
translation by Astrid Nolde-Gallasch


With piano, charme and guitar

Pop. Chris de Burgh entertains the Kulturpalast in Dresden with a solo 
concert.

It is frustrating. This man sings "Lady In Red", probably one of the 
most famous hymns about the beauty of your lover. But instead of 
keeping us high on cloud nine with similarly beautiful or tear-jerking 
songs, he performs a sequel of his own classic that puts up back into 
reality in a rough and brutal way. "Five Past Dreams" is the title of 
the track. The lady remains lovely, okay. But around three o'clock the 
man is still dancing on the party, where all others have long since 
gone home. De Burgh gives them only "30 seconds" maximum for the 
happening afterwards. After all they are married.

Well, this is probably the revolt of the Irishman against being pegged 
as an "easy soft singer", which has happened too often. On Thursday 
night in the Kulturpalast in Dresden, de Burgh proved how lopsided 
that is: For almost three hours he entertained the nearly sold out 
hall, armed only with piano or guitar and an impressive, but retentive 
light show. But provided with a voice which is always full and can 
reach heights of which many schlager- or pop weirdos can only dream.

"Road To Freedom" is the name of his new record, which unites as 
always two of de Burgh favourite themes: Love in all facets and 
warlike conflicts with all their consequences. Again a father says 
good-bye to his son who goes off to war, a child sings against the 
perpetual quarrels of his parents. However, most of the new songs 
sound rather thin or simple in the piano or guitar version.

No wonder that the Kulturpalast is only put into good humour when 
Chris de Burgh gets out his old hits like "Don't Pay The Ferryman" or 
"Revolution". Enthusiastically they follow his anecdotes, his 
allusions to the rainy summer in Germany. But even after thirty years 
in the pop business the born Argentinian appears naturally. And after 
three hours, including some Beatles medleys the audience got the 
impression that the singer didn't want to go home either.




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File last modified on August 26, 2006