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translation by Gabi Liddell
Prelude on the Vineyard
from Mike Marklove
The Irish Popmusician Chris de Burgh will go on tour again and will perform
on 24.11. in the Frankfurter Festhalle.
Here he is coming – elegantly. In a nice lightblue shirt and simple black
trousers, Christopher John Davidson, so his real name, strolls through the
garden of the castle Castell.
If there only were not the squared sports-sunglasses, which don't really go
with this noble outfit of the 58 year old.
The idea, to do the promotion-event here in the picturesque background of
the Frankish Castell, which has a vineyard as well, had his manager. He knows
the fondness of his employer for wine very well.
For the present journalists, who are , for a big part, are coming from
Southern Germany, this trip is a very welcomed change. When do you ever have to
chance to get a private concert from Chris de Burgh?
The small stage with a black piano and 12-string guitar is located in the
castle grounds.
In front of it, slightly in the shadow, are blankets and other seats. You
automatically feel like being in a park in Great Britain. This idyll is only
interrupted by the new songs coming off the speakers.
At least until de Burgh comes on stage. He has decided, to make a whole
album that only tells stories.
"I have constantly a movie in my head, like in a cinema" he says. With most
of the songs he had a crucial experience and therefore a new movie was in his
head and he has tried to keep that in his music.
"My Father's Eye" for instance is about a boy in Palestine in the year 2000.
"The Grace of a Dancer" tells a sad lovestory. But the highlight certainly
is the duet "Lebanese Nights" with the Lebanese girl Elisa, that was recorded
a few weeks before the Israeli attacks on the Lebanon started. (editor's
note: Here must be something wrong! This song is much older!)
But it is important to him to stress " that these are no political pieces. I
don't want on principle to press my political opinion to anybody with my
songs, although I find that what is happening in the Near East at the moment,
is a humanitarian crisis.!
His new pieces have an enormous musical depth, even if they are "only"
telling stories.
De Burgh amazes with his incredibly sonorous voice, which has great volume.
He himself turns out in being a comfortable person, who apparently does not
have any airs and graces and who is not a dreamer at all. "The times where I
sold millions of my records are over" he says.
If he could imagine to do anything else than music? "Oh yes! I would love to
write books for children. Or a script for a movie!"
He says this very impassioned, with an honest softness in his voice. Who has
sold 45 million CDs, does not worry about the future anymore. He has
answered the current main question already. Whether he goes on tour again on
his own or with his band.
"I miss the company and the after-show-parties" he admits. And "the dynamics
that are developing on stage with a band are enormous."
In order not to drown his new and old stories in a flood of pictures, Chris
de Burgh wants to abstain from a huge stageshow. But that does not mean, that
he will have no visual support during his performances. "There might be one
or two videoclips. Or just some simple shapshots, e.g of a tree. It will
be left with the beholder, what kind of impressions and experiences he will
associate with the individual pictures – I don' want to dictate that to my fans,
as at school".
And whilst he is telling all that he keeps on playing more songs from his
new repertoire, which sound more than acceptable, although he is playing them
all alone.
Btw: much to the regret of the reporter, who all has become his secret fans
during this little concert, he does not play the classicals " Don't Pay The
Ferryman", "High On Emotion" or "Lady In Red" on this beautiful summerday.
They are only on at the tour in autum.
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