Frankfurter Neue Presse - April 1, 2011


translation by Astrid Nolde-Gallasch


The little Lord


Cuddle pop: Chris de Burgh makes a stop with "Moonfleet" and a collection of hits in the Frankfurter Festhalle

Frankfurt - As if it was the sequel of his open air concert two or three years ago in front of the Hanauer castle Philippsruhe: as if life 
consisted out of a never-ending sequence of fairy tales, sagas, stories and phantasies. 

The build-ups for drums and keyboards are decorated like a pirate ship, and fittingly the melody of the "drunken sailor" creeps up 
from time to time through the concert, and captain Chris declares over and over again for a couple of hours the secure musical 
accompaniment for the course of the world, which has been shaken by rough sea. Basically those who have once visited a Chris de 
Burgh concert, know all of them: But still the performances of the current "Moonfleet" tour of the Irishman - who went anchor in the 
not-sold-out Frankfurter Festhalle on Wednesday evening - are more than ever the state description of a time, where change is the 
only reliable thing. This begins in the political dimension, which the singer and guitarist gave his performance (see "Germany in 
spring"), and ended with a partly irritating "Lady In Red": The meanwhile 62 performs this song as meanwhile well-known in the 
middle of the audience - but while in the past he mainly hugged female audience members of about the same age, this time there are 
conspiciously many younger women, who throw themselves around his neck. 

Open-hearted, generous

Of course an outsider could smile about those pictures, which are being shown on the video screens, especially since de Burgh - 
who took the noble name from his mother's family - seems to be on stage like a little lord. But actually this impression is not as 
ridiculous, if you consider the literary example: In the novel with the same name (original: Little Lord Fauntleroy) of 1886 the English 
author Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) tells the story of a little boy, who breaks the hard heart of his rich grandfather by being 
open-hearted and generous, and so becomes a samaritan for the poor. Basically de Burgh also sings for a world worth living, at the 
latest since his album "Spanish Train And Other Stories" from 1975, and against the darkness of the being: The album used to be 
forbidden in South Africa and could only be published by a change of title into "Lonely Sky ...". 

The songwriter, which is always looking to make his songs poetic and who has a hang of Irish folk, likes to pack his messages into 
mystically sounding lyrics in his compositions, and thus doesn't have to make a commitment. Depending on how you read them, his 
songs can also be interpreted as nicely-scary bedtime stories. De Burgh stands in his own way with the "Moonfleet" tour, as he 
wants to make it right for everyone and does not want to skip any wish of his audience. So he acts like the rock guitarrero of 
well-tempered volume - and moves on trying a musical attitude in the mid of a trellis of artifical roses. Even if one can sense his 
dedication, it still seems arbitrary: Nobody is being skipped by the man on stage, every taste gets a little bit, all target groups are 
being hugged.

The reaction of the audience is indicative. Whenever the artist adjures world politics, the applause is big; there are ovations for the 
80s hits; and the audience storms the place in front of the stage for the first time during a cover version: Toto's Africa. But still it 
honours the artist on the stage, that he enjoys the cheering of his audience for a strange composition as well as for his own work. 
That's what he has always been like. Basically every Chris de Burgh concert is a sequel of the one before. If you get into this 
constant loop, you are definitely not wrong. You might possibly wonder about the grade of getting-used to it in the middle of a concert 
- but in the next moment you will be glad again that the man on stage is just like he is: a reliable figure.