Its good to be back:)

Birmingham
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More entries soon....

I'm back in the UK at the moment moving house this week.

Next shows for me will be Birmingham, Manchester and the three Athens shows.

I still have details from both Paris meet ups and shows and the second Berlin show to put up on the blog, will hopefully get these up this coming weeks.

Hope everyone who is doing the ongoing shows has a fantastic time.

Berlin and show 1…

So Kevin and i arrived into Berlin around 10pm the day before the first show. We’d been on the train for nearly 12 hours today from Herning, Denmark.

Checked into our Holiday Inn hotel in East Berlin and crashed for the night.

Didn't even wake up until 10am the next day, Kevin wanted to do some washing but decided to wash a couple of T shirts in the sink and hang them out to dry.Whilst the weather when we arrived last night was pretty cool i looked online and it was going to get up to 26’ today and 28’ tomorrow. Kevin washed the T shirts and opened the window of our 14th floor hotel room and proceeded to try and dry his T shirt, first hanging and waving it out of the window, then over to the ironing board to give it the once over, then back to the window and so on and so forth. Nearly 2 hour later and it was dry!

There were 2 shows in Berlin, one tonight and one tomorrow. There were a few friends coming in for the shows too, Kit and Emil, Thomas and Dennis, Anneli from Sweden,Anders from Sweden, Guntmar,  Ralph, Chris from the UK,  Henk from Holland, Jackie from the UK and James from the USA, So there would a be a great bunch of us for the shows.

We took the tram to the 2 arena around 3:30pm, met up at the Arena with Kit and Emil and headed over to take a look at what's left standing and being preserved of the Berlin wall.

Tonight's venue, O2 world, Berlin                    Kit, Emil and Kevin

      

It was 2002 for Rogers In The Flesh tour the last time i was in Berlin, Kevin and Jens were with me and Kevin took Jens and i to see the Berlin wall. It was a bit worse for wear then and its been renovated and things have been re painted and the whole area has been cleaned up and made into a tourist attraction type area.

                                                                East side of the Berlin wall                        East meets west

   

There's a great mural on one part of the wall which is a picture of The centre of The Wall album, I'm not sure who painted it but in 2002 it was showing signs of wear with paint pealing off and it looking a bit worse for wear. It looked a lot different today though.

Kevin and Jens in 2002                                Kevin in 20011

     

   

We made our way along the wall and ended up at a nice little bar by the river. Kit pointed out that she used to live in the loft apartment of the building opposite and that the area had changed a lot since she was here.

Behind the wall (the west side view)    Kits old apartment, top left loft             Emil, Kit and Kevin

We had arranged a meet up at a bar across the river, Kevin, Chris, Dirk and i headed over there to meet up with Anders, Guntmar and Jackie.

   

The bar was ok but after one drink we headed back to the riverside bar when we stayed until heading over to the venue. Jackie had come over from the UK alone as Dave wasn't feeling too good and she was with a couple of friends who lived in Germany whom she was staying with.

My writing on the wall                                                                               Jackie's writing on the wall

   

Panorama view from the riverside bar.

We all headed over to the venue around 7 o clock, Jackie was on the floor tonight as were Kevin and I and Kevin's friend Esther. Everyone else was spread all over the venue, however Roger was watching us all all the time!

A few people came up to me inside the arena whom had been reading the blog and wanted to say hi, plus some people whom i just got talking to as i was sat in my seat. Rick had come over to see the shows from Boulder, Colorado. He had seen the Denver show and also seen one of the shows in Anaheim. Jon had seen the shows in Florida and had been reading my blog ever since.

Jon and Rick                       Thomas from Vienna          Anneli from Sweden           Anders from Denmark

 

Kevin was about 17th row centre, Jackie was 15th row centre and i was on the aisle 15th row in the middle block.

The show started around 8:15 and i instantly knew the sound was gonna be great tonight, the opening notes were crystal clear and it stayed that way all night. The crowd were a little more lively a times than some of the other German shows too but still not lively. I had my camera with me tonight but decided i just wanted to enjoy the show so didn't take any pictures at all tonight. I did take a couple of videos though and these are on an earlier post

I was sat with Roger step daughter Amy, Harrys wife and a couple of their friends  tonight. I've sat with the girls before and they really do get into the show, unlike most of the VIP guests that are just there because its free and a night out!

There were a couple of mistakes in the first set but nothing huge, apart from that it was a great first set.

During the 2nd In The Flesh when Roger picked up the machine gun a guy stood up in the 5th or 6th row just to Rogers right, Roger picked him right out, “loaded” his machine gun and shot straight at him, the guy got into it and proceeded to move backwards and forwards as though he had been shot.

To be honest i cant remember much else about the show, it went along without “incident” What i do remember though is how quiet the crowd were when Roger was talking to them before other about doing the Berlin Wall show. They were totally silent with the odd cheer and shout which really surprised me.

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New ending to Another Brick in The Wall firt time played tonight in Berlin...

New friends from last night!!

Steve and Rick from last night
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Berlin day 1….

Had a fun day in Berlin today and a great show tonight, more details soon.
Couple of pictures below, one i took of Kevin and Jens in 2002 when we were in Berlin for Rogers In The Flesh tour and one i took earlier today nearly 10 years later! Shame Jens couldn't have been there. The painting on the Berlin wall has been redone since the last time i was here and it looks fantastic now.
 

Video below of boxing cats (starts at 24 seconds for about 4 seconds) that i mentioned in the Herning review.

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And the snarling and weight lifting dog!!

Full album of pictures below:

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View from our Berlin hotel room...

 Its nice to be in the same hotel for 4 nights!
There's no laundry within a 5 mile radius of the hotel so Kevin's taken to washing his T shirts in the sink and holding them out of  our 14th floor bedroom window in the 26' heat!

Herning, Denmark….

We caught the 11am train to Herning  from Flensburg where we stayed last night and arrived in Herning around 3pm. It was a holiday in Germany and i guess in Denmark too so Herning was like a ghost town. Kevin and i had booked a hotel right next door to the venue which was a 3 miles bus trip from Herning station.

We checked in the hotel only to find i had mistakenly booked it for the 18th June instead of tonight, the 13th! No problem though as they still had rooms available and after looking online when we got in the room we had saved over 30 Euros with my little mistake due to the price of the room been a lot more expensive due to the show tonight!

The venue itself was in the middle of nowhere, there was one hotel, a football stadium and the arena and that was it. There were no restaurants pr bars and if you wanted something to eat there was a single hot dog van in the middle of a field, as seen in the picture below.

 

I chilled out at the hotel for a couple of hours before heading over to the venue, it was fine when we arrived in Herning however i heard the rain start as i was laying on the bed in the room. Kevin had gone over to check out the venue(when i met up with him he had actually been in the hotel bar the whole time!) an hour or so ago. I met up with Anders whom I’d met on the Dark Side shows several years ago, it was his 10th wall gig tonight, he headed in the venue and i got myself and Kevin a hot dog.

Tonight’s show was standing only on the floor and as much as i do like the standing shows i was ready for a sit down tonight, i also decided id see the show from right at the back on the second level, just to see it from a position id never seen it before. Id seen outside there was a VIP entrance and below is a picture of said VIP all of whom must have places in private boxes at the arena and go in early for dinner before the show.

View from my seat for the 1st half        My view of the desk                           Dinner and a show in the boxes

   

I was sat next to three guys whom hadn't seen the show and knew little about Floyd or Roger apart from having heard The Wall a few times,one of their friends had chosen to go see Bryan Adams tonight whom i believe was in Copenhagen, bad move i told them, they agreed.

During the Spartacus routine one thing that did look great was the spotlights moving around the audience on the floor,every time “I'm Spartacus” was said the spotlights would move to someone else, then someone else and so on and so forth The first thing i noticed while at my seat was how small everything looked! even the wall itself looked small and when the pyros went off and the flag bearers platforms started to rise this was even more evident, one thing i did notice immediately was how much the light from the projectors gets in the way of seeing the show from this position! As I'd seen all the other shows from the floor and usually from no further back that 20th row i had always been in front of the projectors, i had no idea how much light they put out ad especially after all the pyro smoke from In The Flesh.

      

 

Danish speaking tonight                             This looks great from the rear

 

The sound wasn't the best tonight either, you just don't get any stereo separation when your watching it from the rear, it sounds very bassy too and one thing you certainly don't hear which i love hearing is the monitors onstage. At the beginning of Another Brick i was looking for the teacher coming down and at first i thought it had got stuck and hadn't come down but when the lighting shone on the area there it was, i was totally surprised and the appearance of the teacher is certainly one thing that works a lot better seeing it from this far back. The kids weren't great again tonight and just stood there clapping but that was all, not one of them moved forward or broke out and started dancing or playing air guitar, i wonder if this is just the kids that they are getting while around here or if they have started to tone it down a bit, i hope its not the latter!

The crowd went crazy tonight for some reason when the McDonalds signs came down on the wall,incidentally the colour on these and the images have been brightened a lot since they were added, they are really clearly visible on the wall now unlike they were earlier in the shows when they were not just red but red with white on them.

 

There were two bricks missing all the time for Don't Leave Me Now and at first i thought there had been a problem and two bricks had been forgotten, however,  at the end of the track i realised why. The ceiling in the venue was a lot lower tonight and the two “helicopter” spotlights that move forward and backward of the stage were not able to move out unless a couple of bricks from the top row were removed!

Its funny all the projections that you miss when your upfront, Kevin and i always try see the rabbits during Another Brick 3 and we usually always miss them (well i do) but tonight again i saw something that I've never seen before, Boxing cats! Yup, you read right, during  Another Brick 3 on the second section of the right side of the wall there's about 6 or 7 seconds of video of 3 cats in costumes stood on their back legs boxing with each other!! there's also a huge barking block dog a couple of other things that slip my memory at the moment but that boxing cats are a must to look out for.

As much as i enjoyed seeing the show from this position it was just so flat! there was no atmosphere, nothing was right there in front of you and in your face, everything looked so far away and sounded the same. I certainly would not have been able to do as many shows as i have if i was sat here every night! i decided there was no way i could sit here for the second half and moved down to the 2nd block at the side of the stage on the first level, one of my favourite places to see the second half from.

My view for the 2nd half.

I had seen Kevin just at the start of the show from where i was sitting, he was in our regular place on the floor right at the front left of the stage. We have both got to know a couple of the crew while seeing the shows one of them being the guy on the “helicopter” spotlight, he said to Kevin last night that in Hamburg when he came out during the beginning of Another Brick, he had spotted Kevin in the sat in audience and made sure his light was on him when roger says “ and there's one in the spotlight he don't look right to me”!

During intermission the teacher was lowered, bundled up and then raised again, i can only think this was due to the low ceiling and it getting in the way of when Dave K is on top of the wall during comfy Numb. 4 bricks were removed too so as to get the spotlight guys on the outside of the wall for their duties during the second half of the show. The spotlights moved forward and the bricks were replaced.

      

There were a couple of problems during ITAOT and Nobody Home, i think Dave was tuning up and strumming at the beginning of ITAOT but didn't realise the guitar was live and the band thought he had started playing so started to join in, this through the timing out totally as some joined in and others didn't but joined in at the right time, I'm sure Dave will comment and let me know what actually happened.

There problem was also similar at the beginning of Nobody Home when at one point the band stopped paying totally and roger was singing the lyrics alone without accompaniment.

 

Run Like hell really got everyone going tonight and i don't think I've seen as many people standing and clapping at the shows so far, it looked great, the video before doesn't do it must justice though.

 

The animation from The Trial always looks great from close up and especially from the side in the first 2 blocks, its never been one of my favourite tracks on the album but it for sure has grown on me and seeing Roger do it “live” and seeing the images the size of semi detached houses makes it a lot more special.

The wall came down forwards then backwards then forwards and the crowd rose to their feet cheering. Outside the wall was the usual with Roger saying how much he had enjoyed the show and how appreciative he and the band were.

 

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I'm on the train at the moment, its 1pm Tuesday the day after the Herning show and we are on our way to Berlin for 2 show nights and 2 nights off.