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 BERLIN REPORT
Berlin Huxley's, 25 February 1998
Open Road Tour
Reports By Ingrid Narres and Tamas
Orcifalvi
Ingrid Narres Reports:-
Sabine and I started early in the morning
to our first destination - Berlin. The first city where Gary Barlow
should perform here in Germany. After 7 hours sitting on the train
we happily arrived at the train station. A friend of Sabine was
there to pick us up and we spent the next few hours together with
her. Despite the fact she isn't a fan of Gary she was interested
enough to go with us to the show.
At 7pm we arrived at the concert
hall and were happy to see such a mass of people. We couldn't believe
it - the concert was really sold out. A very good start for Gary's
tour across Germany.
The show was meant to actually
start at 8 pm but support act Kinane arrived on stage half an hour
late. She performed 5 songs together with her 4 dancers and then
we had to wait another half an hour for the man himself. When some
excerpts of the new released video "Open Book" were shown on the
two scr eens on both sides of the stage
the crowd went wild. The band appeared straight after and started
to play the introduction. Minutes later Gary Barlow walked onto
the stage with a very bright smile on his face, wearing a blue shirt
and a blue jacket from Versace and began his first song - "Labour
For Love".
It followed with "Love won't
wait" and the audience started to sing the lyrics and clapped their
hands because this one is now known by nearly everybody in there.
Gary gave his best on stage and everybody could see that he really
loved being there. He welcomed everybody and carried on with "Lay
Down For Love" which is surprisingly very different to what we all
know from his album but really great.
As next comes "Everything
I Ever Wanted" and then a reggae version of "My Commitment". Everybody
was waving their arms in the same way as Gary does - an ocean of
waving arms. It must have looked fantastic up there on stage. After
that Gary stepped back and announced a song 'we might all know'.
When he started with the first chords of "Back For Good" a frantic
scream comes from the audience and everybody sung as loud as they
could the lyrics that you could hardly hear the backing vocals from
the band.
When Gary finished this song
he mentioned that he spent the last 6 years together with 4 brilliant
guys and showed us a photo of very old Take That times (must have
been one of the first photos shootings they've done - Gary and Mark
with blond bleached hairs and a very very young Robbie). Now Gary
walks to the middle of the stage and proves that he is still able
to dance the old Take That routines. The crowd is going wilder and
wilder. And of course it didn't change when Gary plays his favourite
Take That songs at a medley: "Pray", "Love Ain't Here Anymore",
"A Million Love Songs" and "Never Forget". Here it showed that not
only Gary remembers the dance routines but all fans as well!
With the words "Let's rock
....." Gary got us out of the emotional memories and into really
rocky numbers like "Too Hard To Handle" and "Cuddly Toy" where he
ran and jumped around the stage together with his band. The audience
were jumping up and down as well.
Then he slowed things down
with a song he dedicated to three people who died last year and
who were very close to Take That and himself; Princess Diana, Gianni
Versace and his Nan and when pictures of all of them where shown
Gary lighted three candles on his piano and played then "Forever
love". We all were very moved.
That didn't very long because
as next came a very rocky version of "Always". During this song
he introduced his backing band: Paul Turner (bass), Milton McDonald
(guitars), Mike Stevens (keyboards, saxophone, acoustic guitar and
musical director), Bernie Smith (keyboards) and Chris Dagley (drums).
Everybody was shown at a photo on the video screens and got time
for a little solo performance.
When this song came to an
end Gary said goodbye and left the stage but everybody want to see
and hear more of him so we screamed as loud as we could "Zugabe,
Zugabe, Zugabe"! After a few moments the band returned on stage
and than Gary as well. We all screamed our head off when he came
back on stage. He'd changed his clothes and was standing now in
front of us with a black shirt and a long silver velvet jacket.
He started this encore with
"Hang On In There Baby" and "So Help Me Girl". Gary took the jacket
off and had a last chat to the audience thanking for being not only
a very loud audience but also a very quiet audience. With the song
"Open Road" he left stage but not before sending loads of kisses
to the crowd. 90 Minutes very brilliant show where behind us.
Sabine and I found luckily
the hotel out where the band was staying in Berlin and had much
more luck to come in. We had a little chat with the band and saw
Gary sharing a cup of hot chocolate with his personal assistant
Chris.
When we had to leave the hotel
to go to Sabine's friends where a bed was waiting for us both we
counted the hours when we could see Gary again. We only had to wait
18 hours for the next concert - see you in Hamburg.
End of Ingrid's Report
Tamas Orcifalvi Reports:-
First of all, I must tell you that I am not
a big fan, or at least I wasn't until seeing him live.
At the beginning of the concerts
a girl with dancers came to the stage to warm up the audience, and
I think they were received quite well. One thing I did not like
was that they have forgotten to introduce themselves.
Around 8.45 Gary came on stage
with the first song which was 'Labour of Love'. To be truthful this
song is quite unknown in Hungary. The second song was 'Love Won't
Wait' and the hits just came without stopping.
One of the highlights of the
concert was when he started to sing Pray. It was unbelievably good
in this live version. He also played Never Forget and some more
ballads. Then came the real surprise: Two cover versions one of
them was Hard to Handle which was extremely rocky. Everybody went
absolutely mad on stage and in the audience.
A version of 'My Commintment'
was also performed with a reagge base, it was like a night in Jamaica.
The last song came after the fastest 90 minutes of my life and it
was 'Open Road'.
I have to mention the fantastic
musicans. First I was a bit afraid that this show would be a bit
boring, but fortunately nothig like that happened. Gary was in top
form and he seemed to have enjoyed the show as much as his audience
did. The interesting thing about this concert is that I have never
seen so many smiling, content faces around me. If anyone hesitates
to go, Please DON'T hesitate! This will be one of the best concerts
of your lives.
Thank You Gary! Hope to see
you again soon!
End of Reports
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