Concert Review :
CCH, Hamburg, Germany - 19 March 2001
by Janina Braun

So, what can you say about a concert in a concert hall with only seating places especially when it's in Hamburg, a city which is very popular in Germany for their coolness and selfcontrol? Very easy answer: "it was brillant!"

The hall itself looked like a big cinema, but there was NO space between the first row/seats and the stage. no security. nothing. it was wired, cos I saw a lot of gigs from Texas and its quite normal to find at least three meters distance. The atomsphere was very relaxed during the supporting part of Reef, I really liked the music myself. But it was too confi to sit in a big armchair, drinking a beer and watching the band. sorry Reef - you did your best.

After 40 minutes of alternative rock the lights went on and we met some fans from all over Germany. We stood there in small groups enjoying ourselves in front of the stage, when the intro started... no need to ask, we jumped to the first row, when suddenly some security-superheros ( no idea where they came from ) took their job a bit too serious and wanted to force us to go back to our seats and sit down. we protested as loud and unpolite as possible, when Sharleen came on stage and shouted: "come on Hamburg, get up! come to the front." the security guys were absolutely pissed off and ignored from then on, great moment!

The show was the same, the songs where the same and so was the order.
Unnecessary to describe the perfect, clear voice of Sharleen. after Tired Of Being Alone she took a dude from Cologne on stage. she did her "Pull Up To The Bumper"-dance and asked him, if he knows that women can recognize his sexual skills by watching him dancing. A big laugh in the audience. Don't get me wrong, but I dislike this part most; The whole game, searching an (most of the time) idiot, treating him bad, bit give him the possibility to touch her. if this would be spontaneous, it would be absolutely great, but not that often. I'm not sure, but it has to be boring for her doing it every night, hasn't it? But thats entertainment.

Back to the concert itself - can you imagine to stand in front of the whole band, seperated only by the stage which is as high as your knee? It all seemed like a concert in a youth club. It was easy to see the pores of her skin, you could see the make-up in every detail. it would have been easy to go upstairs, but we were too polite to be unpolite.
The whole band seemed also a bit confused to be this close to us. But ladies and gents, in my opinion the real winner of the evening were: Nicole and Charlotte. while Sharleen usually gets all the attention its more fun to get in contact with the backgroundsinger. they were very thankful and we tried some dance moves together - they onstage, we in front.

Never the less, we had a lot of fun, dancing with girls who came hitchhiking from Poland (what are they doing???) jumping up and down to Say What You Want ( woo! woooooo! ). Enjoying to be so close to the band, watching Ally smiling all the time (are you sure he isn't doing lsd?). Thanks to all the girls and boys I met, we had a fantastic night in Hamburg. before, during and afterwards.

Possibly not a typical review, but I'm sure you knew all the other details before. Cheers for reading and I hope you understand a word of my german-english..

Janina


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