Walls Came Down Black Maria Open My eyes Lunatic Fringe I Saw The Light Mad Afraid Mercenary Gun Courage Weakness Strike Pissin Today Bardo Mountaintop Panic Manup
Couldn't I just Tell You
Review by SueW:
Thankfully a friend drove me from his house to this venue otherwise I would have struggled to have found it as it was the most un-Todd like venue that I've seen him play in as it looked from the outside exactly like a British pub (other than all the writing in German on it of course!).
Inside was a bar area and a lovely wood panelled restaurant (where we had a delicious meal after the gig) but the venue itself was hidden away at the back past the kitchen! Inside the room was a decent enough size in an L-shape with a small balcony that sat maybe 30 people.
It was advertised to start at 8.00pm and we got there at about 7.40pm to find that the opening act (Eugene Francis Jr again) was just ending his set! Todd started at about 8.10pm and finished before 10.00pm. We moved nearer the front and really could stand virtually where we liked as there was lots of room. My friend counted the audience and said that there were less than 100 people there which was disappointing as it's Todd's only German gig of this tour. I'm not sure if it wasn't promoted much or not but the takings must have only been about $3,000 so we doubt they made money tonight.
However, to give him his due, Todd played a full set with as much enthusiasm as he would have had he been playing in front a crowd of 3,000. The set list was the usual but it seemed that more people in the crowd had heard Arena as the songs all went down well with the crowd. Certainly most people joined in with Strike and when Todd got us to sing part of Mountaintop, some people had already started on their own!
I thought the sound was quite good at this venue (although my friend complained that he couldn't hear Kasim's keyboards very well) and they made good use of the lighting at the venue (including the silver disco ball!).
Kasim made a lot of eye contact with people at this gig. He also had a young girl of maybe 10 years old sitting on the edge of the stage at the base of his microphone stand who he often smiled at which was sweet to see. Kasim's vocals certainly add a lot to the sounds. There was one part when he was late getting to his microphone from the keyboards so he missed that line but sang the next and there was such a difference in the overall sound!
As Todd introduced Kasim he called him the Crown Prince of Germany! (Something that my German friend didn't understand.)
There was a guy near me who was noticeably videoing most if not all of the concert and apparently there was a guy in the middle (about 3 back from the front) who was standing with a massive microphone obviously recording the whole concert.
Todd broke a guitar string during Open My Eyes but Randy managed to change it within the next song.
Kasim's keyboards were angled on the stage so that he was more face-on to the crowd rather than some of the audience having his back to them.
There were a few technical problems (e.g. Prairie's drums and Kasim's keyboards) but they were soon rectified.
My friend said that he heard different people speaking both Dutch and English at this gig so it was certainly an international audience!
Other websites:
There's a Blog (in German) and photos of this gig here.
2008JBL has posted a load of photos of this gig on YouTube.com here.
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