[Kaz]

Cologne Review

Sehnde – the prequel (by Apollo)

Friday 15:00- 18:00h.
I pick up Richani at Hannover train station. It’s been half a year since we have last seen each other at the Soltau concert and the reunion was overdue.

We go to the hotel, check in, go for some food, have a 15-minute-nap and then queue up at the Kornspeicher at 19h. There’s only 5 or 6 people in front of us and once we can enter everybody is heading for beers. We have a quick chat with Jacob and meet about a dozen or so other Fanclub members. We easily manage to get to the first row, centrally just in front of where Marian would be standing later.

Being this close also allows to take some nice pictures. I spot the set list, take a photo, zoom further in and can thus confirm to the people around me that the set list is the same as in Aurich and Recklinghausen.

In my opinion, End Of The World, I Die For You Today, Golden Feeling and of course Apollo were the best this day. After Call Me Down we shouted “Martin, Martin (or Marty, Marty)” which was met with a smile from stage.

All the while Jacob was drumming to his best from high up above the stage and later told us that he could see us very well from up there.

Once the show was over, most of the crowd disappeared quickly. We stayed a moment longer and met Jacob again, then headed for the hotel. In a spontaneous decision Richani and I stopped at a local beergarden and impressed the local guests with the fact that someone from Langedijk in the Netherlands and someone from Paris in France would come to their little town.

Cologne (by Apollo and Kaz)

Saturday 19.3.2011 9:30h.
Richani and I (Apollo) pick up Martina at her hotel in Hannover city. After approx. 3 hours drive we are in Bonn at Ariana’s place, where we have a break and drop off Martina. Then we continue on to Karen’s place and arrive at 14h and meet Kaz (who Apollo hasn't seen since 2007!) and Clare. The four of us continue to Cologne city centre where the first thing we do is to get some food at an American burger place. Ariana and Martina join us there a little while later and then we leave to walk to the Gloria Theater, the venue for the gig tonight.

We arrive at the venue half an hour before the doors open and are shocked to see approx. 50 people in the line in front of us and a guy walking around with a placard asking someone to sell him a ticket! Although we try to scare them all away with our open-air singing to Alphaville songs on our mobile phones, we cannot get closer to stage than 3rd or 4th row once we are inside (though Kaz and Clare were almost in the front row and would have been if it hadn’t been for three very small women!).

True to Alphaville form, the gig starts later than advertised (OK, only 4 minutes later!). The atmosphere is electric and is slightly better than in Sehnde and although the set list is the same, some songs are played differently. Marian and band are apparently in a great mood and joke around with the audience or impress with some moves you could almost call “dancing”. The CROG songs are much better live than on the CD and The Deep in particular is peformed very emotionally by Marian, on bended knee. Iron John is fantastic and Marian's voice is clear and pitch-perfect. Leben Ohne Ende is received really well by the crowd, who are obviously happy to hear a German song! The slow version of Dance With Me at the end is one of the highlights and Marian ad-libs at the end of it in German to the delight of the crowd. It is so obvious that Marian is ecstatic with the audience’s reaction and participation and he thrives on it, even calling out at one point in German to give him more of the noise as he needs it. New bassist Maja grins like a Cheshire Cat all through the show! When Call Me Down is played, Kaz shouts, “Go Martin!” Martin looks over and grins and Marian smiles and nods over to Martin in recognition of this acknowledgement. Marian gets plenty of acknowledgements from us and enjoys looking into the video camera. Yes, he knows we are there too and gives us a smile…or a dozen!

After the concert our boys do some autographs (on booklets, tickets, scarves and arms) and a few of us also pick up some of the merchandise. We are separated by a security chain from the guys but that doesn’t stop them coming up to us, planting kisses on cheeks and having a chat. Christian and Martin seem very keen on joining us at the Brauhaus later but it doesn’t work out unfortunately.

We head to the Gaffel am Dom where in the end 25 people or so meet to empty two barrels of Kölsch and several additional glasses. While the later events (see below) would become more crazy, this was a fantastic idea (thanks for organizing, Ariana!) as it allows us to talk to various fans from all over Europe in a quiet, but still lively atmosphere and it’s great to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

The Gaffel closes at 2:00 in the morning and most of the gang leave Cologne to return to their home towns but Kay (a Brit who lives in Mannheim) has a train leaving at 3.50h so us four (Karen, Clare, Richani and Apollo) keep her company (this being a welcome excuse for finding another pub). We walk to the Ring (party area in Cologne) and continue our party in the Cuba Bar, continuing to do so even after Kay leaves for her train. Finally around 5:00h. we take a taxi back to our night residences.

The second after-show party (by Apollo and Kaz)

Sunday 20.3.2011
Karen, Clare and Richani sleep in, breakfast late and spend time watching Alphaville DVDs while Apollo goes off to see some friends from the Cologne area. We all meet up again at 16:30h to go to Cologne for some local food in a Brauhaus. And yes, there is Kölsch with it of course.

We then start a pub crawl which leads us to several places, the two most interesting ones being a Jazz pub and the beer museum.

In the Jazz place the live music is for free. We have some Kölsch, listen to some music and perform a bit of Mustang Sally in the crowd. We also leave a Bierdeckel (beer mat) attached to the ceiling saying “Alphaville fans were here” with our names on it (tradition in this Jazz pub).

We discover the beer museum which offers quite a range of beers from all over the world. The pub has a standing area and a sitting area which is raised a bit above the ground floor which can be used as a stage when there are no other people seated there.

We all have some more beers of different kinds and let the events of the previous days pass through our minds again. Music is good and we order a bit of Alphaville. First Richani needs to spell it to the female barkeeper and then a few minutes later the woman comes back and tells us she has several songs. We request Big In Japan which is played.

We continue talking and drinking and start taking lots of photos (much fun, but not too many worth showing now).

When they play Big In Japan again, the four of us rise and stage a performance on the meanwhile empty stage, recorded by Kaz.

Unfortunately this is a Sunday and the pubs close much earlier than on Saturday and so we get a taxi again to return to our domiciles.

Finally, Monday comes. Thankfully we all do not have to work and so we can sleep in again before we all start out trips back home.

And so, a long and fantastic weekend ends, some friendships renewed, some new relations forged. One or two amazing concerts have inscribed themselves on our minds and will not be forgotten. Let us hope we can do something like this again sometime in our lives and thank you to Alphaville for providing the reason to get together.