Concert in Celle (Germany), Aug 2000

[Krapplund]

This time
We were four from New Horizons in Denmark at this concert: Thomas, Anja, Ken and Willy. Ken and I took the train from Copenhagen to Fredericia to meet with Thomas and Anja the day before the concert. The next morning we took off towards Hamburg. We stayed for a couple of hours to go shopping – world of music, of course. Went to McDonalds to get the usual McRib (!).

The drive
From Hamburg to Celle was quite long, but not too bad. We had 3 hours from Fredericia to Hamburg and around 2 hours to Celle from Hamburg. We did spent about an hour trying to find a place to sleep though, since many hotels were booked because of the Euro 2000 in Hannover. It was hard, but finally we managed to find a small hotel just outside Celle.

The event
In Celle was a huge party all the center of the town. Alphaville played in Grossen Plan, Marketplatz. There were estimated around 2000 people for the concert. The show started at around 21:30, with a quite different setlist (see below) than usual. Well, we had heard all the songs live before, but the order was completely different. Many of the songs were re-arranged and had a different sound, for example “Dance with me” and “Astral Body”. There were some problems with the left speaker in the beginning, and the crowd were a little too quite at first, but the concert got better and better. No doubt, that Marian has the rutine, and gives the audience the show they expect. Also the new guitarist Christian did a marvelous performance, as he did in Hamburg. The only song I really missed was “Dance with me” piano version. Later, Marian told me that they wanted perform it, but they were interrupted by other music too soon, so people were starting to leave – what a pity. After the concert we met everyone at the merchandise and backstage: Marian, Tobi, Claudia, Klaus Schulze (!) and our friends from the german fanclub Golden Feeling.

The party
After the gig was fantastic ! It was to celebrate the end of the tour in Germany, since the concert in Celle was the last this year, except for a couple of shows in Lithuania later in August and September. K.P. was standing by the entrance when we arrived, smiling and happy as always. Inside, there were about 100 fans eating and drinking (everything was free!). Everyone were having a great time…I had the chance to have a nice 15 minute talk with Marian were we discussed the new album, which Marian will seriously work with on a vacation to Italy, where he rented a house to write the new songs. Apparently Marian is starting all over writing the material. He really needed a break from touring. Marian assured me that Alphaville will tour again in 2001, probably when the new album is released (hopefully around March). It was too early for Marian to tell about how the new album will be, but probably a more happy sound…can´t wait ! Bernhard is in the studio working, and he made some very interesting re-mixes of the old classics, no one knows when these versions will be released at this time. Shane was having fun (as always), and Marian was not leaving the party early, as he often does, he actually stayed the whole night, as we always do (!)

Thanks to everyone we met in Celle. Special thanks to Tobi from Moonbase for inviting us home to his apartment in Hamburg on saturday, and for the homemade map…we love you man !

Photogallery:

http://www.alphaville.org/gallery/browseimages.php?c=30

Written by Willy Nielsen & Ken Simonsen