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Old 15 Feb 2008, 14:38   #1
Krapplund
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Join Date: 09 Nov 2000
Location: Emmaboda, Sweden.
Posts: 17,534
7 Concert in Umeå (Sweden), May 2000

Counting
Every second for the concert to begin. I´m standing in front of the stage and trying to stand still. The audience is pushing from the back, and I´m waiting, waiting for the show…

The 27. May
At 1:30 pm, I was at the Kalmar airport on the way to my 4th Alphaville concert. Arriving in Umeå where Alphaville would play their first swedish show this year at the “Brännbollsyran”. From Umeå to Kalmar there´s about 1000 km by plane, and the longest trip I´ve had for the best band in the world for me.:) With me was a girl (Maria), and that was nice since I´ve never been on plane before. Not that I´m afraid of flying, but because I didn´t know how the whole thing works and so on. In any case we got stand-by tickets and it was not a problem in Stockholm where we were had to switch planes. For Umeå it looked like there could be a problem, but we got on the plane.

At around
3:45 pm we reached Umeå and took the airportbus to the city central. Then it was time to find the hotel we were staying at. It seemed like not many people knew where “First Grand Hotel” was, so we asked several people, and after 30 minutes walk in the sunshine we found it. We checked in and I left my luggage my room. Then I went to town to buy tickets for the festival, and there were no problems with that. Later, back at the hotel, some Alphaville fans from New Horizons and I, decided to meet the same night to go and eat together. At around 8:00 pm we sat at a pizzaria and talked about the upcoming concert and Alphaville in general. After about an hour it was time to go, but before we left I asked a guy – who was waiting for his pizza – to take some pictures of us. No problem, so he took a picture of everybody who had a camera. We thanked him and went to a bar, but since some of the girls were not 18, we couldn´t get it, so we went to the festival area. Some wanted to change clothes first, so we spilt and met later in the area.

When everybody had met
In the festival area, we sat at one of three beer-tents that was set up. There we waited for the highlight of the night: Alphaville´s concert should begin at 0:30 am. A little before the concert, we walked closer to the stage to get a nice spot. There were a lot of people who waited and the closer we got to 0:30 more people arrived. It got really tight where I stood and people were pushing from behind. It was getting dark and at exactly 0:30 the concert began with the sound from “dream machine”, and a wonderful night had begun. Alphaville had planned it perfectly to start when it got dark for most enjoyment out of the lightshow (it was only dark for 2 hours). During the concert it rained a little and it was tight when people pushed from the back – that was a shame. At one time people didn´t push and that was during “forever young”, when Marian let the audience sing the chorus, which I don´t think anyone didn´t join in – as usual. Marian has fun on stage and laughed once in a while when I and other members of New Horizons sang “happy birthday” to celebrate his birthday 26th of May. At the end the band stopped playing and the band left. The audience started screaming: one more time, one more time, and not many seconds later Marian returned with the band with 3 more songs, among them “big in japan”, which the audience were waiting for. One song that I missed at the concert was the pianoversion of “dance with me”, which I really like.

The concert ended
But we got backstage and talked to the band and Marian. It was still raining, so us from the fanclub and the band stood under a tent. Shane bought beers, and of course Martin, Christian and K.P. joined us. It was a great feeling to be with the guys from the band. A little later when there were reporters from newspapers, radio and tv for interviews with Marian, we sat in the tent with them. It was a great night as you could imagine. Margareta from New Horizons made an interview for the fanclub paper Headlines, and others talked to Marian about many things. Of course Marian got to sign autographs and we took pictures. For me it was the first time that I met Marian and talked with him. The night became morning and it was time to go back to the hotel to sleep. When we left the area, it was like we were still backstage, but it was actually 4:00 am.

The day after
It was time to go home and I only had stand-by tickets. I stood at the Umeå airport and hoped to be on the 2:55 pm flight, when a happy and laughing Marian walked by and passed the gate. Unfortunately, there were no seats for me on the plane, so I had to wait for the next one. That it was also a problem with the plane to Kalmar is another story.

This trip
And the concert is the best that has happened for me. I got to see a great concert – open air, and got to talk to the liveband and Marian Gold who sings in the best band in the world. That it rained a little and people were pushing is easily forgotten. I would like to thank everybody that I met in Umeå and to Maria that flew with me on the way there. I hope to meet everybody again, hopefully at another Alphaville concert.

“Jeder geht allein…
Jeder für sich…
Auf seinem Weg nach Alphaville”


Photogallery:

http://www.alphaville.org/gallery/browseimages.php?c=28

Written by Peter Krappinger, translation from swedish by Willy Nielsen.


"Alphaville ohne Bernhard ist wie eine Apfelstrudel ohne apfel"
17'04'2003
www.krapplund.com
Last edited by Krapplund; 15 Feb 2008 at 15:15.
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