Manfred Mann's EarthBand on the Road - April 2003
Posted by Tchoupi on April 04, 2003
In Reply to: Düsseldorf, 1st April posted by Karin and Thomas on April 02, 2003 Rheinische Post - Rüstige Hitmaschine
Düsseldorf 01-04-2003. Von wegen Aprilscherz. Es gibt sie noch zuhauf, Uralt-Bands mit Gründungsdatum in den Sechzigern, die als untote
Rock" -n" -Roll-Zombies im wesentlichen nur noch zwei Ziele verfolgen: 1.) ein finanziell gesichertes Alter sowie 2.) mit vertrauten Sounds den
Fans noch einmal das Gefühl zu vermitteln, irgendwann mal jung gewesen zu sein. Immerhin 3700 waren zum nostalgischen Doppelpack mit "Manfred Mann's Earth Band" sowie "Status Quo" in die Philipshalle gekommen.
Musikalische Innovation hat bei dieser Paarung sicherlich niemand erwartet, gute Laune-Stimmung hingegen schon. Für Letzteres erweisen sich
die Rock-Rentner von "Manfred Mann's Earth Band" als krasse Fehlbesetzung. Keyboarder Manfred Mann, der bereits in den frühen Sechzigern
popmusikalische Erfolge feiern konnte und der unter anderem mit inhaltsvollen Zeilen wie "Do wah diddy diddy" in die Annalen des Brit-Pop gelangt ist, taugt als Stimmungsmacher ungefähr wie ein Reisigbesen zum Interkontinentalflug.
Sicherlich gehen er, Gitarrist Mick Rogers oder auch Bassist Steve Kinch als leidlich gute instrumentale Handwerker durch, doch was ihnen fehlt,
sind ureigene Ideen. Hier sind abgeklärte Routiniers am Werk, die sich nicht einmal die Mühe machen, den mangelnden Spaß am eigenen Tun auch
nur ansatzweise zu kaschieren. Insbesondere die Instrumentalpassagen offenbaren die Diskrepanz zwischen handwerklichem Können und
grandios inszenierter musikalischer Langeweile. Da helfen auch einstige Hits wie das kernige "Demolition Man", "Blinded By The Light", "Davy" s
On The Road Again" oder "Quinn, The Eskimo" wenig. Bei dem Dylan-Cover hält es die "Earth Band" offenbar für eine geniale Idee, mittendrin noch
Riffs des "Deep Purple"-Klassikers "Smoke On The Water" einzubauen. Bis auf einige ganz eingeschworene Fans hält sich der Jubel in Grenzen.
Ganz anders hingegen der Club der rüstigen Rocker von "Status Quo". Das Front-Duo Rick Parfitt (Gesang, Gitarre) und Francis Rossi (Gesang,
Gitarre) stimmt "Caroline" an, und die Fans sind spontan hingerissen, intonieren ihren Schlachtruf "Na-na-na-na, hey hey Status Quo", und wo
genügend Platz ist, wird getanzt. So simpel die zwischen Rock " n" Roll und Rhythm " n" Blues angesiedelte Rhythmusstruktur auch anmuten mag,
so funktioniert sie doch nicht ohne ein ausgeklügeltes, im Fall von Parfitt und Rossi nahezu symbiotisches Zusammenspiel der Gitarren. Nur so macht auch die x-te Variation des eingängigen Grundschemas noch Spaß.
Mit der souveränen Kraft, die ein amerikanischer "Big Block"-V8-Motor schon bei niedrigen Drehzahlen entwickelt, läuft die "Quo"-Hitmaschine, die
einige Medleys in das Programm eingebaut hat, über 100 Minuten ununterbrochen. Neben Klassikern wie "Don" t Waste My Time", "Gerdundula",
"Whatever You Want" und die "Quo"-Hymne "Rockin" All Over The World" werden auch Songs aus dem jüngsten Album "Heavy Traffic" präsentiert.
Musikalisch durchaus ambitionierte Titel wie das energetische "All Stand Up", das raue "Creepin" Up On You" oder "Heavy Traffic" mit kleinen
Anleihen beim "Stones"-Klassiker "Satisfaction" zeigen, dass "Status Quo" keinesfalls in die verstaubte Oldie-Schublade gehört, sondern auch noch aktuell Hinhörenswertes zuwege bringt.
Dass dabei natürlich der "Quo"-typische Sound dominiert, will den sympathischen Briten wohl niemand ernsthaft vorwerfen.
Von BERND SCHUKNECHT
Posted by Uschi on April 21, 2003 In Reply to: Live-Mylos club-Thessaloniki posted by Ilias Petrogiannis on April 20, 2003 A Hallo To All Non-Greek Speaking Earth Band Fans!
Thanks to Kali, a Greek friend of mine, here a translation of the review Ilias has written about the Thessaloniki gig on www.atraktos.net. Maybe
there are some minor mistakes (if there are any major mistakes, Ilias, let me know) because of the Greek-German/German-English translation but I think it`s worth a try. Ilias (approximately) wrote:
Manfred Mann`s Earth Band Thessaloniki, Mylos Club, 19.04.03
I have to admit that my expectations weren`t very high. When you are going to see a band with a history of 30 years it`s hard to imagine much
enthusiasm on stage. But - Manfred Mann`s Earth Band really celebrated the 1 1/2 hours lasting gig together with 350 friends of the band.
Spirits in the Night, Father of Day, Blinded by the Light, Don`t Kill it Carol have been popular among the Greek audience for many years. 30 years exsistence and living history and all this before our eyes.
Minor technical problems without any significance disappeared almost immediately. The band showed their best, heated up the audience with
classic songs like Blinded, Davy, the wonderful Father. Also a very good performance of Springsteen`s Dancing in the Dark.
Together with Manfred Mann - keyboards: Noel McCalla - (wonderful) vocals, Steve Kinch - bass, Geoff Dunn - drums and the fantastic Mick
Rogers - guitar. How well they play together they showed with the high spot - the encore, the classic Mighty Quinn.
When it`s Rock, it`s Rock forever...
Hopefully they`ll come back soon and hopefully more people will come to see them so close.
Salonica, 19th April Greece 2003 concert photos
Posted by Kostas Papakotas on July 23, 2003 hi all!
i just dropped by to drop a link to my on-line photoalbum containing photos i took during this spring's Manfred Mann appearence in Salonica, Greece...
I do know that the proper think to do is to becme a regular here, but i really really have no time for it... I just cherish the moments of one out the 4 big english prog groups i was blessed to see live, even after all those years...
so here it goes...enjoy them at: BTW i am just looking at the Hexenrock 2000 ones!
enjoy, Mann music and everything else. Kostas
http://groups.msn.com/clenchedteethphotography/mnafredmannsearthbandconcer.msnw
great! a true pro's touch, but i do guess it were a fan's effort!
Posted by stephan on April 25, 2003
Just a quick note - it was fantastic. Sold out - over 90 minutes great performance, what a start in the new season. Absolutely wonderful new
arrangements of some the old songs. The band was on fire. A new highlight is the instrumental medley as first encore. And we had all the usual
suspects: Blinded, father, Martha, Carol...you name them. Plus Castles, Dancing The Dark and - haven't heard for a long time live: Spirits - an
outstanding performance with a wonderful vocal share of Mick and Noel, definitive the highlight of the evening. If anything was disapointing, I
would say that no new OLD tracks were performed - there would be so many! Hope to join many of gigs this year!
Osnabrück - Karlsruhe, 25th/26th April
Posted by Karin and Thomas on April 27, 2003 Hi, here are some words about the first gigs of that tour - Darmstadt we leave to you, Jens, so pease don`t wait too long :-) Osnabrück, 25.4.
The gig took place at a hall outside of Osnabrück`s city. The "Hyde Park" looked a bit strange, with lots of grafitti and so on, but had a great
athmosphere inside. Our taxi-driver told us there were usually hard-rock-gigs and it was a famous place in town. The doors opened already at 7
p.m., the gig started at 8.50 p.m. No support band, no fences infront of the stage :-), but a well filled hall, estimated 1000 or more people.
In Darmstadt the band had played the following set: Intro - Shelter - Castles - Martha - Spirits - Carol - Dancing - Father - DemoMan - She Was -
Blinded / Davy / For You - Mighty. Tonight they played Angels (yes, Panther!!) instead of Dancing. We knew already from the night before that MMEB was in best form, and so they played another great concert also this evening. The audience
enjoyed it very much. Especially Noel was very funny, he had some technical problems with his mic and made a real show of this - I watched the
gig from the 9th or 10 th row, and the audience around me was excited and danced a lot. We got wonderful For You and a fantastic Martha there,
and after Mighty we couldn`t believe that it was already over... Great gig, indeed! BTW, after the show two girls asked us if they could buy Steve?s shirt :-)) Karlsruhe, 26.4.
The Festhalle, a hall for may be 1000 people, lies not in the city of Karlsruhe, but in Durlach, on the other side of the autobahn. A nice little hall with
a nice team, as well as the team of the Hyde Park the night before. And also here no support :-) The gig started at 8 p.m. and we saw one of the
best gigs ever there! This time with Dancing instead of Angels again, but also with Redemption Song between Father and DemoMan. We stood
with the merchandising outside in the Foyer, but I could spend the gig in the third row behind Goro and Britta, and I enjoyed every minute there! It
was horrible warm there, but it did not matter, not to the band and not to us - the athmosphere was just great. The audience was singing and
dancing from the first minutes, they knew all lyrics and sang fantastic, Manfred and Mick got lots of scene applause and Noel never lost the
contact to his audience. Mick as well as Manfred seemed to enjoy their new equipments very much, we had some of the best guitar and moog
solos ever there. We saw lots of old MMEB- t shirts in the audience - this was really a festival to all who had been there! The sound was great,
too, so what shall we say - it is meanwhile difficult to us to compare the gigs but it was one of the very best we had. What a For You version! - In
Osnabrück as well as in Karlsruhe many visitors asked us after the show if we had a CD with that version of For You at the merchandising. Also
Spirits was a highlight of the evening, absolutely well done. We could mention every song in that way - so let`s stop here...
We wish you all another great gig today in Pratteln and are looking forward to the next one here in Aschaffenburg - had just a look at the Colos Saal - no chance for tickets any more, like Jens already wrote. Best regards from Aschaffenburg
K & T
Posted by Ren¥ on April 28, 2003 Hi there
On Sunday morning I didn't expect to go to Pratteln because I was very busy. But after lunch I decided the other way round. It seemed to be the only concert in Switzerland this year. A lot of you may know the z7 club in Pratteln. It's a lovely location, a perfect area for lots of venues. And last but not least it's just a 7 minutes walk
away from the railway station. What about the gig? Pat had some difficulties with programming the light desk in the afternoon. But with the help of the z7 crew he did an excellent
job at the concert (Simon hadn't been missing this evening, he's touring with Gotthard). Best regard from CH
It was my first gig since about one and a half year, not that much but long enough.
I declared this venue to my "thirtyyearsoflikingmanfredmann'searthbandmusic".
It began in 1973, oh my god, please not too much nostalgia, I'm getting older . . .
I'd had the chance to watch a lot of MMEB gigs in the past but there was something new yesterday. The band itself did a big part of the sound
check. They usually appear about an hour before the gig . . .
There was no support band again and they started at 9 pm. I watched the scene from the light desk (Pat: I liked the Celtic Glasgow colours!). Yes,
Uschi, I've been there. As you may know I don't like the front rows that is definitely too crowded for me. Have you been there? I had to leave very quickly right after the gig.
In Pratteln the band had played the following set: Intro - Shelter - Castles - Martha - Spirits - Carol - Dancing - Father - Demoliton - She Was -
Blinded / Davy / For You - Mighty. (Sorry, perhaps it is not the correct order, I have some difficulties after a too short four hour sleep.)
I was surprised about the For You instrumental – pretty good. The house of the rising sun together with Castles is still a good combination. There
wasn't anything really new (anybody surprised?) but it's still good old rock. I still like Manfred's solos and the "fights" between him and Mick (they
got a lot of applause for doing this), there could be really more. Everybody did an excellent job, on and behind the stage.
The atmosaphere was great and besides, the audience was singing most of the whole set and enjoyed themselves.
As Mick told me he'd like to do his own project for a couple of concerts in the future, but the Earthband's too busy at the moment and still touring all over Europe.
Whenever you have the chance to visit a concert (MMEB or Rogers! . . .): go for it!
René
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