MMEB- Our private story
Karin & Thomas Sonntag's Story
It was in 1979, I had been a 15 years old teenager and we started to visit rock concerts and dance parties. My friends in our "gang" were all very interested in the development of rock music,
and there was a lot of good music at this time on the radio! We listened to everything we could get - Deep Purple, AC DC, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Peter Gabriel and - Manfred Mann`s Earth Band. It was the time
Angel Station was released, and 'The Roaring Silence' and 'Watch' were still on the radio too, and so even we in the former G.D.R. knew the lyrics of most of these great songs. We tried everything to get the Western German radio stations at
home - and we were so lucky to live not so far away from the German borderline, so we could listen to most of the stations in a good quality. You could really forget about our own stations here in the Eastern part of Germany. They had to play
about 60 % of G.D.R.-music, and most of that was crap and not what we wanted to listen to! To buy a record of a good band in the shop was nearly impossible to us - they had not been available there, and you needed really good relationships to
get them anyway from the west. So the radio was our only chance... And there was a cover-band named "Zoe" playing in our area. They had been very good and they played a lot of such stuff like Supertramp, Uriah Heep and MMEB. We
saw them a lot of times on stage, and that was the time I got some favourite songs - Mighty Quinn, Davy, You Angel You, For You... It was just OUR music, we loved it and sang it, but, to be honest, I did not know who were the members of the
original Earth Band or other details. Then came that cold and dark November evening I will never forget. I had just left the sitting room where my parents were watching the TV news again and again on several channels - how boring! So I
returned to my bed room and turned the radio on - it was 8 p.m. and time for "Pop nach Acht" on Bayern 3, moderated by Thomas Gottschalk At the end of the 70ties to us one of the best radio programs. He always had some very good
songs there and my cassette recorder was always in readiness during that one hour... Today, after a few other songs, he said now he had chosen one of his own favourites, called 'Father Of Day'. I heard only "Manfred Mann`s Earth
Band" and jumped to the recorder - I did not know that song before. Because our cover band had never played it, and it was normally too long and that`s why it was not so often on the radio. But what a song! It was of course the old Solar
Fire version, and I knew from the first minutes - I got a new personal favourite song now. I was not any longer interested in the rest of Gottschalk`s radio program, I put the headphones on and listened to the tape again and again. One hour
later I got a fright - my mother had touched me to tell me that it was time for bed - I had been so far away in this moment and had forgotten everything around me...
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I still cannot describe what is so special to me in that song, it is just a prayer which expresses what I feel (you should know I do not believe in any god). Not so much the lyrics which are really not very complicated, but what a music, what an arrangement and what a guitar! That song went with me all the following years, I listened to it many hundred times and it was (and it is) always like a corner I could flee to when I felt down.
Four years later I met Thomas, he was a very nice guy, we liked each other and married later- and we have the same taste of music. He had already in the G.D.R. a lot of good records at home, including the Solar Fire! He knows all the details about the bands much better than I do and I`m still learning from him :-) We enjoy it very much to have the same interests.
And in 1997 the dream became true - I saw in Jena a poster: MMEB will play in Reinstädt, only 30 km from our home! I could not believe it. We had heard they had broken up in the late 80ties or early 90ties! (You see the problem of the bad promotion - they had been on tour again for years and nobody knew it.) When I came home with the tickets Tom was excited. We were very busy trying to see all the good bands now live (no chance in the former G.D.R), and now we would see MMEB. The question to me was - Father live on stage or not? I did not believe it... The concert day came and a terrible rain, too. I lost the motivation when I looked out of the window but Tom said - Come with me or I drive alone. (!?!) I never heard something like this from him before - okay, let`s go. Or better let`s swim - the Open Air area was completely flooded, it rained and rained, I was freezing and my mood was going to be very bad. During the gig of the support band there came three guys around selling MMEB- T shirts. So we bought from Ian our very first T-Shirts only because it was so cold there!
The rain stopped, but I did not want to leave the dry corner at the very last point of the place, 200 m far from the stage. The Earth Band appeared on stage, Intro, Shelter, sang by Noel, then came Chris for Martha out. Oh yes, great music, indeed! My mood was already much better and I forgot the wet shoes and the cold. Tom next to me danced and sang and wanted to get closer to the stage - then we heard the first chords of Father and we needed just 2 mins to get through all those 3000 people to the second row! We stood there in all that mud but it did not matter to us. It was fantastic! Although I though in the first moment: What had they done with that song? The live version is so different to the studio one but I like it live more - it has even more power and the guitar is unbelievable. The gig went over me like a thunderstorm - it was over before I could understand what had happened there on stage. I only knew - I had never before listened to such a perfect live music, to such wonderful and creative solos. If you had ever learned to play an instrument you can confirm how many hours you have to practise to let a song work well, and that band there on stage played their music so fresh and with such an easiness and lots of solos, born in the moment and still perfect! It was just outstanding, and when we left the area one thing was sure to us - we have to see them again! And again and again, because we never get the same solo a second time in the same way... :-)
Meanwhile a lot of concerts, but it is still as great as at the very first gig. And when now sometimes someone of the band finds some kind personal words for us at a gig I still fear to wake up and it was only a dream... This is MMEB, live and in colour, and they speak with us and we enjoy our little job at the merchandising so much. We hope the band will still go on for many many years and we can do so, too. They are live much better than everything we heard on record or CD. And there is already the next version of Father ready to go, a modern one on Mick`s solo album. Another great version of a song which really influenced my life.
Karin Sonntag
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