Manfred Mann's Earthband - On The Road March 2000

Saturday, 25 March, Southampton, England

Posted by Reinhard Dahms

Back from England and very tired but extremely happy. We will never forget this trip! The adventure starts early in February when we decided to join an English gig. Our German friends Iris and Angela, members of the fan family, had the same idea and together we inspired Thomas, the husband of Iris, to do the trip. With the untiring help of Graeme, Lois and Nigel - they managed the whole trip for us - we had tickets, rooms and a lot of directions to find the way to Southampton.

On Saturday, 25-03-00, we start off at 5:20 pm with Thomas' car. At 9:00 pm we reached Calais where we crossed the Channel with the hovercraft. Landing in Dover at 10:00 pm and - what a surprise - the sun was shining! Now it was the first time to set our clocks to Greenwich Time. After leaving the docks we turn-off to the shore where we had a fantastic view over the sea and the cliffs of Dover. Whenever you come to Dover (and the weather is bright) take time for an excursion to this place. The drive over the English motorways is not so difficult as we assumed. Now we became acquainted with bad weather conditions - rain, snow, hail, sunshine, rain ...- I suppose it's typical for England.

We reached Southampton at 1:00 pm. Of course we wanted to see The Brook at first. But unfortunately we missed the right turn-off and so we moved in a circle for half an hour before we reached a small red house - The Brook! It was closed and all what we saw was a mysterious man talking with someone over the phone. After taking some pictures with the camcorder we started to our hotel Travelodge - again with an extra sightseeing tour. There we meet again this mysterious man laughing when he said to us: „so sieht man sich wieder" (see each other again). It was the German guy Steffen, who lives in Ireland! From now on he was our translator. After check in we got hungry and so we went to a restaurant where we had some food and drink (cod and chips, chicken and other dishes, bitter). Back in our hotel, I tried to sleep a little bit but I was too excited. At 4:00 pm Graeme and Lois welcome us and it was a great pleasure for us to see our „old" English friends again. At 5:00 pm we meet Nigel (another „old" English friend) and some other members of the English fan family: Terry and Linda. All together we turned back to The Brook where we met Andy and Carol. After taking some pictures we had a first look to the stage where Ian and the crew arranged the instruments. Ian welcome us with a smile and the words: what are you doing here, this is England and not Germany! After this short visit, the English fans invited us to an Indian restaurant, where we fortify us for the long night. At 7:45 pm we got back to the hotel again to change our clothes. Then back with taxi to The Brook. I never before saw such a small venue, but it was very pleasant. A place for 300 hundred peoples on two floors. And what a surprise! We met Uschi, another German fanatic. And we was glad to met another English guy I knew from email – Graeme Yates.

The beginning of the concert was announced for 9:00 pm. But it started at 10:15. In Germany there would be a big trouble but not in England. All people were talking, laughing and drinking - what a harmonic meeting! I was standing as unusual in the middle of the front row on the right the German fanatics and on the left the English. I was very proud to be next to the ultimate UK fan Barry Winton who is been to over 100 gigs since the band was formed. Finally Manfred, Mick, Steve and John appeared on the stage and they started with I'll Give You, followed by Noel's Shelter From The Storm. It was remarkable that the most of English fans (one exception is Barry :-)) in contrast to the Germans are quite during the songs. But when the songs are ending there is a thunderous applause as everywhere in the concerts. As I understand Manfred, he likes this silence because he can better concentrate to the music (sorry Manfred, but the Germans are not so disciplined). Something new was also a Manfred telling stories and jokes. The Band was really in very fine form, but – and this was a little bit disappointment – it was the same set list of last year! After Shelter they played Nothing, Castles, Martha, Carol, Angels, Father, Demo, She Was, Blinded, Davy, Quinn. Every Earth Band fan (and at The Brook were a lot of it) knew, that Quinn is the last song on the setlist. But what happened? Just before the concert started, Ian changed the setlist and put Redemption down behind Quinn. So when Quinn was played nobody asked for more and the gig ended without Redemption song – what a pity.

After the concert it was a great pleasure to meet all band members again talking patient with everyone. We took some pictures and at 1:00 am it was time to go back to the hotel. And there we said goodbye (with a little tear in the eyes) to our English friends. After we set the clock a second time (Summer Greenwich Time) we had a short bedtime. At 8:30 am we started back to home where we arrived at 7:00 pm, not forgetting to set the clock a third time (Summer Central European Time).

After all it was a indescribable event for us and we hope to come over next year again. Thanks to all of you especially to Graeme, Lois and Nigel for all the effort and help. Perhaps some of you have the opportunity to visit a gig in Germany this year and we can give back the hospitality to you.

Reinhard and Erika

PS Sorry if I've forgotten someone.

Friday, 31 March 2000, Wuerzburg, Germany

Posted by Thomas and Karin

Hi,

just returned from Wuerzburg. A wonderful gig in a nice disco hall - we guess around 1000 people were there. But it`s hard to estimate because there were 4 disco clubs open for the audience, the gig took place in the biggest one. This evening Uschi and us were the only ones of the "fan family" of Heilbronn. The band in top form again, the audience, too - what shall we say anymore? The setlist was the same as in Heilbronn the day before. For us the highlight of the night was "Father" with that excellent solo in the middle - we waited for that solo since the day they had cutted it in 1999! Now it`s back, and better than before! "She Was" was given to us in a very long version this night - it´s another favourite for us and so we enjoyed it very much. Another point we noticed at both gigs in Heilbronn and Wuerzburg: "Shelter" came over in a fine quality. Often during the last tours we thought it would be better to bring that wonderful song later in the concert. It seemed to us the technicians used that song for tuning their mixer - often the song wasn`t perfect in sound because of that early place on the setlist. This year it sounded very well from the first to the last note - great! Hope that will be so also in the future.

And these guitar and keyboard solos - listen to and you know what you have missed during the winter break! Looking forward to the next

Thomas and Karin

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