Manfred Mann's EarthBand on the Road - September - December 2003
Posted by wil on December 01, 2003
Finally a new gig report. Saturday Haarlem. A very small venue in a place near Amsterdam. It was hot and I think sold out. How many people:
Around 400. A Dutch supporting act Lorian from Amsterdam played symphonic rock music, Marillion like. A good intro for the main act.
Line up: from previous gigs. What I missed: Chevy (Mick???????). What we saw: A band playing with energy. What we noticed: Mick doing more
vocals and Noel, probably having troubles with his voice or forgot the lyrics, during Shelter, Spirits, of course Father, and Dancing. Ian sitting beside the fence, hardly moving, having a bad day?? Was it the Dutch beer (or the lack of it).
 |
Setlist: Well known (except the Chevy) and Redemption song. With For You a song that without a voice is getting stronger and stronger. The Spirits version is one I like. Still Martha's my favorite.
Jan, his wife and son Kevin, Ben thanks for joining me. Jan see you in two weeks.
The second gig in Tilburg was in 013, a very nice music centre but only 400-500 people wanted to see the Earth band. 2 Germans, Reinhard and Erika. Two weeks earlier Camel gave a performance for 1500 people. A band being there for so many years, as the Earth band is. But how come, why only 500. The sound was much better than the day before. Manfred and Mick were in a very good shape.
Hopefully the new CD will be with a lot of keyboard solo's. It's a lust for the ear to hear the Earth band live. Where is the FAN Family. One of the nicest things is to meet other fans from all over the world. I'm going to South Germany, hope to see some more of you. Scandinavians are you coming??????
Greetings and hopefully we'll see each other in 2 weeks
Wil
Re: Holland gigs
Posted by Tony on December 02, 2003 In Reply to: Holland gigs posted by wil on December 01, 2003 Wil :
The second gig in Tilburg was in 013, a very nice music centre but only 400-500 people wanted to see the Earth band. 2 Germans, Reinhard and
Erika. Two weeks earlier Camel gave a performance for 1500 people. A band being there for so many years, as the Earth band is. But how come, why only 500.
Have you read my report ??, maybe the answer to your question is already there...... MMEB need a drastic change of their setlist to keep it
interesting to see them play live. they are more or less turning into a greatest hits/party band now with playing only 'hitsong' over and over again
while there is so much more good music to play from all of their albums. People are losing their interest in the band because they've already seen
them play almost exactly the same show at leat two or three times now.... besides that the progressive music fans in holland have been bombed
with many good shows of many bands over the last two months or so.... so it also be a question of $$$$ that the show was not sold out.
Posted by arnold finx on December 05, 2003
Fucking amazing gig at Tilburg there...long swirling instrumental stuff, nice balance, (ie not too much singalong!) blue light, dry ice. Brilliant jazzy
stuff on keyboard and bass, and Zappa snarls on the guitar (a la Chunga´s Revenge). MORE MORE MORE! And even if they did play a bunch of
old songs, it didn´t really matter, cos they played them so well. Have to say that despite previous reservations this current show was as good as
the old days! No finer praise! All wavering fans should leave woodwork behind and check this show out!
Posted by Sergey Chekmarev on December 10, 2003 Everything was excellent except hall's acoustics (especially in the beginning, when I was sitting in 32'nd row - I noticed that sound
was even worse than I have at home:). It was real a surprise that some time after it became possible to get close to stage, much better place to look (how Mick makes magic with his guitar) and listen.
I want to tell thank you for a music and please come back here again! 
Re: Re: St. Petersburg gig report
Posted by Sergey Chekmarev on December 12, 2003 In Reply to: Re: St Petersburg report posted by Benjamin on
December 12, 2003 The place is called "Great Concert Hall Oktyabrsky" (it was built in 1967 in honour of "Great" October revolution :). It is really most prestigious concert hall in St.Petersburg and only stars are
performing there. From inside it looks as theatre, it has 3738 seatings. You may see this hall's images on internet here: http://www.bkz.sp.ru
(sorry, but text in russian there). From one point of view it's good that St.Petersburg has met MMEB in this prestige hall, but from my point of view this hall is not a best place
for rock concerts. I have told about it's acoustic already, and one more thing - there are a lot of sitings (I think 90% or more was occupied), but
only 50-100 "luckies" have possibility to get into "ex-orchestra pit", and from the words of hall staff "it wasn't supposed"... Now about "concert"
itself. The track list was the same as at Moscow gig. We already knew it and "didn't trust the band" :) when they said "Goodbye" without playing
last 3 songs. But when they tried to leave the scene people started to shout (Ìy wife has cried so strongly, that my ear has put in pawn(yawn):).
Of course we like them very much and don't want them to leave us, but concert can't be endless and they have tired (Mike has shown us:) so it
has finished in about one hour and thirty minutes. Only one fan was happy to get an autograph from Noel, and it's a pity that there was no "legal"
ways to get it ... Whats more ? - just ask and I'll try to answer. Sorry for not perfect english one more time .. Best wishes for you all and especially for band members (hope to get your autograph on CD sometimes) ! Sergey.
Regensburg + fatal attraction!
Posted by Will on December 14, 2003 On our annual visit to friends we were lucky enough to catch the band in concert tonight and it was truly brillient evening. All the band played well, and we thought Geoff was excellent. Noel is still as
popular with the ladies and made us laugh but his voice is not as I remember it. Afterwards our firends took us to a hotel where we got to spoke to Mick and my (nosy)wife got him to clear up the mystery of
the strange messages on the website which it seems were done by one crazy woman. Mick confirmed what he wrote on the board 2 weeks ago, and said he only has ONE girlfriend for the past 3 years,
called Julie and they are very happy together. Hew also said it would be a shame for the message board to have to close becuase of one weirdo! (pls dont let this happen!)
Hope this clears things up for all..what a scoop for Johanna (my wife) hey :)). Cheers all, enjoy the continued concerts, lucky people. W & J 
Posted by Wil on December 15, 2003 Hi to you all, A special mesage for Paul. Just arrived at Reinhard´s place and it takes 1,5 hour to get home.
Nice to leave the best for the last, thanks for the nice weekend and meeting with old and new (Wolfgang)friends. Now I´m getting me a coffee and then back to Holland. See you all Wil
Bad wetter but a wonderful last gig in Augsburg with Redemption, Angels, Dancing and all the other well known songs. More than 2 hrs of
wonderful music in Augsburg a nice little venue and crazy (singing) germans. Best performance in years I must say.
Augsburg
Posted by Lothar on December 15, 2003 Hi family, yesterday another great christmas gig from our band at Augsburg. I think there were 600-700 people who have pleasure of a great venue. Setlist
as usual but Dancing and Angel in one gig. Best T-Shirt seller Ian gets his highlight for selling one of the moskow t-shirts for me. Karin, Thomas and Paul I mist you. Greetings to Uschi and Erika. See you all at Speyer.
Posted by Inga and Stefan on December 16, 2003
To the Band
Thank you very much for this christmas present.!! You did all to make the Gig yesterday in the Fabrik in Hamburg unforgetable !! Superb !! We, the
audience were excited !! A real party !! I (Stefan) have been to the Earth Band now for the 50th. time (since 1977)- and hope another 50 to follow .
!!?. Also we enjoyed very much meeting Mick, Steve and Noel for a short talk. Learning they enjoy what they do !! Mick and Noel made us very curious about their solo projects.
Now Inga and I would like to wish you merry christmans and a peacefull and happy new year. Many greetings Inga + Stefan
Neu Isenburg
Posted by Jens Goetzke on December 19, 2003 Hi,
here is my short report from Neu Isenburg yesterday (I thought, this time I should write something as I promised to do so already for the gig in
Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg this spring but never found the time and Karin and Thomas might get angry with me if I miss it again):
Despite what Paule wrote in a message below I did not find the gig so fantastic. Unfortunately of my 20+ gigs this was one of the worser ones.
First of all a friend of mine invited me for this gig as a birthday present. But then yesterday he told me that he will not join me because of too much
work. Additionally I did not find someone else to join me and third I did not find anybody to buy the ticket. So now I have an unused ticket at home
for a show which already took place! Anybody interested in buying it ;-)? Arriving at the hall I found immediately a parking spot but some stupid guy
rushed into the spot from the other side before I could enter it. So I started the search for another one....
Then, arriving in the hall, I realized that there was a support band (called Black and White, see the link www.blackandwhiteband.de if you're
interested, they have some soundfiles for download. They were not too bad, playing rock songs from the 70ies and 80ies but as I wanted to be
back home early I was a little bit annoyed. They played for about 65 min and the crowd was in a very good mood and requested some encores
and they wanted to do some more but as it was already 9.15 or later I think Ian stopped it and the modification of the stage began. The hall is bit
enough for about 1200 to 1500 people (estimated) but only about 500 - 700 filled the room when the EB started shortly after 9.30. The setlist was
the usual one (I also missed Angels, but was again very pleased with Spirits). The band was in my opinion also not in the best mood, the played
with a lot of professionalism but I did not had the impression that really enjoyed theirselves (maybe I am wrong here because I was not in the best
mood). The biggest problem was the sound. Overall it was too mushy, you could not differentiate the instruments very well. Additionally they had
big technical problems. They had a loud humming sound audible between the songs and during the songs a scratching distortion sound was
repeatedly hearable which was intensifying during the first 3 or 4 songs, during Martha then Noel's microphone failed for one complete verse and
you could hear his voice only through the on stage monitors. Then they started taping all the cables on the stage and it got better but they never
got rid off the distortion completely which increased my annoyance. During Carol Noel tried to let the audience sing the chorus and wanted to aim
the microphone towards the crowd but it fell down with a big bang. Also the had more feedbacks yestterday than I ever heard during a MMEB
concert ever. In conclusion: The sound was a desaster, not as bad as some years ago in Roxheim but nevertheless. Manfred had some nice new
sonds in Dancing and other songs. These I liked very much and I hope we can hear them on the new album as well. Most of the crowd seemed to
enjoy the gig anyhow. The problem was again that there was very litle advertisment for the gig, perhaps they could have filled the hall easily with
a little more effort from the organisation here. As I did not meet anybody from the usual front row suspects I decided to hear the last 4 songs from
the rear of the hall which was a different experience because normally I am in the second or first row. The sound was ok here (but still scratchy
sometimes). At 11.35 the gig was over and I was happy that I could leave (I am getting to old and missed the chairs ;-) ). I hope the next gig will be
one of my better ones pay me off for the unpleasant experience of yesterday. Perhaps I should not have gone there at all being in the wrong mood from the beginning. Best regards Jens
Krefeld tonight: Delay, but FULL POWER and Mick's Tongue-playings ;-)
Posted by Roland on December 20, 2003
Hi dear Earthband-Fans,
just back from a great great show and a bombastic sound-experience I 'll write down the first impressions and try to give you a taste of that
evening...The organizers let us wait out in the very cold wheather and opened the "first" doors at 8:00 p.m. sharp ! But the doors of the hall stayed
closed...with an unfriendly looking "bulldog"-security in front of the doors uuh...Technical problems were the reason of the delay, so we could
enter at about 10 minutes to 9:00 p.m. so all in all without boring you the gig starts at 9:20 at least after solving light-problems.
And what could I say, from the beginning the whole power of "our" band was floating over the audience (estimated nearly 500 ...sold out I
guess)...Great mood, many wellknown fans (Reinhard & Erika, their 99th gig, Wolfgang, Annette, Dietmar & David, the Dutch Connection Wil, Jan
and Ben - please don't blame me for this one...;-)...)...Mick with black and white shoes and the power in his fingers;-)... The well known setlist with the WHOLE program including Angels !! A little bit more than 2 hours ...
New Solos on Castles with a new heavier sound, real rock yes...!!
I wish all of you a very merry christmas and a happy new year and the setlist minimum 2 new songs when starting the 2004-tour :-) Keep on rocking ;-) Roland
And In Carol Mick just give us a bit of Jimi Hendrix when he was playing a little bit with his tongue, give us more of this you magician !! Tonight he
has played the guitar in a way I haven't seen yet before...once he plays only on the end of the strings, another time only on the strings on the neck
and then he "tormented" (I mean this very positive) the 4th string of his Chandler so it sounded like a "howling wolf"... In between he counted on
the guitar-neck from 1 to 11 and then started to play like someone from another star...! Manfred behind his keyboards looks younger than
ever...although there were such technical problems before... Noel let the audience help him during nearly each song and they did very well...
What shall I say yet, the "battle" in Father has had a "dead-end" in my opinion, Manfred and Mick with powerin their hands and fingers, it was a
symbiosis between audience and band tonight..."Good vibrations" indeed :-)
Some words to Geoff Dunn: Very concentrated behind his "tools"...he have such a heavy and powerful and great playing,it's really rock, the band
played harder than ever..they sounded new and very "phat" and "She was..." got so many new arrangements in detail...but I really missed the "flute"...
At about 11:30 p.m. the gig was over...a fantastic sound-performance and one can say : "sweeter the band never sounds" (sorry for this wordplay...;-)...)
Much pleasure in Speyer, enjoy the music and see you in 2004 !
MMEB at Speyer, Dec 2003
Posted by Marcus Kistner on December 21, 2003 This is a message to MM and his band, if ever they read it:
... was taken to the Speyer-concert by friends, let the music get down on me; it recalled memories of the good old seventies, moments of
happiness and luck. ...found my LP "Solar Fire" among all those LPs in my shelf, let the good sound play. ...you know what I´m talking about?
Congratulations, Mr. Manfred Mann, congratulations, Mr. Mick Rogers, and you other band members for an outstanding piece of music with the unique sound of MMEB all the best to you and thank you for an unforgettable concert
Re: Speyer gig 20.12.2003 posted by Annette on December 21, 2003 Greetings to you, Erika & Reinhard! Thank you for making Speyer the 100th, for your personal support, for being such good company, and for
buying us all the beers (herrjeh!) - here's to the next 100: cheers! :-) Greetings also to Wil, Ben, Jan, Sigrid, Paul, Uschi, Iris and Angela.
It was a great show! Not only thanks to the performance of the band & crew but also the very supportive audience.
No 'professional' full report as requested, just would like to mention what i liked most: the guitar solos in Carol (nice team-work by Mick & Geoff)
and Mighty (i like that 'psychedelic' sound), the extremely powerful version of Davy, the record-scratching sound-effects in She Was (nice idea)
and the drums in Mighty (severe threat to the toms!). And of course Noel's vocals: appreciate the energy weh ya fling to me :-) See you all next year,
Annette
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
