"Hard Pop Days"
Bremen, Sat 28 Aug 1999
Another day out with J & B........................
0600 Phone goes, John making sure I'm up, yes I'm up, coffee on the go, to help psyche myself up for a day with John and
Brigitte. Planned time of departure for Bremen, 0645.
0720 Finally set out.
0930 Approaching Bremen.
1020 After tour of town (nice place, must go back, on a wochenende ticket sometime) Get to Uni, find parking place.
1100-1120 Alternative Allstars,
from Gütersloh, play to a fairly thin crowd, but very slick and enjoyable rock/pop (most songs are in
English)
1140-1210 Die Sterne, another German
band from Bad Salzuflen (?), indi/rock, mostly in German, quite good as far as I could tell. A sort of
German Belle and
Sebastien.
12.30-1300 Cultured Pearls,
German again, from Berlin & Hamburg with a very pretty black female lead vocalist, more jazz/funk/pop, all the songs are in
English, very good as well.
1330-1415 The King, an Irish band (?), whose lead singer does an Elvis impression, sings covers,
Elvis style (very big in Germany) of only dead people, Elvis/Bob Marley/Kurt
Kobain, etc, BRILLIANT, great entertainment, crowd love it.
1445-1530 H-Block X, a dire German heavy metal
band. Didn't like them at all (hence no picture!).
1600-1700 The
Cardigans, (Swedish), nothing to tell really, everybody knows their stuff, Brilliant.
1730-1830 Heather Nova, (American, well from Bermuda which I suppose makes her British).
Songs seem to appeal to angst ridden teenage girls (as I am myself....).
1900-2030 Xavier
Naidoo, (I suppose Germany's biggest black musician - a bit sort of techno/rap/pop), competent, but dull stuff, a couple of good ballads. Most of the crowd love him.
2100-2300 Herbert Gronemeyer, is probably
Germany's biggest rock star (great gruff voice, style a bit sort of Billy Joel, big rock numbers with loads of piano ballads as well) he's very good (I have one of his CD's), all his songs are in
German, but I understand some of them, especially the ones I know, but a great show, great atmosphere, the what, 5-8,000 people here adore him, sing along to everything, brilliant.
He is best known to English speaking folk for his role in the critically
acclaimed TV series & film "Das
Boot" about life on a German U-boat during the 2nd World War.
But the crowd love him, the women around me appear to be in
rapture!
2325 Manage a quick get away and head for the car.
2345 turn on to Autobahn, decide to try and get back to Gütersloh by 01.00, J asleep and snoring before we left the car
park (well, he did have a couple of beers...), B frightened to shut her eyes on the autobahn.
0105 Home. B points J in direction of the house and we all head off to our respective beds, after a great day out......
and once again thanks to Brigitte for the tickets.
