WaterboysFans - Review

THE WATERBOYS, FRANKFURT
23RD NOVEMBER 2000
REVIEW BY MICHAEL MOENSTERS

This was the toughest one. Long journey to get there, long journey to get
back home in the night. I wasn't so sure before the show if I had made the
right decision with driving down to Frankfurt. Afterwards all my second
thoughts were not justified though. The show was worth every second and
every kilometer of the lonely trip!

As I had my long day in school I only could leave at 5pm which was quite
late for a2.5h trip, doors open at 8pm and not knowing where the venue is
located. A very brief description from the internet-page of the Batschkapp
had to be enough. I was quite nervous as I told some other german waterfans
whom I wanted to meet there that I'd be at the very front. I had the picture
of me coming into the filled Cologne-venue before my mental eye... Getting a
parking-place at the Batschkapp is nearly impossible as it seems not to be
in the concept of the venue to provide parking opportunities. I finally made
it there only 20mins before doors open just to find that I was the only fan
waiting at the venue's doors! In fact I didn't even find the entrance at
first as everything looked closed and not ready for a concert at all.

Some minutes later more and more fans came to the entrance but somehow I was
reminded very much of Rees - with the only difference being that there were
more people in Rees than in Frankfurt, one of the biggest cities in
Germany...! I met some nice people outside and talked to them about the
previous concerts, something which obviously draw Roland's attention to me.
So the 1st waterperson from the list for the night was found. We had some
nice pre-show talk and the excitement rose. Shortly after Stephan found us.
He had an as long trip as me from Erlangen to see the show and I found
Niels' thesis was right again that all waterpeople seem to have to wear
glasses... At least this is right for the dutch/german contingent!
Adam hit the stage on time. Again I found that I liked his set better than
before. Seems to be an aquired taste! What was really cool was recognizing a
guitar riff and thinking "This sounds like..." and then hearing Adam sing
the words to Lou Reed's (of The Velvet Underground fame) "What goes on".
Adam had a hard time as the audience was paying even less attention to him
than in Rees. Talk was very loud during his songs which was really annyoing.
More of that later.

The changes before the band came on stage were completed faster than ever
and again they started with a rousing version of LIH. I don't know if it
still was the energy of last night's gig in Amsterdam or Mike's coming
"home" to the venue of the 1st ever Waterboys-show in 1984. Fact is, that
the band was HOT this night and rocked like hell. Next songs were:
Charlatan
Strange boat (a definite version!)
Glast. song
Jonah
All the things (introduced as "a song we played here 16 years ago")
DDTW again with fabulous use of the theremin (my personal favourite
instrument of the shows) and rocking enormously. After this some drunken
heckler was booing and showing obviously that he didn't like what he had
heard so far. Mike seemd quite irritated and stood speechless at his
microphone for some time, looking as if he was thinking of a clever answer
to this. He then decided just to introduce ISC instead. At this time I felt
that some of the great energy that had made the gig so exciting so far was
lost and I somehow was "scared" that it would affect the music in a very
negative way. Next was The Return of Pan and it proved that obviously I was
wrong. Another great moment of the night!
Next was the acoustic set with WYGA and WITW. Finally, finally I thought
this was close to the brilliant versions I had heard before. The only bad
thing about it was again the very loud audience who kept talking during the
very quiet bits. So this was quite sobering and resulted in the shortest
version of the song I have heard so far. Which was a pity...
Surprise came next with the intro-tape to DBTD. I was dead sure that they
would only play it as an encore but here it was right after the acoustic
set! This was the best of three renditions I had heard and looong it was
too. Again this was hard to follow and again only SEH could follow and only
SEH could surpass the brilliance of the already huge "Drum". It was a
version out of this world. The band were taking the music higher and higher
and everything just kept getting better and better. Mike was really freaking
out this time yelling lots of "Yeah!"s again and again and repeating the
words "unstoppable" and "irresistible" to great effect. It was an explosion
of music!

The set was ended with this but the band returned for a longish version of
Be my enemy which was wild and just again, irresistible. Highlight was Mike
and Rich dueling around the theremin.
The 2nd encore WOTM was a nice end to the show although it was not in the
same league as the others. The audience was pleased with hearing the tune
that gets requested at probably every Waterboys-show all over the planet...
I'd rather have seen Rich and Mike return for another take of "Sweet thing"
or TITS. It wasn't meant to be tonight as this truly was a 100% rock-show.
Not for many things in the world would I have wanted to miss this one!

After the show Stephan decided to leave soon so it was good-bye-time. Roland
and me wanted to stay a little bit longer and say hello to Mike and the
band. I had almost convinced Roland that it would be no use staying in the
venue any longer as we'd soon be thrown out when suddenly I saw Mike at the
front of the stage. We made our way back to the stage, simply ignoring the
security guys, and found that Mike was busy autographing all sort of things.
One thing you shouldn't do though is request an autograph on a box of
cigarettes - it's useless! Not sure if he would sign a Versace-shirt though.
;-)

During the show I had a feeling that Mike was quite pissed of by the
drunkard and the noisy audience in the acoustic set but he proved me wrong
when he said that he really enjoyed tonights show. We certainly did! He
confirmed the Rockpalast-gig as the "last show of the tour" and this
certainly made a very early X-mas-present for the writer of these lines.
Anyway, as good as living close to Cologne seems to be at the moment (4
shows within reach this year!) there seems to be a remote chance that
Ireland should be the place to be in the next year! Watch this space for
more details soon, irish waterpeople!

After a friendly good-bye to Mike and, not much later, to Roland it was a
long trip over dark and lonely Autobahnen, but with an absolutely good
feeling of having seen the best version of SEH every played and knowing
about the opportunity to see the band again in only 3 weeks. At 3am I fell
into my bed and was asleep sooner than you can say "Corn circles"...