WaterboysFans - Review

THE WATERBOYS, REES
20TH NOVEMBER 2000
REVIEW BY MICHAEL MOENSTERS

Life's pretty hectic in the Mönsters-family right now and Monday was no
exception. As my wife had to work in the afternoon I could only leave home
at 6pm to make my trip west to Rees which is about 90mins. away from my
hometown. I was lucky, the Autobahn was quite empty so I got to Rees at
7.15, still late for my appointment with Niels and Harry, who came from the
Netherlands to see the show. As we found out later their journey was appr.
as long as mine!

Coming to Rees is a strange thing. You leave the highway and drive through a
landscape of absolutely nothing, you follow the signs and think that the
road is just about to end within the next few seconds. There were no signs
for the venue (Stadthalle) so I decided to drive to the city-centre and ask
someone there. As I went into a Döner-hall (turkish fast food) there already
were some other fans who answered my request for the Stadthalle with
pointing outside the window and saying "It's over there, in the Bürgerhaus".

The Bürgerhaus looked rather like a place where students would celebrate
their final exams but not like a rock'n'roll-venue. Anyway, in I went and
tried to find Niels and Harry, whom I hadn't met before. Finally it was
Niels who came to me and asked "Bist du Michael?" and so we found each
other.

I had a great time with both of them, we discussed Harry's dislike for WAJ
and how strange this venue seemed to be. At that time it wasn't even filled,
there must have been 50-100 people in the room. Anyway, the stage was big
enough, the sound-conditions seemd to be quite excellent and I always
dreamed about a cosy intimate Waterboys-show. If only there was a larger
crowd!

Harry and Niels told me that they arrived in Rees much earlier and met the
band when they were heading for the soundcheck. They had some nice
conversation with all of them and made Adam Snyder very happy with
recognizing him and asking him to do a request in his set.

When Adam got on stage there probably were a hundred more in the audience
but they didn't pay much attention to him playing. It was quite annoying to
hear them talk so loud throughout the songs. We made our way to the
stage-front (no pushing, no hurrying as there simply was no one to push!). I
never got that easily to the front being that late at a concert!
Adam dedicated the song Harry requested to "the 2 dutch guys" - if I
remember rightly it was a Dylan-cover? Adam played his set bravely and left
the stage with giving us a thumbs up for our support. I must admit that I
wasn't too impressed by his songs that night but it certainly was a nice man
to meet and at Cologne I already liked his songs much better. But that's
another story.

Now there was only the  intro-tape between us and a certainly spectacular
performance of the band in most bizarre surroundings.

Perfectly on time only Mike entered the stage and gave as a rendition of
"Malediction". Very much like I heard it before in Scotland (i.e. good), but
I'm not sure if it's a good show-opener. After that the band came on stage
and the first sounds of the theremin electrified the air and LIH blew us
away. Very beautiful with the changes in speed and dynamics.
Next there was a very early MLIMR and what a version it was! While listening
to it I remembered what Peter wrote about the sound filling the entire room
and now I know what he meant! Perfect!
Next in line there were GS, ISC and All the things which were performed very
well too. I may add at this time that the venue was now rather filled and we
had trouble guessing how many people were in the audience. Harry's guess at
382 was probably right although I read a review in the newspaper today
saying it were 800. I can hardly believe this.

The next highlight was a fantastic electrified Strange boat. It is
transformed now from a nice little tune to an anthem of enormous power and a
goosebump-ending with Mike singing "We're sailing on a strange boat" again
and again while stepping away from the microphone.

The next climax was just about to follow with a HUGE Return of Pan. Mike got
really wild on the electric on this one - it was incredible. I was hoping
for him to launch into The Pan within as he played the melody of TPW at the
end of his solo but the song ended shortly after that. But somehow I felt
TPW could have been an anticlimax after this...
Charlatan was dedicated to Charlie Chaplin and next was a breathtaking
version of DDTW - what was really great about this performance was Mike's
playing with the theremin on this one. Not only did it sound good but it
also looked GREAT!

The acoustic set went down well with His word, When ye and Wind in the
wires. The latter was a little bit disappointing as IMO it was not as good
as the performances Mike and Rich played in Scotland. The others thought it
was good though.

The next surprise came when the rest of the band entered the stage again:
CROWN. It was a stupendous rocker and could only be followed by his majesty
SEH itself. The crowd got really wild with this one and rightly so. It was a
long and powerful version which left little to be desired. As far as I was
concerned the show could have ended here and I'd have rated it as a truly
great gig. We heard a "Gute Nacht" from Mike but of course the crowd was
quite electrified by now and saw the band come back on stage for an encore
of DBTD (very good, but not as out of this world as I hoped for - I guess

I'm just a spoilt brat... ;-) ) and TWOTM. Again it was "Auf Wiedersehen"
and we cheered for more. Even Harry and Niels decided to yell "Zu-ga-be"
which is the same as "we want more" in german. I learned that night that
dutch audiences have no own words for this but always use the english
chant - even for dutch bands!

Of course there was a second encore for the fired up crowd and they got a
fine WAJ (which Harry was pleased not to have heard up to then and I hadn't
even noticed to miss from the setlist so far!) and a cracking Be my enemy.
Very funny episode was that at the "obviously you!"-bit Mike and Harry
pointed at each other exactly at the same time. Gave Mike and us all a huge
grin! They finally left the stage but we would not stop shouting for more
and so were really enthusiastic upon seeing Mike's head (and the rest of him
;-) ) coming out again. Accompanied by Richard they did an acoustic encore.

Niels guess was FB but I was just hoping for TITS and right! There it was,
in all its glory and beautifully delivered. What a song! Not enough with
this, they even finished the show off with a nice version of FB with Mike
singing the fiddle-bit.

That was the end to this really remarkable gig in the most bizarre
surroundings and with the most wonderful music. We were pretty speechless
afterwards as we were so overwhelmed and exhausted. Meeting Mike and the
others afterwards was not that easy as we were quite soon "thrown out" by
security because the roadies should work without any interruption by fans
standing in the way...

Anyway, after a lenghty wait we met Adam Snyder first and had a nice
conversation with him. He was pleased to meet some "familiar" faces and said
that the shows in Portugal and Spain were really incredible (Hi Rui and
Cris!).

We finally met Mike and Richard who were very pleased with the show and the
audience themselves. We had some fun about Versace-clothing and politically
over-correct fans. Mike was really upset as he considers all of his idols to
be very keen on good clothing, naming the Stones, Beatles, Dylan and the
Clash in particular. We agreed that there's no such thing as a clothing-rule
for good rock-bands.

Cas, I tried to give Richard a kiss from you but we finally agreed that
sending my love from her to him should be enough for now...
Funny thing was that Mike asked me where I had been at the show. When I told
him that I was standing right in front of him at the stage he couldn't
believe it. Obviously blinded by the lights...

As Mike and Richard were quite tired after "playing our balls off for you!"
we left for our cars and a journey home through the dark but with light in
our heads...

They had played their whole repertoire except for BEAI so there was little
left for me to be desired for the upcoming shows in Cologne and Frankfurt.
How dead wrong I was (just to make you curious may I say "Sweet thing"?)! To
be continued...