Europe 1998 |
15.07.00 |
Following on from the Swiss and Italian dates in February 1998, Midge (and band - see below) enjoyed a highly successful tour of Germany and Austria... Midge
(vocals,
electric guitar and acoustic guitar) Dates and venues were as follows:- |
Lubeck
(29.05.98) The venue in Lubeck was truly terrific, nicely located in a park beside the city centre, an open amphi-theatre, very nice - but dusty, too... The audience though were VERY strange, they all SAT DOWN at the back of this seated arena, so the few of us who had already been to one or more of the shows built the first two rows all by ourselves... When Midge came on stage, the first thing he said was: "What are YOU doing back there?! Come on, come to the front!" He kept saying this throughout the show but the people hardly moved. It was only towards the end of the show that Mr Ure managed to charm them into coming forward. Those of us who were at the front had a great time. I was stood with Mike Lubek and some of his friends. Technically, not much worked at the first try... for instance, Midge's electric guitar failed more than once particularly when he wanted to start playing "The Chieftain", but he was in a very good mood so this didn't really spoil the atmosphere, neither on nor off the stage! Midge had mentioned at the beginning of the show that it felt odd that he could actually SEE his audience - because of local authority rules the show had to start at 20:30 pm and finish at 22:00 pm. This meant that it was still daylight when the gig opened - At one point, Midge even said "Of course, I could call Bob Geldof now and ask him to tell God to turn off the light now.." - which was quite funny... Oh, and when Troy played his uilleann pipe intro for Fade To Grey, it came across just brilliantly. Midge stood on stage looking at him in pure amazement - and rightly so, such clear and pure tones, wonderfully played... When Midge introduced the band, he usually introduced Dave as being a Scotsman - Midge would then raise his clenched fist and shout "Freedom!" (as if he were William Wallace)! To see picture click here. Well, this time, we expected this - and an acquaintance of Mike, yelled this loudly before Midge could do so. Midge stopped in the middle of the motion, looked bewilderingly into the audience, started to grin and encouraged the crowd to do this once again - and there we were, like 50 people in the front, shouting "Freedom!" for Scotland raising our fists in unison with Mr. Ure - it was GREAT!!! After the show, there were roughly 20 people waiting for the band to come out. Troy proved to be very popular and he took out one of his instruments and standing at the backstage door, he played a little extra on his tin whistle... Josh then came out to give autographs and finally, after Russell and Dave had come out, Midge appeared. He really took a lot of time to speak to all the people and have pictures taken etc. Everyone then wished them a good night...and that was the end of another tour... |