Martin and James – Sud, Basel; May 22nd, 2012

Sitting at Zurich airport at 5:50 a.m., running on about 2 hours of sleep and trying to grasp what has happened this past weekend. It was quite a ride from Friday’s small in store gig in Cologne to last night’s concert in Basel, filled with lovely music, good friends and great memories. Now, once again it is time to go back to real life.

After the Zurich gig I didn’t sleep much. The music was still ringing in my head and I was replaying all the happy moments on my mind. It had been an amazing night. I wasn’t all that happy when my alarm announced it was time to wake up, but C. had to go to work and of course I left with her. Had a bit of tea, said goodbye to the cats and set out for Baden. Took a train from there to Zurich, checked in to my hotel and met K. for breakfast. I would have much preferred staying in Basel, but from there it would just not have been possible to make it to the airport on time. Had planned to take a nap, but never did, walked around Zurich for a while, then caught a train to Basel and met K. again for some sightseeing there. Beautiful cities, both of them. We met B. for dinner and went to the venue. Much like the previous night we were there alone for quite some time. If was fine though, we had a nice sofa to sit on and passed the time chatting.

Doors opened shortly before 8:00 p.m. The venue was really nice, bigger and nowhere near as warm as the one in Zurich. They had tables and chairs set up, but we went to the front row anyway. The place filled slowly but never became crowded. If I recall correctly I counted about 60 people a while before the concert started. Just before it did, B. decided to sit down so people behind us would be able to see. Only C., K. and I remained in the front row. It was a bit weird, but I would not have moved to a table. I don’t like sitting down at concerts. Having only so few people around had the advantage of being able to walk around and take pictures. I even got a few nice shots from the balcony to my right.

Once again they started with ‘The Rope’ followed by ‘Turn it up’ and ‘Maybe it’s time’. They had to work much harder to take over the audience than they did the previous night. We did our best to help them along, but often we were the only ones clapping. Much to our delight, ‘With Fire’ had stayed on the setlist – K. and sang along happily.

Early on Martin apologized about having a cold and not singing too well. They left out a few songs he sings the lead on and replaced them with songs where James sings the lead. We had wanted to ask for ‘Bloom’, which wasn’t on the setlist this time, but when we heard Martin struggling we decided not to. He still sang amazingly well, just tried to rest his voice a little. He joked about men not being able to deal with having a cold. “When women get a cold, they still work and everything. When men get a cold they just die.” We got a good laugh out of that. 😀

The guys had a lot of friends attending the concert and thanked them for coming out. They also thanked us for following them everywhere. ‘I have to fall’, ‘All over the News’ and ‘Crashing into Love’ finally got the crowd going a bit, but overall they were rather subdued. I think they enjoyed though, because they clapped and cheered a lot between songs. I enjoyed the concert, but kept hoping for a bit more participation.

For the encored they started with ‘Life’s a show’ and then brought out ‘Walz’. That one always makes me happy. 😀 We also got to hear ‘What I’m searching for’ again. James commented that they’d had the lyrics, but one of us (meaning K. and me) stole them and now he had to try it from memory. He did well though and I loved the song just as much as the previous night. ‘Somebody’ ended the concert once again, but then the audience managed to call them back to he stage and ‘Dream’ became the last song that night. So the gig was much different from Zurich, but also great. C. was happy she had decided to come with us again.

We stayed and chatted a bit, then said hello to the guys. K. asked James to write down the chorus for ‘What I’m searching for’, because it was not on the lyrics sheet and he did. I had to leave soon after and said goodbye to me friends. Martin was deep in conversation, but I still managed to say a quick goodbye and got a hug. I told him to take good care of his voice and get well. Last I hugged James goodbye and left for the train station. Riding on the train into the night I smiled at the wonderful memories.

Setlist

The Rope
Turn it up
Maybe it’s time
With Fire
Wrong Directions
Hard to cry
Live Wires
She’s light guiding
Bad Dream
You’re alive
I have to Fall
All over the news
Crashing into Love

Encore
Life’s a Show
What I’m searching for
Waltz
Somebody

Dream