Amy MacDonald – E-Werk, Cologne; March 8th 2017
My fourth Amy MacDonald concert started with a test of my patience since my train to get there was 45 minutes late. In the end I got a good spot anyway and Amy more than made up for it. It was a beautiful night full of amazing music. She’s one of the people whose music can instantly lift me up and take me to a different place. So far she has always moved me and made me forget everything else. Last night was no different. I loved it.
The E-Werk is a nice venue and once I made it inside I first checked out the front row, where I could have gotten a place on the far left side in front of the speakers. Instead, opted for going upstairs and it was absolutely the right decision. The wait wasn’t long. Before it was even 8, one man with great Rasta hair walked on stage, introduced himself as Newton Faulkner, grabbed a guitar and started playing. I immediately liked what a heard. He had a nice voice and good songs. He spoke a bit of German and announced every song as “This is another song”. 😀 After a while he got us to clap and sing along and then even played us some new and unfinished stuff. Cool. He joked that we were too quiet and after one song he told us that this was as high as he could go and he would not do it again. I enjoyed his set and was wondering if I should buy a CD. Then, however, he butchered Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. It wasn’t that he sang badly, but the way he did it did not work for me at all and so I was left a little bit unhappy.
Luckily, changing of the stage was quick and at 9 pm, the band and last but not least Amy walked on stage. I had a great view from where I stood and two songs in I was already lost in the music. 😀 She started the show with ‘Under Stars’, the title song of her new album and as soon as she started singing I remembered why it is always such a joy to see her. Her voice is so amazing and she has so much charisma that she immediately draws you in. 🙂 I had expected her to play mostly the new album, but instead the concert was a mix of all of them and continued with ‘Don’t tell me that it’s over’. It had people dancing already. 🙂 ‘Spark’ was next and then she announced she felt like she’d been running and needed to slow down a little.
A story followed about writing the next song when she was 15 alone in her room feeling misunderstood and with no thought of ever playing it on any stage. She just wanted to write about how she felt then and say a word to the adults around who had no idea about the young people. She told us how then she wrote the song for people her age and by now, 15 years later she’d turned into one of the people she wrote about and that the song had grown up with her. ‘Youth of today’ was beautiful. It is one of the songs I did not recall, having not listened to much of her music lately, but I thoroughly enjoyed it like everything else.
After ‘Mr. Rock & Roll’ came ‘Dream on’ the first single from ‘Under Stars’ and only the second song of the album. By then I was wondering how many we’d get to hear and if she’d play my favorites at all. Of course I have favorites on the other albums too and was loving the setlist so far. The band was the same one as in previous years or at least they looked familiar to me and just as great as they were when I’d seen them before. I smiled, I clapped along and by now I had completely forgotten how irritated I was with my train being late and all. It was beautiful.
For ‘Slow it down’ she announced she needed our help singing because it sounded so much better with many voices. She first tried it out with the people on the floor, then turned to the balcony. Being happy with both our sing alongs she tried to make it a contest between the floor and the balcony, but while the people in front of the stage sand loud and clear we completely failed and she was like “What was THAT?”. It was all good fun though and worked out perfectly during the song. 🙂
At some point there was a short break and when she walked back to the front she told us both her shoelaces had been untied and she feared she’d fall so she had to tie them. Since everyone clapped she joked that’s she’d never been applauded for tying her shoelaces before and that she’d miss the applause the next time around. For ‘4th of July’ Amy explained that it was about her first ever vacation in the US and how it was upbeat on the album but now they’d turned into a slow sad song – “You can all guess why.” It was a beautiful acoustic version. 🙂 ‘Pride’ was also an acoustic number accompanied by the story about Scotland never being able to win the football world championship, but about the German coach saying in an interview the German team was listening to her music so she must have helped us win. “This is as close as I’m ever gonna get to being world champion”. 😀
There were some technical issue along the line and she joked about not being able to do stand up comedy to entertain us. Not needed, your stories are just fine! She also noted how hot it was in the room and how she brought the Scottish weather, thanking us for coming out on such a rainy night. My pleasure! I could not have imagined anything better to do on International Women’s Day than hearing an amazing woman like Amy perform. 🙂
Amy told us ‘Listen to the Music’ was a cover song and if we didn’t know it we could still sing along, because the chorus was just one line repeated over and over. I don’t think I’d heard it before,but quite liked it and the sing along was indeed easy. 🙂 After a great version of ‘Poison Prince’ I finally got the song I had been waiting for all night: ‘Automatic’. It feels like it has been written about my life and speaks to me on several levels. I fully expected it to make me cry, but it didn’t. I loved it though and finally knew I’d be fully happy going home, because I#d heard my song.We learned that it is going to be the next single so I#ll be on the lookout for the video. ‘Love Love’ felt a lot lighter after that, but hat might just be because I do not relate to that song so strongly.
‘The Rise and the Fall’ had an interesting story to it. I had liked the song right away, but never thought about the contents to much or wondered what it might have been written about. Amy explained that people often think it was written about current politics, but it was actually about her favorite TV show. Then she went on about how it is starring Kevin Spacey and how he s so evil there, you’d never expect him to become president, but he does. So, you like ‘House of Cards’ then. It mad me smile for a moment, because i liked the British original better, but I must admit I never even finished the first season of the US remake. Either way, the song is great.
‘Run’ and ‘This is the Life’ followed and I briefly tried counting how many songs from the current album we’d heard so far and if there’d be any more. I really wanted to hear ‘The Contender’ too, but that wish was not granted to me. It did not matter, the setlist was great either way, a perfect mix from all of the albums. 🙂 ‘Never too late’ and ‘Life in a beautiful Light’ ended the main set. I checked my watch and barely had time to take a breath before Amy was already back on stage.
She performed ‘Prepare to fall’ acoustically and on her own, telling us it was all a lot more intimidating without the band behind her and how she could never go out all alone for a full set like Newton Faulkner did. No need to worry, it was awesome! So were the lights. They had been beautiful all night, but for this song they were especially great. <3 After that I went downstair, because I knew I’d have to hurry to catch my train right after the show. Thus, I heard the last two songs from the back of the room, the slower ‘Down by the water’ that somehow summed up the mood of the whole night and then the powerful ‘Let’s start a Band’ to send us home on a high note. She thanked us for a sold out show and it was over. Thank you Amy, it was amazing and I will gladly come back next time!
And yes, I had to run to make it to my train, but make it I did and it was totally worth it. Until next time..
Setlist
Under Stars
Don’t tell me that it’s over
Spark
Youth of today
Mr. Rock & Roll
Dream on
Slow it down
4th of July (acoustic)
Pride (acoustic)
Listen to the Music (The Doobie Brothers cover) (acoustic)
Poison Prince
Automatic
Love Love
The Rise and Fall
Run
This is the Life
Never too late
Life in a beautiful Light
Encore
Prepare to Fall (Amy solo acoustic)
Down by the Water
Let’s start a Band