Feng Shui, piano premiere and the gods wanting more

Jim Kroft – Die Wohnemeinschaft, Cologne; October 28th 2022

The Jim Kroft concert in Cologne was probably the one i had been looking forward to most. Cologne rarely fails me when it comes to concerts and the venue is a nice one too. I wasn’t wrong, it was a really fun show and I loved it. 🙂

Venue and date had been changed short notice and stupidly I expected the concert time to be the same as on the ticket. It wasn’t. My ticket said doors at 7 and thus I got to the venue around 6. Big mistake, i.e. long waiting time ahead. Then again, who knows if a later train would have been on time and I had a book with me. 🙂 Eventually, much closer to 8, more people arrived, Jim came by to hug us hello and soon we got in.

It’s a tiny theater, so there are chairs, but I was really surprised they had not been taken out, because the music is much more suited for a standing up show. Oh well, I’m too old for all that standing anyway so I grabbed a seat at the front. S. and A. were there too as well as some more people I had seen before, but overall it wasn’t a great turnout. It made me a bit sad, I had expected more people.

The band, this night consisting of Jim, Dan and Lucas, walked on stage around 8:45 I think. The first thing Jim noted was that he had a wire pasta salad to offer as all the cables in front of him were very tangled. “We’re gonna have to talk about this whole Cologne sitting down thing!” he added before they started with ‘Obstacles’. It immediately put a smile on my face and I was moving along in my seat.

Jim joked that he came from a land far away between Mordor and Europe, then decided we had to get rid of the chairs and we did move them to the back. Only the sound engineers remained seated, but everyone else got up. Then, and only then it was time for ‘Birthrights’. 😀 The show continued with ‘I hope you know’ and the first sing along for me. This song has always made me happy. <3

The room feng shui was still not right, because a few chairs remained taht needed to be taken away. The funniest thing was that Jim first wondered if the word was “kama sutra”. 😀 He then talked about the last show in Cologne back in 2020 and how great that had been, especially because he had to drink a beer with every song. I thought I’d been there, but I cannot recall that, so maybe it wasn’t one of the shows I’ve been at? Anyway, it was a funny story about a great night at Stereo Wonderland.

The “romantic song about a German train station”, ‘Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse’ followed, story included. 🙂 We then got ‘Beautiful Ways’ and ‘Through my Weakness’, another favorite of mine. In-between songs people left and came back with more drinks, because the bar was in the other room. Especially right at the end of ‘Memoirs from the Afterlife’ someone made an entrance n tune with the drum solo. 😀 Jim also gave shoutouts to old fans and friends in the audience. <3

Some of us got excited and shouted for ‘The Jailer’ so Jim joked that he paid us for it. He told us how one of his friends had told him that all you can do is your best and leave the rest for god and that’s what gave him the idea for the lyrics. We all sang along to this one, always following his lead from singing very quietly and whispering the words to a whole lot louder. It is such a great song! <3

We heard about Jim’s trip to the US, how it felt arriving there and how he thought about the experience of the people arriving there over time, before he played ‘What will you decide America?’ It was lovely and followed by the equally good ‘You’re gonna be someone’.

It was time for faster songs again with ‘The great Doomsday Story’ and ‘Guess that’s what the Gods say’, both with amazing drums. The band sounded perfect that night. 😀 It was a perfect sing-along too. At the end Jim asked Dan what it is the Gods say and he answered “Who knows”. Someone in the audience said “42” and I had to explain “42 as in ‘Hitchhiker’s guide through the Galaxy'”. Next up was ‘Redemption’ and it was awesome.

For ‘Tell me where to begin’ the guitar needed retuning first and then it rocked the house. Jim thanked us all for coming out and talked about how strange the current times are. True. When he announced ‘Waiting for a Healing’ as the last song, S. quipped “The Gods say play longer!” Thus, Jim decided to give the piano as try as a present journalist and friend had said he should just do it. After much ado and talk about it, he sat down and gave us a great version of ‘Elegy for the dead’. It worked really nicely. Then we got ‘Waiting for a Healing’ 😀

Everyone called for an encore and they did come back. First one was ‘Love, Smile and go on’. During the song I happened to look over at Dan and saw he was wiping away a few tears. It is very moving. I guess we all have our own stories about losing loved ones. For the grand finale they gave us ‘Favorite Type of Sinner’, the perfect song to send us on our way.

There was some chatting and hugging after before we said goodbye. What a night, see you again tomorrow. 🙂

pictures of this concert

Setlist

Obstacles
Birthrights
I hope you know
Bahnhof Friedrichstraße
Beautiful Ways
Through my Weakness
Memoirs from the Afterlife
The Jailer
What will you decide America
You’re gonna be someone
The great Doomsday Story
Guess that’s what the Gods say
Redemption
Tell me where to begin
Elegy for the Dead
Waiting for a Healing

Love, Smile and go on
Favourite type of Sinner

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