One day I’ll wake up and I’ll be 38, doing the things I used to hate

Milow – Gelsenkirchen; September 3rd 2010

Milow sings these lines in his song ‘Born in the 80ies’ and while I can relate to the rest of the song, this puzzles me a little. Actually I did turn 38 last month, but I cannot find myself doing things I used to hate. I still do what I love – going to concerts. This past Friday I made my way to the Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen to see Milow.

Every year, I try to see some people in concert that I have never seen before, sometimes they are those that I have wanted to see for a long time, sometimes I just spontaneously choose someone I like. With Milow I didn’t know more than three songs, but I quite like his voice and just thought it might be a nice concert. I was not disappointed.

I arrived an hour before the doors were supposed to open and easily made it to front row. The theatre is beautiful, located right by the canal. While everyone settled in and people across the canal got out their blankets ready for a picnic with music, it was slowly getting dusky.

The stage setup was simple: no big screens, no decoration or fuss. Just “Milow” spelled out in large, white letters. Before he started, however, and darkness fell, we were treated to a wonderful performance by Scottish duo Martin and James. They walked out, took their guitars, announced their name with a thick Scottish accent and played some wonderfully harmonizing songs for us. They sang beautifully and won the audience over in no time. I fell in love with their music right away.

After a short break, Milow came on. His band started playing and he sang from backstage while slowly walking to the front. He started with the new song ‘My Kingdom’ and was greeted enthusiastically. I knew I like his voice. What I didn’t know is that he actually has pretty good lyrics too. The second song ‘Stephanie’ made me feel a bit uneasy for a moment, because it includes the line “Stephanie was killed last night”, but that soon was past and I enjoyed the music.

The band was great and the songs carried a lot of good vibes. In-between, he was telling stories, mostly with a twinkle in his eyes, making us laugh. ‘Canada’ made me smile because of its bold, teenage, tongue in cheek naiveté. For a moment I wanted to believe that moving to Canada and becoming a success would be indeed as easy as it sounded.

Some amazing background singers made the concert even more enjoyable. ‘Out of my hands’ was performed as a duo, ‘Launching ships’ later as a trio, both with sparse instrumentation only. It didn’t matter that I had not known the songs before. Milow sang clearly and I listened. ‘The Priest’ surprised me in ist seriousness and I knew there was a true story teller at work. Finally, the three songs I knew came up, the single ‘You don’t know’, the beautiful and moving ‘Born in the 80ies’ and the hit ‘Ayo Technology’ which was, as Milow put it, his “dedication to gangsta rap”. The response in the audience was wild, everyone was clapping, jumping and singing along.

The encores started with the new song ‘You and me (in my pocket)’. He explained that it was his attempt at writing a love song. It was strange, but very funny. After  the aforementioned ‘Launching Ships’ , he brought Martin and James back on stage for the new song ‘Move to Town’ and it ended with everyone singing ‘Dreamers and Renegades’ acoustically. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and will certainly go and see Milow again.

Setlist

The Kingdom
Stephanie
Until Morning comes
Canada
Darkness ahead and behind
The Ride
One of it
Out of my hands
She might she might
The Priest
You don’t know
Born in the 80ies
Ayo Technology

Encores 
You and me (in my pocket)
Launching ships
Move to Town
Dreamers and renegades

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