Robbie Williams – Cologne; August 9th 2006

After too little sleep I found myself at the Jahnwiesen for the second time in two days, this time at the back entrance. Weather was nice so I sat down at the end of the queue and waited. People who had been there the previous day told me how relaxed everything was on that side. Nice. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case today. Again around 9:00 a.m. everyone jumped up and ran so I made it to second row. The security people were rather pissed off by that which didn’t make things any better. About 12:30 a.m. they finally let us on the grass in front of the entry gates in small groups so we could sit down and relax. They finally handed out wristbands for the pit as well.

I had a great spot, second person at my gate and was hoping for front row – these
hopes got shattered when we saw people running in from other gates while ours weren’t even open yet. By the time I actually got to the pit the first 3, 4 rows were already taken and I decided to stand close to the platform at the end of the catwalk this time. I was about 5 rows back and actually had a good view and everything was quite nice as long as we sat down.

Around 5:30 p.m. rain set in and most people got up. Now the pushing and shoving started and instead of enjoying Orson or the Basement Jaxx I had to spend all my energy defending my spot against girls who tried to squeeze in front of me.

Of course when the fireworks started and Rob came up right in front of me I forgot all about that. I could see him rather well and managed to take some great pictures. Once again he spent a lot of time on the catwalk and platform so I did not have to look on the screen all that much. Again, the show is a big blur. I know it was good, but I liked Tuesday better. Robbie seemed tired and less energetic and he did not play “Kids” in the end.

I remember laughing when he commented a sign saying “We would like to meet you backstage” with: “There is nobody backstage. I am here. You’ll miss the show.” He also commented “nice tits” on huge plastic boobs someone brought along and picked up a flag from the audience again.

When Jonny came on stage, Robbie decided his name was not ‘celebrity’ enough and renamed him to ‘Troy’ for the night. Robbie won the footie competition again since the balls got lost and the audience had to vote. The count was 10:8 for Jonathan then. For their competition which half of the audience was loudest they did not sing this time but yelled names of German footballers and aimed for the loudest screams in answer to that. It got very funny when they were raking their brains for more names and finally came up with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Robbie) and Rudi Völler (Jonny).

Before “Back for Good” he talked to a little girl in front row. She was 11 and so in awe she didn’t say much. Robbie struggled to understand her name but finally gave up. Her mom was not that impressed and admitted that she didn’t like Take that but had liked Robbie. The girl was very cute indeed.

The show was solid, setlist as usual with Rudebox getting a great response once again. No “Kids” this time. Seemed like Robbie wanted to get out of the rain instead of playing one more song. The day before he had promised us he he would not be this energetic today and he was right. It was still a very enjoyable concert.

Setlist

Radio
Rock DJ
Tripping
Monsoon
Sin Sin Sin
Millennium
Make Me Pure
Me and My Shadow
Strong
Back for Good (Take That cover)
Advertising Space
Come Undone (outro: Take a Walk on The Wild Side)
Feel

Encore:
Let Me Entertain You
Rudebox
Angels