Ezio – Zentrum Altenberg, Oberhausen; October 26th, 2017
It had been almost two years since I’d last seen Ezio play and I was looking forward to this concert. Originally it was scheduled for the spring but was moved to October and finally happened. The venue was nicely filled, the band was in a good mood and I was happy to be here. these guys have been a guarantee for an entertaining evening for as long as I’ve known them and once again they delivered. It was a great night of new and familiar songs, singing along, banter and simply good times that made me go home with a smile.
After a long day at the office I met my friend J. at the train station and we made our way to Oberhausen. There weren’t many people waiting when we got there and it was easy to score a good spot. there were high tables and chairs set up at the venue which I have never seen there before. It reminded me of Colos-Saal in Aschaffenburg. We waited around, I bought the latest CD ‘Daylight Moon’ and the place slowly filled up. J. noted that there weren’t many young people around. He was right, the audience has grown older with the band.
Shortly after eight they started playing, making two guitars sound a powerful as a much larger band. The sound was great, the audience was immediately into it and it felt as if waves of good vibes bounced back and forth between us and the band. They greeted us and Ezio said he believed it was their first time in Oberhausen and some of us told him that it wasn’t so he claimed they’d been looking forward to coming back. It got even funnier when it turned out they’d been to the same venue. No wonder it had felt familiar. 🙂 Pretty soon he asked us what to play next and someone called for ‘Cinderella’. Good choice!
The first new song of the night was ‘Dirty little Secret’ and I immediately loved it. I can’t remember details of the lyrics yet, but they went straight to my heart. The same happened with every new song they played that night. I already have a great feeling about this album. 🙂 Ezio thanked us for coming despite one out of two people in Britain voting for Brexit. he later told us that he does not feel qualified to comment on politics but wanted to say that in the last two years “everything has gone to shit”. I kinda agree, this world has certainly gone crazier. There were quite a few remarks about aging during the night from claiming that the music his daughter listens to is horrible to noting that we all looked younger in selfies from 25 years ago. All except for him that is. 😉 It was the perfect mixture of light and serious where you laugh about it, but in the back of your mind think “Actually, he is right” which makes it even funnier. 😀
I was surprised when we got to hear ‘The Angel Song’ – people always request it, but it does not get played all that much. This time, someone asked Ezio before the show even started and he obliged. It was a great rendition too. The song selection could not have been any better. Just the right mixture of fast, powerful songs and slower, softer ones. With ‘Deeper’ we got a great sing along going – Ezio gesturing while we formed the words. It worked well, I am sure most people there had seen the band before. I know I wanted to come back after I’d first seen them live and so far most people I’ve met at the gigs are repeat offenders. 😉
They were both in a good mood with Ezio talking a lot from jokingly complaining about everyone walking past the CDs on the way in to a list of German words they like and other stories. Not only did we learn that “If you don’t buy CDs we are gefickt,” but also different terms describing fat people in the UK and how nice “Dicker” sounds in comparison. I laughed a lot that night, especially at the short improvised song questioning if lemons have legs and stating that otherwise a canary had just been squeezed into a drink. Ewwww 😀
Quite a few times J. and I looked at each other with a smile. This was just as good as the first time we had seen them all those years ago we both enjoyed being there. 🙂 When they asked for more requests I could not remember for the life of me the name of a certain song – long after the gig I realized it was ‘Song for the tempted’, but we did not get to hear that one. Luckily there are so many great ones to choose from. I loved ’30 and confused’ and I’ve always enjoyed ‘The further we stretch’ (funny participatory dance included) and ‘Saxon Street’, but one of the highlights for me was a new song called ‘Indian’. It deals with the feeling you get when you’re getting older that some things just do not make so much sense any more and the stuff happening on a daily basis in this world can get confusing. I loved it.
With ’59 Yards’ we were asked to sing along to the “One day I’m going to die” line, high and low and in different styles. Ezio joked that he was concerned about us doing better with the high singing and how hormones in the water might affect the guys so they can’t sing low any more. Well that or tight pants. 😉 It was fun and very funny too, especially Booga singing the line James Brown style. I could not get enough of watching and listening to them.
Once they walked off stage (to party with girls in Bikinis in big cars as they claimed) we managed to all them back twice for encores. They gladly played more and at one point I thought we might even get a third one, but it was over. No need to be greedy, they played for about two hours. 🙂 We did not stay long as we had a train to catch, but agreed we should do this more often. The night was exactly what we had hoped for – good music and good fun. Thank you, Ezio and Booga. See you next time!
Setlist (out of order, incomplete, possibly incorrect too)
Hotel Motel
Cinderella
Dirty little Secret
Daylight Moon?
The Angel song
Deeper
Just to talk to you again
Everybody forgets sometimes / Braver than you are
30 and confused
The further we stretch
Indian
Bad bad Place
Darkness?
Waiting for too long?
59 yards
Saxon Street
Thousand years
One more walk around the dance floor