The memories they all had passed, but in my head they’ll always last

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Amy Macdonald – Colosseum, Essen; April 1st, 2019

On a rather lovely April evening I found myself at Colosseum theater in Essen to see Amy Macdonald for the second time on her current stripped down acoustic tour and this time nothing was going to make me leave early. It was a beautiful evening throughout where she saved the best songs for last. Everything about this concert was enjoyable and I got the full scale of emotions too.

Having a concert in Essen made me quite happy, because it’s so close to home and easy to get to. I arrived about 30 minutes bfore showstart. The Colosseum theater was a new venue for me and I instantly liked it. There wasn’t much legroom, but otherwise I had a great seat in the second row close to the center. The stage was higher than in Osnabrück, but my view was good so now all I had to do was wait for the show.

By the time Rosborough started almost everyone had found their seats. The two man band played an energetic set that got people cheering loudly. They are good, I can recognize that, but once again their music did not speak to me. It sounds just fine, in fact it should be right up my alley, but somehow it leaves me completely cold. Yet I can’t say the performance is without emotion. Glenn Rosborough and his drummer give everything they have while they play. The songs are sung well and he even talked a little bit about them, joking that Derry, his hometown is only known for people wanting to leave and sharing what inspired ‘Another Lesson’. Yet, I did not get into it at all and felt sorry for not being able to appreciate it. Oh well, they still were a good start to the evening.

Setlist

Fall to Earth
Made of Gold
“I can still feel the heartbreak”
True love will find you in the end (Daniel Johnson cover)
In the Moment
Burn Blue
Another Lesson

During the break I took a quick trip to the merch stand and not only was I almost alone, I got the last remaining T-shirt of the design I loved most. Win! It was a shirt from the previous tour, but who cares? Back in my seat I noticed that the venue was packed now. People were excited for the show to start and some already clapped while the stage was still being set up. I had the feeling this was going to be a good one.

It started a bit slow though. As the band walked out, nobody was cheering. Only when Amy appeared the audience started clapping. During the course of he night, they got much more lively though. 🙂 She kicked off the show with ‘Woman of the World’, beautifully delivered. The sound was perfect and again the lights were gorgeous. I love a well lit gig, where the lighting supports the mood of each song. With ‘Spark’ people where clapping along, while I was moved to tears. The lyrics really hit me that night. Someone near me was singing along off-key, but that didn’t even bother me. 😉

Amy greeted us and joked that the only thing she remembered from her German lessons at school was that “Essen” means “food”. She concluded that was a good name for a place and told us how she was in a great mood, because the day had been beautiful and the venue provided good catering. We heard how ‘Pride’ was inspired by her singing the Scottish national anthem before a football match, but how that did not help their team win. The song was awesome and I think this was the first time that night people jumped out of their seats. Afterwards Amy spoke about Brexit and how much of a mess it is, hoping it will pass and eventually we will all be able to laugh about it. This was followed b ‘The Rise & the Fall’ and I cried again. I could not help it with Amy’s voice and the beautiful arrangements of the songs. It all felt very cathartic. :’)

‘Never too late’ felt very hopeful and I especially loved the piano. After this softer tune, the band rocked the hall with ‘Mr. Rock n Roll’ and everyone was out of their seats again, clapping along and swaying wit the music. I looked around and even the people way i the back and up on the balcony were standing up. 😀 Next we heard how it all began with Amy, how she was going to go to university but took the leap of faith and decided to sign the recording contract she was offered instead, not getting a degree, but trying to be a rock star. It all went well and lead to releasing albums and touring the world. We were all happy she chose to tale that risk, because otherwise we would have missed out on some great music. ‘Dream on’ followed right after ‘Leap of Faith’ and the party in the audience continued.

Afterwards she noted how many people were just seeing there show through their phone. “If you want to film, be my guest, it does not bother me” she told us, but we might be missing out on something and all the songs were already on youTube anyway. The new arrangement of ‘Don’t tell me that it’s over’ that followed sent shivers down my spine. It was absolutely perfect and beyond beautiful. It’s a great song to begin with, but this arrangement is truly special. <3 She spoke about her latest album, a collection celebrating 12 years of making music. It was a really nice sales speech too. I might have to go out and buy it after all. She explained how the new version of  ‘Give it all up’ was exactly how she’d always intended the song to be and she has every reason to be proud of it too.

‘Down by the water’ was amazing as well and gave me a chance to relax and breathe and just enjoy being at this concert, this time without having to watch the time or worrying about not catching the last train home. Before playing the next song she asked us to compare the acoustic setup to the regular shows with the band and it sounded like we all approved of having stripped down shows. She introduced the band and then they proved they could rock even in this setup with ‘Automatic’. It had most people standing up once more and this time I was one of the first people who jumped up. I’ve loved the song from the first time I’ve heard it. ‘Run’ continued the same way and it looked like we were done sitting down for the rest of the night.

We heard about going out with her friends as a teenager and sitting together playing guitar and how shy teenage Amy impressed them with her voice. One morning she did not get home before 6 in the morning and spent the day in her room, not daring to face her mom. She wrote and recording a song then and four or five years later it was on the radio everywhere. “As a result of me behaving badly I was able to buy myself a Ferrari”. 😀 It was ‘This is the Life’ of course and it was a great crowd pleaser. ‘What happiness means to me’ brought the set to a beautiful end. I hadn’t remembered that song existed, but it really spoke to me. I should listen to Amy’s albums more often. It ended in an amazing piano and string outtro, before everyone walked off stage.

Soon they were back and she took a short film of us with her phone to post on her social media. She asked us to pretend that we’d had fun. “It’s for Instagram where it’s all fake anyway”. We made some noise and it looked good too when I saw it the next day. 😀 The next song ‘Left that Body long ago’ was about her grandma, who suffers from Alzheimers and she asked us to sit down for the next one, because it was quiet and sad and we might cry. She was right. It was sad indeed and so loving. The show ended with ‘Life in a beautiful light’ and the always great ‘Poison Prince’ that chased all sadness away and rocked the house one last time. It was a great night overall. 🙂

pictures of this concert

Setlist

Woman of the World
Spark
Pride
The Rise & the Fall
Never too late
Mr. Rock n Roll
Leap of Faith
Dream on
Don’t tell me that it’s over
Give it all up
Down by the water
Automatic
Run
This is the life
What happiness means to me

Left this body long ago
Life in a beautiful light
Poison Prince

I’ve always been a dreamer with my head in the clouds

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Amy Macdonald – Onabrückhalle, Onabrück; March 28th, 2019

I’ve always liked Amy Macdonald, i.e. ever since I stumbled into her concert in 2012, not knowing who she was and wanting to see Martin and James supporting her, I’ve done my best to see one show each tour. So when I heard about special acoustic gigs, I bought a ticket on day one. It was a good decision and not only because concerts with extra strings added seem to be the thing for me this year. I had a wonderful time throughout. 🙂

Getting to Osnabrück was delayed as usual. The trains going towards Hamburg almost always are. The same can’t be said for the trains on the way back though. The earlier one is usually on time, which means missing the encores and the later one is usually delayed which not only means having to spend two hours at the train station or in the vicinity killing time, but also having to take a taxi home once I have reached Dortmund. This night, I chose option one. First I needed to get there though. The 40 minute delay did not make ne happy, but I arrived half an hour before show start. Luckily this was a seated concert.

The hall is familiar to me, but so far I’d only seen general admission concerts there without any seats. This time the stage was lower than that and I had a great view from front row. There were three podiums set up for the band, but I could not yet see which Instruments they would play, because first it was time for support act Glen Rosborough. He was singing as well as playing guitar and he had a drumer with him. I liked his voice and enjoyed the Songs. They had a good beat to it and I think the lyrics weren’t bad either. However, they did not really speak to me. He had just released an EP and told us he ws from Derry and how the second song was about that. I cannot remember the title though. The highlight of his set was the acoustic cover of ‘True love will find you in the end’. Everything else was a good warm up for the concert though. No complaints there.

Setlist

Fall to Earth
?
?
True love will find you in the end (Daniel Johnson cover)
In the Moment
Burn Blue
Another Lesson

It was about 9 pm when Amy and her band stepped on stage. There were no drums, but a guitar, a bass (a stand up one even), a violin, a cello (! :D) and a piano. Looking good so far. They started out with ‘Woman of the World’ and it sounded beautiful. I was smiling already, this was going to be good. 🙂 She told us how she had started making music when she was just a teenager and how this tour was going to bring us songs she especially enjoyed playing live in new arrangements. The show continued with ‘Spark’ and unexpectedly I was in tears. I loved it when songs move me so much that I cry. <3

From the start it was an evening of great music and lots of stories. Amy was more talkative than I remembered her ever being and despite her worry that we might just not understand her Scottish accent I had no trouble with that at all and enjoyed listening. She shared her ‘Pride’ for Scotland, letting us know how she had gotten to sing their national anthem a few times “before we invariably lost at football” and also told us how she loved touring in Germany and was doing it so much she had to be careful not to say “Dankeschön” in other countries. She spoke about Brexit too, what a mess it was and wondered if they could get stuck outside of Britain if it happened while they were on tour noting that it would not be so bad. ‘The Rise and the Fall’ was introduced as being about something completely different, but sounding like she had already known back when she wrote it that Trump and Brexit were to happen. Nobody laughed and she wondered if we did not understand her, because “this was supposed to be lighthearted chatter”. Not so light apparently. 😉

I loved all of it though, the music as well as the stories that gave it context. It was great to hear about life on tour (“I went to bed in Paris and I woke up in Osnabrück”), memories of nice venues and especially about her beginnings. Before ‘Leap of Faith’ we learned that she was supposed to go to university when she got a record contract and decide to just go for it. The university promised to hold a place for her for one year and when they wrote to remind her a year later, her career had already taken off and she never replied. They might still be wondering what became of her. 😉

The new arrangements of the songs were gorgeous and each one was lovely in its own right, some softer and others more powerful. For ‘Automatic’ she told us the were going to rock “As much as you can in an acoustic setup”. I could not sit still and jumped up together with others. It started a revolution of people getting out of their seats for the second time that night. The first time, I think, was during ‘Don’t tell me that it’s over’ and I saw the piano player smile when we did. People going along prompted Amy to tell us about two girls at the back of the balcony that had been dancing since the start and confiding that “sometimes you only play for one person” and tonight was going to be fore them. We also heard about the in-ear monitors blocking out all the sound, but them having some microphones so she could get some atmosphere. This, however, leads to hear “the most obnoxious of you” or “the ones who can’t sing at all” 😀

It was a fun night and despite the monitors someone asked a question. She joked “Is this a q & a now?” but answered anyway. Inquiring minds wanted to know why she had colored her hair and the answer was that the blond covers grey much better and then dark hair required a touch up every week. I nodded, this is very familiar to me. All of her talking was very relatable and made me feel like I was getting to know her a little. <3 Between playing her amazing music she shared the happiness and also the stress of life as a musician and how much pressure was put on her as she started out. It must have been quite overwhelming to have been on tour for to years and be expected to have an album ready.

I don’t want to repeat everything she said, but at the end of the evening I had a much better image of Amy than before and liked her even better than I already had. It sounds like all she did was talk, but the main thing were her wonderful songs. The setlist was as perfect as it gets, with so many of my favorites in there. Some songs sounded close to how they usually are, at least as far as I remembered, but others were vastly different and this mixture was very enjoyable for me. I did not remember many of the lyrics, so there was not much singing along on my part. Just listening for a change was a very nice experience though.

Towards the end of the set she mentioned how her mum is very much a pessimist, explaining while some people’s glasses are half full and other people’s are half empty “my mum’s glass is shattered on the floor”. 😀 Thus, she learned to always expect the worst, which comes in handy, because you often get pleasantly surprised if you do. It made sense to me and ‘Prepare to fall’ drove the point home. 🙂 The last song of the main set that I heard was ‘This is the Life’, always a fan favorite.Again, people were out of their seat and judging by what I saw it was everyone this time. It sure is the perfect song to dance to and many were moving wit the music.

Unfortunately I had a train to catch, so I left when it got momentarily dark after it was over. I would have loved to stay and felt sorry I had to go, but at least I got the perfect sent off. I had loved all of the show up to this point and was really happy about the fact that I was going to have another one after the weekend. That thought made up for missing the last few songs. Still humming, I made my way to the train station and had music playing in my head all the way home. Thank you Amy, I cannot wait to see you again in Essen!

Setlist

Woman of the World
Spark
Pride
The Rise & the Fall
Never too late
Mr. Rock n Roll
Leap of Faith
Dream on
Don’t tell me that it’s over
Give it all up
Down by the water
Automatic
Run
Prepare to fall
This is the life
What happiness means to me

Left this body long ago
Life in a beautiful light
Poison Prince