(5/12/03) From Ute:

Hannover impressions: All right so where do I begin. How about at the beginning :). We hadn't really intended to go to Hannover, a bit less than 200 miles from here, but decided to go almost on the spur of the moment - when we found out, on Tuesday afternoon, that there were still some good tickets to be had. I know some of you are Macca-spoiled, but for me 6th row was a dream come true!

The plan was for Andreas and me to catch a train at 4pm (I was at school till 3.20pm), then meet Kate and my friend Claudia, who was already in Hannover, at the arena, and go back after the show in Claudia's car. I was so scared we would miss the train, or the train would be delayed and we'd miss part of the show .... can't tell you how relieved I was when we were safely on the train, and it was on time! And even more relieved when Claudia, who was going to pick up our tickets at the box office, called to say they were indeed sixth row in front of the stage!

Kate had been in Hannover since Tuesday, so she saw Paul arrive at the arena - but that's her own story - and afterwards went to meet Claudia. The two of them sat in Claudia's car for a while and from what they told me later, Kate was really nervous because she didn't have a floor ticket. We had tried to exchange her ticket for a floor one - she was perfectly willing to pay for the upgrade - but the people at the arena said nope, can't do that, so we had decided to smuggle Kate in.

Andreas and I arrived at the main station at around 6.40pm, then had to catch the subway to the arena. On the platform we met the first Macca fans, and then the subway was full of them and we had a nice Macca chat. There were some casual fans there who seemed pretty bemused when another die-hard fan and I exchanged our Macca experience stories :).

Kate and Claudia were waiting for us at the arena, and Kate was getting more nervous by the minute. She got her camera through security but was so scared she wouldn't be able to access the floor area! But we had a perfectly laid-out plan. The three of us - Claudia, Andreas and I - would go in with our tickets, then I would come out again with two tickets, give one to Kate, we'd both go in and she'd grab a seat that hadn't been taken. In the end it turned out we didn't need a plan - there was no security at the doors and she could just walk right in with us. There even was a seat right next to us, but that was claimed later - but there were still a few other ones in our block, and she ended up in fourth row, center stage!!

End of part one ...... intermission .......

end of intermission - beginning of part two ....

This time I was able to concentrate on the pre-show - in Cologne I was too nervous, too afraid the people whose seats we had usurped would turn up. And for Andreas, it was the first time he'd seen the pre-show - from his nosebleed seat in Cologne he hadn't seen a thing! Then - the famous silhouette. I jumped up, so did most of the others in our block. I was happy - thought they were ready to party. Yeah well, after Jet they all sat down again - except for a few women in front of me, which meant I wouldn't have been able to see more of Paul than just his head if I had remained sitting. So - I spent the concert on my feet, dancing and singing, and nobody complained! Probably because I'm very slim, even the people behind me were still able to see I guess :). And the fact that for the first part of the show I was one of the few people standing made Paul notice me - I had a white sign, saying 'You Rock! Thanx' in blue and red letters, and he acknowledged that a few times during the show, nodding and grinning at me, and again after the encores, when I was standing right at the stage barriers and made some nice eye contact. Great :)). I was standing right in front of Brian during the show, and of course he acknowledged my sign too. Plus - I had my three minutes of fame (or rather my sign had) when after Hey Jude the band started saying their good-byes. My sign was on all the huge screens in the arena then.

As for the audience - Kate thought it was better than the first Cologne one and not quite as good as the second Cologne one. I hate to say it, but it seems the average German needs some time to warm up. It wasn't until the second part of the show that he really brought the house down, and that was definitely not Macca's or the band's fault! As always, the Beatles songs got a lot more crowd reaction than the solo stuff, but then I think a lot of casual fans here really aren't that familiar with his post-Beatles catalog :(. But all in all the crowd was pretty good, and really went wild near the end of the show. Paul left out some of his jokes because from a non-English-speaking audience obviously he doesn't get the reaction he is used to from the US and UK shows. He also spoke less German than in Cologne.

Ok I guess you want to know more about the man himself :). He was wearing the red tee and baggy jeans, but a dark jacket this time. I thought it was dark grey, but Claudia and Andreas both insist it was black, with an embroidered hem. Need I mention that he was wearing the No More Landmines tee for the encores? And yes he ran across the stage with the German flag, he told the Jakob der Rabe story, the black turtleneck one, the Blackbird one, the ukulele one. He did not pretend to bungle lyrics this time - left that out - but really bungled some lyrics instead :). The first few lines of We can work it out were so hopelessly wrong that they didn't even make sense anymore - some of the sounds he made weren't even English words anymore - so funny! He just grinned and got the rest of the lyrics right. I loved that little episode! I was seriously worried when he did Blackbird. He croaked a bit and sounded like me when I have a cold and lose my voice - well ok he didn't really sound like me, I can't sing for toffee, but you know what I mean. He recovered nicely, you didn't notice anything when he was doing the rockers, but his voice did sound strained during the ballads and I'm glad he can rest today. Should be fine for the Copenhagen show tomorrow! Oh and he did one new thing that made the audience laugh - he suddenly launched into a very strange song - sounded like an old folk song or something, definitely not his own stuff and totally not his style - sang a line or two, shook his head, grinned, said no that's not the one, and launched into his next song (and I can't for the life of me remember which one :) ). He got a good laugh from the audience for that one!

He signed one autograph after the show - a girl next to me at the barrier also had a sign, and he signed that for her. He looked at us both when he offered to, but she was a tad faster than me. Never mind, I've got my autographed Wild Prairie, and a look from him is better than that any time!

Kate also got a few looks from him, but again that's her story. She will be home tomorrow and I'm sure she'll tell you all about her nerve-racking week asap :).

So - again I had the time of my life! And the really funny thing was that my non-fan husband told me right in the middle of the show: "You've got to get us tickets for Oberhausen!" He's the one who called me crazy when I said I wanted to go to more than just one show - but that was before he got Macca-hooked on Sunday! Oberhausen is sold out, but I managed to get some standing room floor tickets on ebay, for face value!! So that means two more shows for us - Oberhausen next Thursday and Munich on the 17th.

Head in the clouds ....
Ute