Take That in Concert Progress Live Hamburg 2011/07/22
Part 1/3 The Good - The Bad - The Ugly and The Beautiful
I decided to write a concert report. I've done that for myself for every TT Concert I attended except the Beautiful World Concert 2007. It's been 4 years since my last concert, which was said concert from the Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Cologne.
Now it is the 22nd of July 2011. The location is Hamburg and the act is Take That in the Original Formation. Or should I say TT4 + Robbie Williams + TT5?
Before I start I have to tell you that I'm a much bigger TT Fan than a fan of Robbie Williams, although I do like him. But just not as much as TT. I've never been to a Robbie Williams Concert - just TT. I attended this concert together with karu_chan who I met through the magic of the internet. We have a lot of interests in common and she and her boyfriend let me stay at their home in Bremen for the night! I'm very thankful for that!
So I went by train to Bremen and then karu_chan and me drove - while listening to unknown TT tracks - through the murky, cold northern weather to the town of Hamburg to see Take That at the Imtech Arena, which is a pretty big football stadium. It was only raining a little in the beginning - but by the end of the night there was a lot of rain and it was cold. Not what you might expect from a concert at the end of July - honestly it felt like November. I wore my TT Tour T-Shirt from 1995, but nobody could see it because I had to wear several layers or I'd have frozen to death. karu_chan parked her car at the parking area and of we went through the ticket check into the stadium.
At this point it was only about 16:30, I guess, and even the arena area was quite empty. We checked our seats first and already saw the gigantic stage! Our seats were directly at the front of the stadium so we had a spectacular view.
Then we went to get beautiful TT cups and to check out the merchandise. karu_chan decided to buy some T-Shirts while I decided to wait until my next TT concert on the 25th of July, because I'm not good at choosing what I want. :) Then we bought some drinks in stylish TT Cups. There are 3 beautiful designs - so we had to choose again - which is the best cup?
We went back to our seats - and then we went to the toilet, which took me 35 minutes and karu_chan unfortunately chose the wrong queue, I think she almost waited for an hour. ;_; When I came back from the toilet the Pet Shop Boys already started. The Pet Shop Boys are TT's support act for this tour. They played several of their biggest hits. Let me see if I remember them all: Go West, Se A Vida É, Suburbia, It's a Sin, West End Girls, Together, Left to my own devices. I think that was it, but I might have forgotten something. They were quite cool, I enjoyed the part where they showed faces of the people in the audience on the big screens. The people all looked so shocked. haha! They left the stage and it was back to waiting - this time for TT.
After being forced to watch countless Samsung ads and trailers for The Three Musketeers, the concert started with a giant keyboard and a guy telling us something about evolution? I didn't catch everything. They also told us it was sold out with about 53.000 something people attending. Then there was a pretty cool countdown PC Style (Windows, I guess?) to the concert.
It started kind of unspectacular with TT4 coming on stage and singing the first song Rule the World. Since it wasn't dark yet, there was a no real stars-coming-out-tonight-moment as in the Circus or BW Tour. But I have to say that vocally all the guys did great. It's the end of the tour by now, and they have to be exhausted and their voices too, but I think that in Hamburg it felt like their best vocal performance, yet. Second song was Greatest Day, which they did on the B-Stage in the middle of the arena. There were some nice yellow confetti explosion effects for that song. Greatest Day is one of my TT favourites, I was very happy they performed it.
They introduced themselves somewhere around here and told us all to enjoy ourselves. Which we did. We had to sing the German National Anthem. Don't know what made them do it, but we all did. Very funny! Then they did Hold up a light, everybodys favourite Patience and in the end there was Shine. Shine was performed with loads of colourful dancers a little bit like Alice in Wonderland. Mark was riding a huge caterpillar! That was so awesome and cute. 29-year-old-me was happy! And Shine is always a great song to perform live. Then they followed a bunny-man back into the screen. Sort of like that effect from Never Forget in BW Tour or Babe back in the 1995 tour.
Then the screen changed to Robbie Williams and there was a great noise going through the stadium. Robbie came on stage and did Let me entertain you. Some nice fire effects. People were much louder here than at the TT4 part. It seems half of the people were RW fans and not there for TT which makes me a little sad. I enjoy Robbies jokes and all, but I just think that TT4 deserve the screams so much more. ;_; Well, Robbie IS a great show man and sang Rock DJ, Come undone, Feel (my favourite Robbie Song, yay) and Angels. During Feel he was out on a little platform shaking hands with the fans.
Robbie talks a lot on stage. He said his doctor forbade him to go on stage, but Robbie replied he had to go on stage because the people of Hamburg need him and he needs the people of Hamburg. Then he told us that the danish press wrote about Robbie being drunk again, so that was the reason they cancelled Copenhagen last week. But Robbie was just high on Heroin and not drunk. What a relief! And those poor danish fans got another nice message for their media. He told them: F*ck you! Yes, that is Robbie and he didn't change a bit. I only wished he would've told this to the most annoying person in a concert ever, a stupid b*tch that was two rows behind us. Her constant annoying, unnecessary and ugly screams of "ROBBIE" made me want to punch her to the next hospital and back. I never knew UGLY, STUPID and BAD people like her existed and I wish she will rot in hell. She was bashing TT4 and especially Gary through their performances with words I wouldn't want to repeat here again. NEWS FLASH: This is a Take That concert, if you don't like Take That, stay AWAY and do not spoil the performance for the true fans. Honestly, I think our whole block hated that woman. The UGLIEST part of the evening for sure. Back to the Concert: As Rob performed Angels he told us to think of people we lost. Aww...then he left.
And now is where the best part of the concert starts, at least for me. When I think about it I'd rather only had a 5 TT concert without the TT4 and without the RW part. Half of Hamburg would probably disagree, because they never reached the noise level of the Robbie part again after that was over. But maybe that was the rain. Now all those amazing special effects happened and it's kind of hard for me to describe exactly what happened. There were Asian monks, drums and a Flood involved. Amazing dancer, acrobatics at the wall which also looked like a waterfall. And TT arriving under the BIG roboter at the top of the stage singing The Flood. Loads of rain - not only from the sky - but also on stage. Sorry, I cannot really describe it that good, but it was awesome. At the end of The Flood Robbie jumps from top down the stage and the others go down with elevators. Then they perform SOS which is great, another favourite of mine from Progress. That song just rocks. In the back you can already see the mechanical man number two which they called OM - watch out he will play another big part later!
What follow is Underground Machine. I don't like the song that much, but live usually even stuff you don't like that much suddenly is so much better. Underground Machine is no exception! The next performance is one of my personal highlights. Custome change and then we have TT back on the B-Stage in a Chess-Like setting. Mark is neutral I think and Jason is black and Howard is white. In the middle of Kidz they interrupt the song for some epic breakdance/fencing battle between Howard and Jason! REALLY COOL. AAAANNDD Robbie was rapping and you know what? He was rapping the lyrics of Apache, YES, we got to hear that epic SUCK MY DUMMY line from the Take That and Party Concert. I'd never thought they would do Apache, just wonderful. Back to Kidz even more awesome! Then they are back at the main stage and do Pretty Things. Very mellow, slowed down and relaxed. The even had a ballerina for this. Poor girl slipped due to the heavy rain. It was beautiful anyway. At this point I think they are standing in OMs hands.
Then it's back in time. They talk a little with the audience recreate a few photo opportunities (like the cover of the TT & Party album) They even mention Bravo (German Magazine for Teenagers). Haha. Do the TT and Party Dance, the Do What U like dance and so on. They also make little jokes about Robbie being fired in 1995. Then a beautiful blonde dancers brings beverages for TT. Gary, Howard and J get red wine. Robbie and Mark have to drink milk. J is single and just has eyes for the blonde dancer. *lol* It was really nice and funny, they made fun of all those bitter things that happened to them so far. Then they do all the old classics. Starting with A Million Love Songs, Robbie is singing Everything Changes, Mark does Babe and they all sing the big one Back for Good. My Highlight from this part is definitely Pray. If somebody would force me to choose an all time favourite TT song I think I would choose Pray. It's just so special and they did the old dance routine again! With Robbie. It was beautiful. 12-year-old-me was satisfied. Only thing that could have topped that would've been the sexy Give Good Feeling Routine. ;)
The next song is Love, Love. Which is kind of the highlight of the evening because the mechanical man OM moves to the front/B-Stage during Love,Love. TT are standing on/in the man, two in the arms and others in the middle. Hard to describe. I never thought Love, Love would be so good. I think it's my favourite performance. I wonder why I loved it so much, but in the end it's just an amazing experience I think, visually and vocally.
The next highlight is THE highlight in any TT concert. They cannot do it without this song. Never Forget. And you know what, Robbie sings his lines. Hey, we're not invincible Yes, I think even people who didn't exactly come for TT, but because of Robbie enjoy this. Never Forget is such a crowd pleaser. It's always just amazing seeing all those arms in the air. OM is now at his full 20 metre height at the B-Stage. Aaawwww.! They say goodbye. Nooooo - don't go.
Then they leave and after that we have the encore. Slowly but steadily the evening is coming to a close. :( They sang No regrets (Robbie Song). Ok, not exactly what I would've put there. They should have done Happy Now. I was totally surprised they didn't do Happy Now. Mmhh....then Relight my Fire, cannot do it without that one, I suppose. It's nice, but the Relight my Fire performance from the Circus cannot be topped for me. Time to say Goodbye for real. As TT make their way through the crowds to the main stage again, wearing german flags and hats given by the fans. It's time to close the show with the perfect song. Eight Letters. A really nice ending, although I couldn't really see them leave the stage, because OM was blocking my view, that scary thing. Damn. :( All in all an awesome evening and I'm happy that I can see the show again!
I love TT forever. As 5 as 4 or by themselves. I would've done a few things different for the show. More Songs from Progress, for example. And Progressed - I mean just imagine Man, Aliens or The Day the Work is Done in that setting. That would've been really great. But I think they did an amazing job anyway. I'm just not sure what my favourite part was. I'm still choosing between Kidz, Pray, Love, Love and Never Forget. I'm happy to be a part of it and I'm looking forward to see them in Düsseldorf. Yay. If you got that far reading all this I'm applauding you. ;) Now do yourself a favour and go and watch a TT concert for real - you won't regret it.
I decided to write a concert report. I've done that for myself for every TT Concert I attended except the Beautiful World Concert 2007. It's been 4 years since my last concert, which was said concert from the Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Cologne.
Now it is the 22nd of July 2011. The location is Hamburg and the act is Take That in the Original Formation. Or should I say TT4 + Robbie Williams + TT5?
Before I start I have to tell you that I'm a much bigger TT Fan than a fan of Robbie Williams, although I do like him. But just not as much as TT. I've never been to a Robbie Williams Concert - just TT. I attended this concert together with karu_chan who I met through the magic of the internet. We have a lot of interests in common and she and her boyfriend let me stay at their home in Bremen for the night! I'm very thankful for that!
So I went by train to Bremen and then karu_chan and me drove - while listening to unknown TT tracks - through the murky, cold northern weather to the town of Hamburg to see Take That at the Imtech Arena, which is a pretty big football stadium. It was only raining a little in the beginning - but by the end of the night there was a lot of rain and it was cold. Not what you might expect from a concert at the end of July - honestly it felt like November. I wore my TT Tour T-Shirt from 1995, but nobody could see it because I had to wear several layers or I'd have frozen to death. karu_chan parked her car at the parking area and of we went through the ticket check into the stadium.
At this point it was only about 16:30, I guess, and even the arena area was quite empty. We checked our seats first and already saw the gigantic stage! Our seats were directly at the front of the stadium so we had a spectacular view.
Then we went to get beautiful TT cups and to check out the merchandise. karu_chan decided to buy some T-Shirts while I decided to wait until my next TT concert on the 25th of July, because I'm not good at choosing what I want. :) Then we bought some drinks in stylish TT Cups. There are 3 beautiful designs - so we had to choose again - which is the best cup?
We went back to our seats - and then we went to the toilet, which took me 35 minutes and karu_chan unfortunately chose the wrong queue, I think she almost waited for an hour. ;_; When I came back from the toilet the Pet Shop Boys already started. The Pet Shop Boys are TT's support act for this tour. They played several of their biggest hits. Let me see if I remember them all: Go West, Se A Vida É, Suburbia, It's a Sin, West End Girls, Together, Left to my own devices. I think that was it, but I might have forgotten something. They were quite cool, I enjoyed the part where they showed faces of the people in the audience on the big screens. The people all looked so shocked. haha! They left the stage and it was back to waiting - this time for TT.
After being forced to watch countless Samsung ads and trailers for The Three Musketeers, the concert started with a giant keyboard and a guy telling us something about evolution? I didn't catch everything. They also told us it was sold out with about 53.000 something people attending. Then there was a pretty cool countdown PC Style (Windows, I guess?) to the concert.
It started kind of unspectacular with TT4 coming on stage and singing the first song Rule the World. Since it wasn't dark yet, there was a no real stars-coming-out-tonight-moment as in the Circus or BW Tour. But I have to say that vocally all the guys did great. It's the end of the tour by now, and they have to be exhausted and their voices too, but I think that in Hamburg it felt like their best vocal performance, yet. Second song was Greatest Day, which they did on the B-Stage in the middle of the arena. There were some nice yellow confetti explosion effects for that song. Greatest Day is one of my TT favourites, I was very happy they performed it.
They introduced themselves somewhere around here and told us all to enjoy ourselves. Which we did. We had to sing the German National Anthem. Don't know what made them do it, but we all did. Very funny! Then they did Hold up a light, everybodys favourite Patience and in the end there was Shine. Shine was performed with loads of colourful dancers a little bit like Alice in Wonderland. Mark was riding a huge caterpillar! That was so awesome and cute. 29-year-old-me was happy! And Shine is always a great song to perform live. Then they followed a bunny-man back into the screen. Sort of like that effect from Never Forget in BW Tour or Babe back in the 1995 tour.
Then the screen changed to Robbie Williams and there was a great noise going through the stadium. Robbie came on stage and did Let me entertain you. Some nice fire effects. People were much louder here than at the TT4 part. It seems half of the people were RW fans and not there for TT which makes me a little sad. I enjoy Robbies jokes and all, but I just think that TT4 deserve the screams so much more. ;_; Well, Robbie IS a great show man and sang Rock DJ, Come undone, Feel (my favourite Robbie Song, yay) and Angels. During Feel he was out on a little platform shaking hands with the fans.
Robbie talks a lot on stage. He said his doctor forbade him to go on stage, but Robbie replied he had to go on stage because the people of Hamburg need him and he needs the people of Hamburg. Then he told us that the danish press wrote about Robbie being drunk again, so that was the reason they cancelled Copenhagen last week. But Robbie was just high on Heroin and not drunk. What a relief! And those poor danish fans got another nice message for their media. He told them: F*ck you! Yes, that is Robbie and he didn't change a bit. I only wished he would've told this to the most annoying person in a concert ever, a stupid b*tch that was two rows behind us. Her constant annoying, unnecessary and ugly screams of "ROBBIE" made me want to punch her to the next hospital and back. I never knew UGLY, STUPID and BAD people like her existed and I wish she will rot in hell. She was bashing TT4 and especially Gary through their performances with words I wouldn't want to repeat here again. NEWS FLASH: This is a Take That concert, if you don't like Take That, stay AWAY and do not spoil the performance for the true fans. Honestly, I think our whole block hated that woman. The UGLIEST part of the evening for sure. Back to the Concert: As Rob performed Angels he told us to think of people we lost. Aww...then he left.
And now is where the best part of the concert starts, at least for me. When I think about it I'd rather only had a 5 TT concert without the TT4 and without the RW part. Half of Hamburg would probably disagree, because they never reached the noise level of the Robbie part again after that was over. But maybe that was the rain. Now all those amazing special effects happened and it's kind of hard for me to describe exactly what happened. There were Asian monks, drums and a Flood involved. Amazing dancer, acrobatics at the wall which also looked like a waterfall. And TT arriving under the BIG roboter at the top of the stage singing The Flood. Loads of rain - not only from the sky - but also on stage. Sorry, I cannot really describe it that good, but it was awesome. At the end of The Flood Robbie jumps from top down the stage and the others go down with elevators. Then they perform SOS which is great, another favourite of mine from Progress. That song just rocks. In the back you can already see the mechanical man number two which they called OM - watch out he will play another big part later!
What follow is Underground Machine. I don't like the song that much, but live usually even stuff you don't like that much suddenly is so much better. Underground Machine is no exception! The next performance is one of my personal highlights. Custome change and then we have TT back on the B-Stage in a Chess-Like setting. Mark is neutral I think and Jason is black and Howard is white. In the middle of Kidz they interrupt the song for some epic breakdance/fencing battle between Howard and Jason! REALLY COOL. AAAANNDD Robbie was rapping and you know what? He was rapping the lyrics of Apache, YES, we got to hear that epic SUCK MY DUMMY line from the Take That and Party Concert. I'd never thought they would do Apache, just wonderful. Back to Kidz even more awesome! Then they are back at the main stage and do Pretty Things. Very mellow, slowed down and relaxed. The even had a ballerina for this. Poor girl slipped due to the heavy rain. It was beautiful anyway. At this point I think they are standing in OMs hands.
Then it's back in time. They talk a little with the audience recreate a few photo opportunities (like the cover of the TT & Party album) They even mention Bravo (German Magazine for Teenagers). Haha. Do the TT and Party Dance, the Do What U like dance and so on. They also make little jokes about Robbie being fired in 1995. Then a beautiful blonde dancers brings beverages for TT. Gary, Howard and J get red wine. Robbie and Mark have to drink milk. J is single and just has eyes for the blonde dancer. *lol* It was really nice and funny, they made fun of all those bitter things that happened to them so far. Then they do all the old classics. Starting with A Million Love Songs, Robbie is singing Everything Changes, Mark does Babe and they all sing the big one Back for Good. My Highlight from this part is definitely Pray. If somebody would force me to choose an all time favourite TT song I think I would choose Pray. It's just so special and they did the old dance routine again! With Robbie. It was beautiful. 12-year-old-me was satisfied. Only thing that could have topped that would've been the sexy Give Good Feeling Routine. ;)
The next song is Love, Love. Which is kind of the highlight of the evening because the mechanical man OM moves to the front/B-Stage during Love,Love. TT are standing on/in the man, two in the arms and others in the middle. Hard to describe. I never thought Love, Love would be so good. I think it's my favourite performance. I wonder why I loved it so much, but in the end it's just an amazing experience I think, visually and vocally.
The next highlight is THE highlight in any TT concert. They cannot do it without this song. Never Forget. And you know what, Robbie sings his lines. Hey, we're not invincible Yes, I think even people who didn't exactly come for TT, but because of Robbie enjoy this. Never Forget is such a crowd pleaser. It's always just amazing seeing all those arms in the air. OM is now at his full 20 metre height at the B-Stage. Aaawwww.! They say goodbye. Nooooo - don't go.
Then they leave and after that we have the encore. Slowly but steadily the evening is coming to a close. :( They sang No regrets (Robbie Song). Ok, not exactly what I would've put there. They should have done Happy Now. I was totally surprised they didn't do Happy Now. Mmhh....then Relight my Fire, cannot do it without that one, I suppose. It's nice, but the Relight my Fire performance from the Circus cannot be topped for me. Time to say Goodbye for real. As TT make their way through the crowds to the main stage again, wearing german flags and hats given by the fans. It's time to close the show with the perfect song. Eight Letters. A really nice ending, although I couldn't really see them leave the stage, because OM was blocking my view, that scary thing. Damn. :( All in all an awesome evening and I'm happy that I can see the show again!
I love TT forever. As 5 as 4 or by themselves. I would've done a few things different for the show. More Songs from Progress, for example. And Progressed - I mean just imagine Man, Aliens or The Day the Work is Done in that setting. That would've been really great. But I think they did an amazing job anyway. I'm just not sure what my favourite part was. I'm still choosing between Kidz, Pray, Love, Love and Never Forget. I'm happy to be a part of it and I'm looking forward to see them in Düsseldorf. Yay. If you got that far reading all this I'm applauding you. ;) Now do yourself a favour and go and watch a TT concert for real - you won't regret it.