What a Way to Celebrate

Rike's our guest blogger again this morning :) She's got a review of the Mannheim show (her 35th) to share with everyone. Thanks Rike!!

~ Hath


What a way to celebrate – a Mannheim review

Last weekend was my only weekend off for July. So Mannheim was supposed to be my last show this tour. And it would be my 35th show ever. And is there a better way to celebrate this together with friends and fans I met over the years on tour? There was a party planned for all who wanted to camp out for both front rows. ;)

After a nightshift and an 8hour journey by train I arrived at the venue pretty exhausted around 3:30pm. Sleeping in a train is not really relaxing. On the parking lot opposite of the main entrance to the venue were already put up some tents. With No 21 for Diamond circle I should be able to get front row. This time I would not long look for a spot, I would take the next opportunity. I really wanted a front row spot this time, because I made a request banner for my 35th show.

“34 shows and I never heard “Lie to me”. But maybe tonight for my 35th???”

But first - party. They welcomed me with Prosecco and after the 2nd can I had regained enough energy to put up my tent. In the meantime there were about 50 persons, a lot of them I knew from previous shows and camp outs. It was a warm and sunny evening and we had a couple of small grills (for one time use) and sausages, turkey steak and some other stuff to grill. And wine, beer and other alcohol next to cola, juice and water of course. We sat together, talked about all the past shows and our expectations for the next day. The night was warm, too and a pretty full moon was on the sky. Sometime later that night we crawled in our tents and short time later different sounds of snoring were to hear. *lol*

The next morning started sunny and warm, too. There were some toilets and wet baby tissues are pretty good for body cleaning. And mineral water is good for teeth brushing.

We had breakfast with the leftovers and then we took down our tents and packed our stuff together and loaded it in the cars.

The info mail said they would give out the tickets from 11am. But like usual, it was almost noon, when we get our wristbands. And only the wristbands, because there went something wrong with printing and delivering the tickets. The printer’s sent the tix out to a wrong city. So we went back to our cars, because there it was shady. Waiting an hour in the heat and sun was enough already. I guess we had almost 30°C that day. 2 hours later the next try and we actually got our tickets. It took a while til all had a ticket in hand, then they let us on the Maimarkt areal. There we sorted out the chaos and lined up by our numbers. Luckily there was a bit shadow; otherwise some of us would have ended at the first aid tent. Few minutes after 4pm we could go into the pit and this time I took the first opportunity and saved me a spot in the front row, direct between Jon’s and Richie’s microphone. But at first we sat down and relaxed, then after all we had to kill 2 more hours til showtime. It became a bit cloudy so I did
n’t feel like a roasted chicken anymore.

At 6pm the winner of the local band contest came onstage. I forgot the name of that band, but they were pretty good. Next band were Vintage Trouble, they are not bad, too. But after he 4th time the same setlist and the same speeches and jokes it’s getting bored.

20:10pm – the intro came through the speakers and was showed on the screen. From my place I could see the stairs below the stage and I caught a glimpse of that red jacket. And only few moments later all our guys were on stage and after the first sounds of “Raise your Hands” I knew it would be a great show. Jon was looking around and he must have seen a request sign, because he picked up his setlist and pointed on it. We were curious now. After the 3 usual songs came with “Radio” the first highlight. The girls next to me had a banner; it was printed from both sides. And they turned the banner immediately, so you could read the request for “Radio”. Jon had to laugh as he saw this. Then IML, Runaway and Sleep, with “Start me up” in it. Jon was on fire, a lot of smiles, eye contact and I had to laugh a lot about Richie. He was joking a lot and he made faces….. priceless.

“We got it going on” is simply THE party song!! And you could see that Jon’s knee is absolutely fine again.

“I get a rush” ahh, that was the request, they should play it more often.

“Bad Medicine” – the song I was waiting for. ;) We heard about Jon trying “Mercy” in Dusseldorf 3 times, so we made ‘Mercy’ signs, too. And I got rewarded. When you watch the video, a bit after Richies solo you can see Jon’s reaction to my sign, *rofl* And I have to say, I’d rather get a fist than a finger. Hahaha.

At the end of “Bad Medicine” Jon were walking on the circle and he was staying there. So no Richie solo I hoped for.

It was the fist time for me that I was front row and Jon was out there on the circle. It was an oddly feeling, but Richie was still in front of me and I could focus on him playing the solo of “Bed of Roses”. Then Jon called for Richie to join him out there for “I’ll be there for you”. At this point I wished I had a spot outside the circle. The song wasn’t finished yet as you could see David took his accordion. But Jon had to call twice for Tico. And then the next song which was played not so often – “Mrs.4th of July”, followed by the acoustic version of “Saturday Night”. In my opinion too much slow songs, it was killing the mood of the crowd a bit.

Now followed the unavoidable „Who says…“, but it brought back the excitement. And right after this the “confetti Captn Crush” – the energy was back in the audience and on stage. And I still find confetti on places I couldn’t even imagine.

“No Apologies” is a great stadium song, too. Also “Have a nice day”. For “Keep the Faith” I wish they would add some cover snippets again.

Then the venue went dark and we were guessing what we would get as encore.

“Hey God” I love this song and I was not alone with this opinion. “Wanted” and Richie was singing the 2nd verse. It was so funny to see how Jon was gentle pushing on Richie’s shoulder and nodded questioningly if he wants to sing. Followed by “In these Arms”, Dave could sing a bit from the 2nd verse. I think it was because of the request sign of #MrsDavidSambora. And then an absolutely awesome interpretation of “Hallelujah”; only Jon’s voice and David’s Keyboard. It was quiet in the stadium, all were just listening.

Then Jon said thanks for support, friendship and so over the years and started with “Prayer”. We sang it all together and after the band introduction and bows we were screaming, shouting and clapping so loud, that Jon added “Love’s the only rule”. He walked around the circle again, shook hands and let us sing the “oh oh oh ohs”. And when he wouldn’t vanish from the stage down the stairs, I bet he would have to sing another song. But it was very close to 11pm and right at the beginning Jon told us, that they overrun the curfew in 2003, so that for 8 years no concert was at this venue.

Only when the lights went on, we realized the show was over. We were overwhelmed; you could see tears in so many eyes. For a lot of our friends Mannheim was the last show of the tour; so the melancholy was very understandable.

Back at our cars there was no sign of movement, so we were stuck in the parking lot for almost an hour. Sometimes around 1am we arrived at our hotel and we fell in our beds, we not even bothered with shower or so.

We booked our rooms at this 4 star hotel purposely because we wanted to celebrate the end of the tour (at the time we booked this, it was the end of the tour for us!). So we went to have breakfast around 10am and whoow, that was a breakfast! That was a realization of wishes; you could have everything. Sparkling wine, different sorts of coffee, juice, tea; also bread, cheese, cakes - it would go too far to describe it all. The breakfast room was full of BJ fans; we really enjoyed it to be together again.

But then it was time to say good bye, my train wouldn’t wait. It wasn’t too sad, because I’ll see my girls again this weekend in Zeebrugge/Belgium.

A review will follow ;)