Hmm… the first concert in Germany. And it was a bit… mixed, let’s put it like this…

The first problem arouse right after I arrived in Kassel. My navigation sent me right into some road works, and all attempts to somehow drive around and find the Musiktheater from the other side were without success… but at least I wasn’t the only one with that problem. =;-) While I was stopped trying to make sense out of my map and what my navigation showed me, there were at least five other cars driving right into the road works, just to turn around as confused as I had done. The solution for us poor guys who had no clue were to go was: Park and walk through the road works. At least that was possible.

At the Musiktheater, the bad expectations turned out to be true: Nobody there… =:-( The concert place was very nice, but there was almost nobody in the audience. And it didn’t really fill up either – it did look quite “okay” while Mintzkov were on stage, but that was just because everybody made it halfway to the front. Before Kaizers came on, everybody was out smoking again I guess, so it looked just as empty as before… =:-(

So of course the atmosphere was fairly quiet. But honestly: I’ve hardly ever seen an audience that was so much “with the band” before! Everybody (and I really mean everybody!) was dancing and shaking. So obviously everyone wanted to have a good time – and they did! Of course there wasn’t a lot of interaction with the audiene, which is no surprise. And of course the applause was always pretty short. Even though the audience really did their best! But well, if there’s only a few hands, there’s only a bit of applause… =:-/

In my opinion, it started out pretty calm and slow – maybe a bit too slow. The audience didn’t really go along until Kaizers played Bøn fra helvete. Here’s the setlist – I hope it is correct, I didn’t manage to get hold of a list after the show, so this is from memory: Medisin & psykiatri, På ditt skift, Frå sjåfør til passasjer, De involverte, KGB, Bøn fra helvete, Mann mot mann, Kontroll på kontinentet, Apokalyps meg, Veterans klage, Katastrofen, Dr. Mowinckel, Maestro. Encore Naade, Di grind and 170.

Well, I would vote for Djevelens orkester and Tokyo Ice after the opening, because then the audience would be dancing right away! Not that I would mind De involverte – I really like the song, but not sure if it’s the best choice if even the organ player falls asleep at the beginning of the concert already… =;-)

But for the rest of the show, Omen knew only one thing: Cleaning. Cleaning his crowbar, cleaning the keyboard, whatever – everything was polished with the glove. *lol*

Apart from that, there isn’t too much to report, as there was hardly any interaction. Hellraizer remarked that he likes quiet audiences once in a while (which I thought was a pretty mean remark, because, as I said, for so few people there was actually quite a lot of noise…), before they played Maestro, the Jackal pointed out in Norwegian (for whatever reason?) that Omen would have to put on his safety belt first (and yes, I’m pretty sure I got it right *g*), and normally Veterans klage lasts 1:40 on this tour, but this time they played it too slow, and so it took 1:42.

I noticed that Kaizers were in the mood for experimenting and improvising a bit this time (no wonder, with so few people in the audience you don’t mind if something goes wrong). I’m not quite sure what was going on during Bøn fra helvete, but the rhythm was a bit strange sometimes. During Katastrofen, the Jackal played the middle part at double speed this time – worked out great, but somehow the others were trying to slow him down or something, and so they came in a bit late all the time. The beginning of Dr. Mowinckel was different as well. The Jackal played as usual, but bass and drums played parallel to what he was playing at first, before they switched to the usual rhythm. And during Kontroll på kontinentet, they left out the introduction this time.

I found that the concert got better and better over the time – it started very reserved (I actually had the feeling that the Jackal wasn’t really singing in the first song, but more whispering into the mike…), but at some point in time they noticed that also a small audience can have fun. And during Maestro, we were even allowed to sing. =;-) So all in all a bit mixed, just like I had expected…

Tonight Munich – normally a guarantee for a great concert, but Muffathalle is so big and empty and stupid… *sigh*