January 19, 1997

Seidenstickerhalle - Bielefeld, Germany

January 19, 1997 ticket stub

Thanks to Rüdiger Höckel for the Ticket Stub

by Martin Nickel on January 23, 1997

7500 people, sold out

A day before the concert in Bielefeld (there was no show at that day), we passed the hall and saw that the trucks had already arrived at the Seidenstickerhalle in Bielefeld. We had a short look inside the hall and were told the stage would be build up during the night.

The concert day, Sting arrived at the hall at the usual time (16:45). We were only 5 people behind the hall seeing him arrive. The car (for all who try to catch him in Hannover next weekend: a darkgreen Benz with registration "WI ...") stopped about 10 meters away from the backdoor. Sting was very relaxed, putting on his coat outside the car and then got back into the car to take something he forgot there. When he walked to the backdoor he gave autographs to three people. Well, he didn't write very accurate. We didn't try to get a sign because the 3 people who wanted an autograph were newbies and we wanted to take a photo of a friend with Sting. I also didn't want to get another nice/rare item mocked up by the schmuck; you should have seen the signature he put on my CD-ROM before the Stern TV show last week ...looks like 3 crosses from a drunken sailor.

Soundcheck (21 Min.)

A few minutes later he started the soundcheck with the band. After a jazzy instrumental warm up, they played "Heavy cloud, no rain" for about two minutes followed by "Love is stronger than justice" which included some interesting jamming before starting "Hounds of winter". Clark added a few more solos to the song than he plays during the show. It was funny to see him walking through the hall while playing his parts. During the soundcheck we were happy to hear two "new" songs, but then the disappointment...the same set as usual!

Like most of the other german shows this concert was sold out. 7500 people watched the show.

The audience was unusually young. A lot of teenagers were there. Like at the other german shows, Soraya was the opening act. [Wow, Sandra had to cool me down after that...] Soraya played for about 40 min and made some announcements in german during the show. The audience was not bad and seemed to like her show, clapping their hands and waving during her set. Compared to The Hague and Brussels she substituted her guitarist (which we already disliked there) with a new guitarist.

Musically Sting's concert was nothing special. "Business as usual" as Thomas wrote a few days before. The audience was very lame during the first few songs, but when "If you love somebody" started, the audience woke up and Sting's mood became better. From then on he started joking around a little bit...especially they had much fun when Kenny was singing the second voice in "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot". OK, it was not like Paul Carrack in London but Kenny did a good job.

When it was time for "I'm so happy..." he took a girl up on stage and let her translate the usual sentences (It's nice to be here in Bielefeld, etc..)

He asked her where she came from and she said "Warstein. Do you know the 'Warsteiner' beer ?" [well known beer all over Germany] He didn't know...[but he should know.]

He asked for her name. When she said "Evita", Sting started to whispering the first words from "Don't cry for me Argentina....". [Note: She had NOTHING from Madonna ;-)]

He took up two more boys. They were so nervous that, when he asked for their names one didn't answer and Sting said "Now you have forgotten your own name ?!" And then, shaking hands with the boy "Hallo, I'm Sting." He asked for their age (they all were, as they told our hero, 18 and from the same class at school) and when they told him, he joked "So we're all one age, right ?".

The 3 kids were totally boring because the did not know how they got onto the stage and what they should do/sing.

The show - setlist (110 min):

  1. The Hounds Of Winter
  2. I Hung My Head
  3. I Was Brought To My Senses
  4. Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot
  5. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
  6. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
  7. Seven Days
  8. Mad About You
  9. You Still Touch Me
  10. Fields Of Gold
  11. I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying
  12. Synchronicity II
  13. Roxanne
  14. Bring On The Night / When The World Is Running Down...
  15. Demolition Man
  16. Englishman In New York
  17. If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
  18. Every Breath You Take
  19. Lithium Sunset
  20. Fragile

At 23.00 it was all over. We went to a pub with some friends (Hi Iris, Sue, Ruediger, Hendrik, Gerhild & Kiki) and when we passed the hall on our way back 2 hours later, all trucks were already gone and the hall was ready for school classes doing sports lessons there the next morning..........


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