They came!
On November 6th the band played live a promotional show for their new album "UP" at the ORPHEUM, a small location in Vienna, Austria.
And I was there!

When we got there people were already sitting on the floor in the first six rows.
I found a spot where someone had spilled his beer, I just waited and soon I was sitting there- in the second row :)
On stage I saw Peter's dinosaurs - a couple, they were looking at each other :)

After at least one hour it finally began. Everybody got UP and people were pressing from aside. It was hard to keep the position but I managed to stand there and really, when everybody was set I was still in the second row.
Michael looked great! The whole band looked great! Michael was wearing a grey fleece jacket and nothing under it and grey pants. He had a beautiful make-up: blue eyelids and some silver glitter around his eyes. Wow, he looked so great!
Peter's hair had a reddish look and Mike also looked really great with his blond hair.
They opened with "Losing My Religion", second was "Lotus".
I could hardly hear Michael's voice because everybody -including myself- was singing along so loud.
As the show went on, Michael looked straight at me a few times -great!- and they played a wonderful show.
Michael threw his lyric sheets into the crowd but unfortunately I didn't get any.

After 2/3rd of the concert Michael told the security boys to let the people move all the way closer to the stage. And so they did- and everybody pushed forward. I lost my place and ended up standing in the third row -but one meter closer to the stage. The crowd went mad -all pure fans.
The poor security people! They couldn't do anything and they were pressed against the stage.
People were touching Michael's head when he bent down, they were touching his legs and his stomach and he just laughed.

The band played much longer than planned.
After a short break they returned onto the stage and played a couple of more songs. They even played old stuff like "Pretty Persuasion", "Perfect Circle" and "Strange" (!).
The last song was Iggy Pop's "The Passenger". There was a sound problem and you could only hear the drums and the guitar but the crowd just kept on singing. When the sound was okay again, it went on; the song lasted -i dont know- 10 minutes or so. Michael let the microphone down into the crowd. When he came over in my direction he gave it to me but I think the mirco was turned off. Anyway, I sang with full passion and Michael smiled.
Later, after the enchore, they didnt know what to play next so we shouted out what we wanted to hear. When it was almost quiet I shouted "What's the frequency, Kenneth" and Michael bent down to me and asked "what?" and I said again "What's the frequency, Kenneth" and he went back to the band and then he returned and told me "nahh...they won't". Hehe.

After the show there was a press conference or something where the band was given platin. Only a few people were allowed to watch this- you had to have a blue plastic ribbon to enter the hall where that took place. I wasn't one of those lucky ones so I had to wait outside which fustrated me a lot.
But anyway, when I recognized that this action was over I went outside and waited where their cars were parked. There weren't too many fans waiting and soon Peter came along and gave autographs. I didn't have a pen and he tried to write on my entrance pass (plastic!) with a normal pen but it didn't work and I said "no, that won't work" and he grabbed a marker from someone else and he came back to me and signed my pass. Then he went away and I waved at him and said thank you and he stopped and shook my hand.
Mike and Michael came 20 minutes later.They were quite in a hurry but I got an autograph from Mike, too. I missed Michael, though.
I took two close pictures of Peter and Mike but, damn, I didn't get Michael. When the cars moved along I took two more pictures, hoping I would hit Michael. Which I did.

That was it.
It was great.

And now -- THE PICTURES !