Despite it being a partially standing crowd, the audience tonight were even more quiet than last night! Nobody in my section stood even once during the evening - not even when all the introductions were taking place! Somehow I was sitting in the commentators box (the Olympiahalle hosts sporting events too) - I’ve never been to a concert before where I’ve had a table in front of me, complete with a telephone point! As usual all the artists gave 100% but it must have been very frustrating for them not to have received much reaction.

As I was sitting higher up than normal I could see the choir “Fine Fleur” (pronounced “Fin Fleur”) clearly and they really all do work hard. They consist of both amateur and professional singers and they never stop moving all night! There are 25 females and 25 males and even when they’re not singing, they are moving in unison. They even instigate Mexican Waves before the start of the concert and during the interval!

Tonight Martin Fry re-discovered his gold lame suit. I’ve heard some of ABC’s songs on the radio out here a few times and I seem to recall that they were an 80s band so his hits would have been recorded around the time of Lady In Red but his voice has scarcely changed. Tonight he said that his third song each night “When Smokey Sings” is about Smokey Robinson - it’s so obvious to me now that he’s said!

John Miles didn’t talk at all during his set tonight but he did almost catch the orchestra out as there’s a dramatic part in the middle of Music (Was My First Love) where the audience all start clapping so he waits before he plays the piano part but tonight he was right in there with no pause!

The orchestra play one track that’s a waltz and often people will get up and dance. The video cameramen are always on the lookout for those couples as they then film them (I hope they’re dancing with people they should be dancing with!) which most people clap to. The next song after that is Lady In Red so last night and tonight Charles II and a female violinist danced for part of that and I noticed tonight that a male and female double bassist did on the other side of the stage too! It’s all these small touches that really make these concerts incredible!

Other than Chris de Burgh’s talking, his whole act is identical each night! He must be a sniper’s dream as I know he’ll walk on stage, pause at the left, walk over to the conductor and shake hands, bow to the backing singers and so on! When he goes into the audience during High On Emotion, he always returns after the same number of bars! Someone like Meat Loaf would return to the stage when he was ready but Chris de Burgh gets back at exactly the same time each night even though the orchestra could just keep playing!

Laith Al-Deen sang and posed again tonight too.

Usually as soon as Kasim walks on stage the people start clapping (okay! Meat Loaf is following him too!) but tonight they didn’t clap until Meat actually started singing! Two groups of people around me mainly chatted through Home By Now / No Matter What and I heard the name Boyzone mentioned!

Kasim got into an amazing position tonight during You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth! The roadie had tioned his microphone slightly further away from the orchestra than normal so, in order to be able to do his two handed behind his back clapping trick whilst still singing into the microphone, Kasim had to really arch his back in order to reach the violinists!

Kasim spent a fair bit of Anything For Love on the left side of the stage, playing to that part of the crowd and he managed to remain standing throughout the whole show tonight! They changed the melody part of Paradise By The Dashboard Light tonight as (while Meat Loaf and Patti Russo were doing stuff at the front of the stage), the band and the orchestra varied the tempo of the music instead of playing it all the same. For this, Kasim stood near the back of the orchestra. I assume it was so that John Miceli could see him as he kept looking around the harp at John just before each time they changed the tempo. Yellow Submarine was fun as always! As soon as the singing had finished (other than repeating the chorus) Kasim dashed across to play the double bass and this time I actually managed to take a photo of him playing it!

Roll on tomorow night…..!

(For the very bored) Click here for a brief three second video that I took by accident of Kasim and Meat Loaf at the beginning of the walkout

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