written by Uwe & Ilwa Drößler
In a year we often go to the Lindenpark and everytime we thought, that would be the ideal place for an Alphaville-concert.
Alphas manager K.P. told us it`s necessary to sell lowest bids 500 tickets in order for not making a loss with that concert. So we nego-tiated again with magazines, radio- and TV-stations to ask them if they would advertise this concert. The most of them were not so interested in, but some ones like Thomas Hehde of Antenne Brandenburg finally helped us. One week before the concert we got knowledge through K.P. that allthought only 100 tickets were sold. We got a bad feeling. But a glimmer of hope still remained: we knew that many guests normally buy their tickets only at the box office for evening performance. That we saw at all our visitations before. Another drawback: the 18.12. was a Wednesday...in the middle of the week and the holidays in Berlin and Brandenburg will start only at the 20th. We arrived at Lindenpark hat half past 6 p.m. We recognized the car of the Kupfermusik (the guys of the technics), but nobody else were present. At once our strange feeling returned. Alphaville don`t like playing in the area around Berlin because the audience is difficult here. Short before 7 p.m. Marion arrived. She reached per train and said all the others were in the traffic-jam at the Berlin highway. Fortunately all of them arrived also very soon and could start the soundcheck. The entrance could begin; 40 minutes too late. The guests came only hesitantly but finally the hall nearly became full (but not sould out K.P. said). Easement at our side! The only blind side: there were not enough merchandising. Ralf and Bianka waited for a further consignment. The only solutions was to tell all intersted person to come back after the concert for more merchandising. The concert started: our tension grew. Already after the first song "Fools" the band got much applause. We were happy. But then we became fear again because after "Euphoria" nobody applauded. I (Ilwa) almost became panic but Uwe said there was a direct changeover from "Euphoria" to the next song "Jerusalem" - no chance for the audience to applaud.
He was right...after "Jerusalem" the audience
was active again. With "Sounds like a melody" the last ice melts and the
hall became really hot. You could see it also in the musicians faces. Alex
and David started to make jamborees. Marian smiled satis-fied. While "Forever
young" we distributed lights and we all sang in a big choir. Indeed this
song is every time the highlight of the concert but here and today it was
the best off all we experienced till now. We were so happy about the success.
The band not realy left the stage as the guests started to claim loudness
for an encore. Naturally we hadn`t wait for that. Normally after "Jet set"
they had to play "Ivory tower", but the audience claimed "Big in Japan",
so Marian spontaneous changed the programm. Even after the first encore
nobody had enough. Everybody roared for another one..."If the audience...";
originally the final song. But this time Marian didn`t leave the stage
histrionic as normal, but he signalized the band to come again on stage
for one song more. Time to play the left out "Ivory tower". The light became
brighter, but the audience stayed claimed in front of the stage. We were
sure the show was over but for a little moment we thought there was the
possi-bility that they came for another encore. But you have to stop if
it`s the best. It was a pity that we had to miss still the merchandising
and Ralf and Bianka could sell something more. Really a pitty, after such
a great concert they had the chance to sell a lot, we think. We hope the
guests will not only remember this little problem and they would come again
to an Alphaville concert. Another highlight of the evening was Iftach:
a fan from Israel, came only for Alphaville in concert. We had a nice chat.
All in all we are very happy to have fetched AV into the Lindenpark It
was the proof that Alphaville can be successfull also in the Berlin area
and we hope to see them live again here soon in the future.