Third time this year we visited a Procol Harum Concert. And yes, it was my birthday.
Arrived at Bamberg, a very romantic nice town with a beautiful Concert Hall.
There were only seats which was a kind of "back to the roots", since in the early seventies it was usual to have seats at a rock-concert.
Gary Brooker started with some tunes of Ave Maria and The Emperor's New Clothes and lead up to the first song Shine on Brightly. Wow. And here it was again. This incredible, indescribable Procol Harum feeling. And they started to one of the best concerts I ever experienced. Everyone was in an excellent good mood. Gary was talking a lot, he was very cheerful, told about their shopping-tour in Bamberg, where Matt buyed a hat, which he was proudly wearing the whole concert.
After the fourth song, Gary jested: "We don't actually have a setlist tonight. I just don't know what to play right now. Any requests?"
I was sitting in the fourth row, so I was shouting loud Christmas Camel - and Gary immediately started with this distinctive piano riff "Da daa da damm damm" - hey, I was sure at this moment, that he knew that it was my birthday, and it was a personal recognition.
Ahhh, silly me. Some songs later he started with the same thing, and I thought to myself: well, now I wanna hear something exotic. So I shouted Long Gone Geek (which I seriously love - it was a B-Side of A Salty Dog, as you all know).
Oh my God, what a bad decision of me. Gary yelled:
"Oh no, who is this guy? Throw him out, call him a taxi!" Haha. Well, I had some other songs in my mind (like Good Captain Clack or In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence LOL), but now I felt insulted ... and I kept my mouth shut, hehe. [NB the band played Geek at sound-check in LA, albeit not in the original key]
Back to the concert. Surprisely there were no interval, they played one and a half hour all the fourteen songs and came back to a great first encore, which was followed by a second. It was unbelievable. Great concert, great sound, great everything.
Sorry for my "not perfect" English, but I hope you could imagine, how great it was!!!
