From: Alexandra, alexh29@t-online.de
Subject: Munich Elserhalle Feb. 27th 2002 (long, personal, enthusiastic)
Date: 2/27/2002 9:00:00 PM
To: seance@lists.no-fi.com


"Tip of the day" in a local newspaper!! (Not that I'd have needed this to get there ;) 

Arrived a little after eight. Support act were "The Truffauts" from Nuremberg. They started with "Venus in Furs" by Velvet Underground. I'm not very familiar with them, but they played a handsome groovy guitar pop, between Go-Betweens and Camper van Beethoven. A really good intro!

About 9:30 p.m. Marty greeting the crowd with a perfect "Guten Abend" (good evening), without the slightest accent. Another sentence he must have learned here "Wo kann ich einen Fahrschein kaufen?" (Where can I buy a bus/underground ticket?") - oh my god, what a law abiding country this is ;)

Set list as known before, just for the record, with some (very personal) comments:

- Radiance: Marty + Pete on acoustic guitars, but with the help of the amazing keyboard player 
  a wonderful starter for the "holy mass".
- Comedown: Marty brushing his guitar intensively during the refrain.
- Song for the Asking: never thought it could be so good live. The AENT songs in general were   
  wonderful!!
- Buffalo: Saved a whole year (1998) for me. They can't do anything wrong with that one.
- Milky Way: the big "hit", got a lot of foot jiggling. Never really been my cup of tea, but 
  very well performed.
- After Everything: Marty on bass for that one, Steve playing acoustic guitar.
- Chromium: Marty time. Outstanding. I'd vote for that as the next single.
  Quoting Steve, Marty today tried "Lederhosen" (leather shorts in country-style. Thank
  goddess he seemed neither to have bought them nor was he wearing those).
- Myrrh ... one of my alltime faves ... and they didn't disappoint me :)
- New Season: Peter's piece, moody, grooving, cool.
Around that time an important question: "Is smoking pot illegal here?" Too true, boys!!! Munich is located in Bavaria, the  part of Germany with the strictest drug laws. But as wonders always happen, a kind soul provided them with the right stuff.
- Numbers
- Nitefriends
- Electric Lash: incredible real rock'n'roll version - never thought they could do it so 
  intensively live. 
- Swan Lake: too short, as it is on cd (despite of its sad lyrics).
- Metropolis: rocking, driving, making the crowd "hot" for more!!

- First encore: Magician Among the Spirits: Steve started with "Maybe you're not gonna like 
  it" or something, but hey: from the jam session-like beginning through the whole atmospheric 
  melody pictures it was outstanding.
- Second encore: Hotel Womb
- Constant in Opal: Peter with the harmonica!! Hardly can describe that one. Driving, rocking, 
  way too good. Steve in between started singing "I've got a hammer, I hammer in the morning, 
  all over this land" - before returning to they third verse. Glimpses of "The passenger" in 
  it. Should have lasted hours.

The crowd was very excited, applause and yelling after each song. Steve said thank you very (and at the end very very very) much after each song. 
Marty once more showed his ability in foreign languages "Vielen Dank, mein Liebling" (thanks very much, my darling).

Steve introducing the keyboard player, slamming with 10 fingers on the board, commenting: "I'm a composer, aren't I?". 

To some stupid fellow who hauled out for "Almost With You" Steve said, way too good imitating a hard German accent, "No, we wonn't play that tonniggght". The fellow went on yelling for "Unguarded Moment" - Steve replied "Oh no, that's too old. That's too old even for _us_." ;)  They seemed to be in very high spirits, creating a really friendly and lovely atmosphere.

After the show most of the crowd disappeared as there'd been a fire alarm or something like that. Strange because after a short while Marty and Steve returned, signed items and talked to us. Steve said he likes the way my husband is wearing his basque cap ... so if he sometimes weares one the wrong way round, the credits go to _my_ Steve ;)

6:30-something in the morning here, having been too excited to sleep I decided to listen to AENT over and over and write my impressions down. I'm still a bit overwhelmed (as I always am after Church concerts), please excuse typos and grammar mistakes.

And btw: if this set was semi acoustic than something is wrong with my ears. They used a lot of acoustic guitars but very well amplified. 

Best wishes,
Alexandra