A magical weekend:

CdeB-weekend 15. – 17.08.2008 – Aachen

Fr., 15.08.2008:

For CdeB’s summer-tour in Germany we (some friends and me) had bought tickets for only one concert – the one in Aachen on Saturday, the 16th of August. It was the only concert which was not too far away. So Aachen was our only chance to see CdeB without driving too far – and we took it (the chance)! As the concert took place at a weekend it was also possible for Melanie to come over from Liverpool and spend some nice days with us – with Chris as the reason….!

The weather had been rainy nearly all summer long – so I was surprised that it was sunny with blue sky already on Thursday evening, the evening before Melanie should arrive!!!
During the week before I had not yet really been back from our holidays, my thoughts were still in Liverpool. Only 2 days before the concert – when I drove back by car from the supermarket and listened in a very loud way to the “Storyman” album while singing along, so that the other traffic-participants certainly thought I was mad, I could totally look forward to see the concert. I had heard about the previous concerts, and not everybody liked the orchestra parts, but I never had seen Chris performing with orchestra before. – Also the weather had not been very good during the previous concerts. So for me everything was just perfect.
On Wednesday I had pre-ordered our roses for Chris at our local florist in Eppinghoven (suburb of Dinslaken). I don’t buy flowers very often, but when I ordered our 2 single red roses and 1 yellow rose and stressed, that we would need the most beautiful roses they could get they smiled, and when I commented: “They are for Chris de Burgh” they smiled even more and remembered, that I had bought flowers for Chris in their shop before. In the car I also listened to ‘Just a word away’ – and when I arrived back at home and checked my e-mails I found a message from Dimitra in Greece, and she wrote: “I’m just a word away….. “ – how spooky was that? She was leaving Greece and flying to Germany to see the Hanau-concert on Friday and the Aachen concert with us on Saturday. She even had a ticket for a seat in our row!

On Thursday I made Melanie’s bed in our cellar – with LFC bed-covers of course……! And I prepared the lunch for my family for Friday, as I would not be at home when the kids came back from school – Rabenmutter! I tried to go to bed early (which I never seem to manage!!) and on Friday morning I went up a bit quicker than usually. After only 1 hour of Keiron Fox’s Magic-breakfast-show = at 8.00 a. m. I left the house to drive to the airport. It was already a pleasure to drive the 40 km on the Autobahn/motorway. The weather was so nice and I was singing along to CdeB again. I arrived at the airport in time, texted Angelika Baumeister, because she had told me she also would pick up a few ladies from England (Chris R., Alison and Sheila) on Friday morning in Düsseldorf – but it was her turn a bit later – so we missed each other. Never mind – we later met in Aachen before the concert.
I had my camcorder handy while waiting for Melanie to arrive – because I intended to film her first step out of the airport-gates. Funnily there was an about 60 – 70 years old man standing and waiting with a photo-camera in his hand. When we recognized that we both had the same idea we smiled at each other and started talking about the guests we were expecting. He was waiting for a lady from Yorkshire, who he’d got to know during his travels while he was a student. Because of the internet their contact had become more frequent again, and now she would visit him for his birthday. Happy Birthday!!

Melanie arrived soon (at 9.35 a. m.) and we decided to drive to Duisburg. We just had seen each other only about 2 weeks ago during our Liverpool-holidays. I see some of my friends here in Germany less often than I meet Melanie from far away Liverpool (I had already seen her at the end of May/beginning of June, when we went to see Sir Paul McCartney at ‘The Liverpool Sound’ in Anfield)!
We walked through Duisburg, where I had worked for several years before I got the kids, which means I stopped working there in 1992. I’d been working at the Courthouse in the centre of the city, and I had spent my lunch-breaks with shopping in Duisburg nearly every day – but now I hadn’t been there for a long time – and so much had changed. We had a look at the harbour-cruise ships but decided not to take part in such a cruise (Hafenrundfahrt), but to walk to the new inner-harbour, where they had built a lot of cocktail-bars and nice restaurants along the waterfront – a very nice area – especially exciting at nightime, but we also enjoyed sitting in the “Cubar” for lunch. I will come back some day for the evening-buffet and eat crocodile, ostrich, kangaroo etc.(must compare, if it tastes like in the south african restaurant Jabula in Ellesmere Port, near to Liverpool).

After a very funny text-conversation with a nice friend we walked back to the city centre, acted like tourists while taking photos of the Salvatorkirche and the townhall and even became witnesses of a legal wedding, and then we drove to Dinslaken.

We have a very nice ice-parlour at the market-place in Dinslaken, and Melanie had not yet tried the ice-creme there. So this was her first chance to do so. We sat down in the sun and had Tiramisu-Eis and a Whisky-Becher. Yummmmy! Poor people from the neighbour-table had to take pictures of us with the huge beakers in front of us!

Then we drove back ‘home’, relaxed a bit and had something to eat. Melanie had got some very nice gifts for us – even if this absolutely wasn’t necessary at all. But I love the Monopoly game, the edition of my favourite-city Liverpool with all the well known street names and buildings (Walker Art Gallery, World Museum, Lime Street Station, Tate Liverpool, Radio City Tower!!!!!, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Everton Football Club and Liverpool FC, Aintree Racecourse, Forthlin Road in Allerton, Speke Hall, Ablert Dock, Sefton Park Palm House, Metropolitan and Anglican Cathedrals, John Lennon Airport and Mersey Ferries, The Three Graces, Philharmonic Hall, St. George’s Hall, ACC Liverpool = Echo Arena and Liverpool One, the new shopping Centre, where I had even been at the opening day = 29th of May 2008) and the Liverpool-T-shirt she’d bought for me.
As the time was too precious to be wasted we drove to the river Rhein, only 3 min. by car from here, where we went for a walk on the dike between sheep, cows and geese, we enjoyed a beautiful sundown and admired the rising moon. ‘Niederrhein’ (= lower Rhine)-impressions!

We let the evening finish with a glass of wine while watching parts of our Liverpool-holiday-film together with Arno, my husband (who had time to join us when football on TV had finished!).


photos of Friday


Sat., 16.08.2008:

photos of Saturday and Sunday

The next morning we slept untill about 8.00 or 9.00 a. m., started the day slowly. When I switched on our little shower-radio while I was having a shower the first I heard was the weather forecast for the weekend: 24 degrees and sunshine – no rain!!!! Rain would start only on Monday and get worse on Tuesdady! Who cared for Monday or Tuesday – at the moment it was the weekend which counted. Weather could not be better for us!!!!! While having breakfast, we listened to the Magic-breakfast-show (in Liverpool – online), as I always do, but that day there was a substitute on air, Mark Jones, and I knew, he NEVER plays CdeB-songs. Ok – I know they unfortunately don’t have any CdeB in their playlist (silly playlist!!!!!!!! – We really should start a campain to change this!!!!), but some songs are still in their system! I know this! And when Mark asked the listeners to request songs with ‘drums’, we requested a CdeB song, as there certainly also would be played the drums in his songs, even if he’d play “Don’t pay the ferryman”. He certainly found it very funny to make his jokes (only via e-mail, not on air) with us, and he gave in (pretended to give in) to play CdeB at 5 past 10 – ha ha! German time? Then the show would not yet have finished. In the end he wished us much fun at the concert – what else should we have expected of him?

After we had finished breakfast I got a ‘sandwich-making-lesson’ from Melanie. I love the engl. sandwiches! And as we would go to a ‘picnic-concert’ sandwiches were very appropriate. CdeB always says we should bring sandwiches and pyjamas. So we did! (Well, I left the pyjama in the hotel and didn’t bring it to the concert!)

Then I started cooking, because not only we but also my family needed something to eat. If I already had to neglect them so much they at least should not starve hungry! Between cooking (tortellinis in spinach with ham and garlic, which is quick and easy but tastes delicious) and eating Melanie and I walked to the florist to pick up the roses – and the florist made some nice comments again about CdeB, and that he should come and sing in Dinslaken, when he gets so much roses from there (stickers of their shop in Dinslaken were on the foil of the roses)!!!! Yes – that would be great!!! Maybe I should give the florist some pictures of how CdeB holds our flowers or how they are lying on the piano. Maybe I’ll get discount then the next time I buy flowers for him (when will this be????) – no – I will pay for my roses, but I still like the photo-idea (they can name themselves then: ‘Official Chris de Burgh-flower-distributor’!!! lol

Meanwhile the kids (14 and 16) had woken up. We had an early lunch, Melanie had the pleasure to see my husband Arno in his Schützen-Uniform (rifleman/marksman-uniform), because he had to go to a ‘Schützenfest’ early that afternoon. He’s adjutant and so he wears a lot of feathers on his hut. He became ‘Schützenkönig’ in 2001 and chose me as his Queen and I had to wear a crown and beautiful dresses, even long dresses, like ‘Sissi’, which was pretty cool!!!!!

After lunch we packed everything – the whole car was full of suitcases, cool-boxes (for the picnic) – and the quote from ‘Missing you’ really fitted: ".... We've got the roses, we've got the wine, with a little luck we will be there on time. Aachen's the place that we will go, with romantic music and the sun getting low..... ."

We started our way to Aachen at 13.15 p. m. and it took us 1 ½ hours to drive the 129 km. The strange thing was that when we switched on the CD player in my car (containing a self-made CdeB CD with my favourite love-songs) the first sentence he sang was: “The journey has begun……” – how very appropriate!
It was no problem to find our Mercure hotel at the Jülicher Straße 10 – 12, we checked in and waited for our friends to arrive. They arrived a bit later, but were not yet ready to leave the hotel so soon, so Melanie and I went on our own to have a look at the venue, the Kurpark of Aachen, which was only a 5-min.-walk away. When we asked the lady at the hotel-reception where we would find the Kurpark she wanted to know, what would happen there tonight, who would sing there. We told her, who it would be – and she already was worried that we would bring him back with us to our hotel later that night – ha ha ha!
We immediately met other CdeB-fans. The first fellow-fans we met were Claudia and Willi. It was nice to talk to them. I had seen them several times from a distance but we never had talked together so far. CdeB had touched her hair the evening before in Hanau, so we joked about if she had washed her hair at all since then! Doris Henseler also came along, so did Chris and Stewart. The whole city seemed to be full of CdeB-fans! Also Stephan, Annette and little Tabea (about 4 years old) were there, still worried about where to pick up their tickets, which they had ordered before. Doris told us something about a surprise for people, who had had to travel far – like Melanie....! But that was all she could tell us....! Very exciting....!

We talked to the security-man at the entrance, who was very, very friendly. I asked him, if we
really would be allowed to take bottles (glass-bottles – maybe filled with wine......) with us into the venue – because usually you can not even take small bottles of water with you. Yes, we were allowed. Typically me I went on asking, if they would allow photo-cameras – this would be no problem. And as I just had my camcorder hanging around my neck I asked: ‘And what about camcorders?’. Of course I expected a ‘No, you are not allowed to film the concert!’, but he said: ‘You can bring it, we won’t examine your bags today, everything will be very relaxed!’!!!! I thought that I could not trust my ears – but I was glad to hear this. Melanie and I walked around for a little bit longer and heard the orchestra playing CdeB-songs – so it was the orchestra soundcheck. No singing to hear. There was another couple standing at the fence to the Kurpark, and they asked, if we also would be at the concert that night. We would! They were a couple from the Netherlands. I asked, if they were members of the mailing-list, they said they were, but I didn’t know their names – and forgot them again – sorry!!! Soon Melanie and I had to go back to the hotel to get changed for the concert.

We left our hotel to walk back to the venue 20 min. later with our friends. It was about 18.00 p. m. when we arrived. The picnic should take place at 18.30 p.m.. It was interesting to watch all the people and to recognize some well-known faces again while waiting, e. g. Ina, Claudia S., Evelyn etc. Meanwhile we already got a little taste of what would expect us in the evening – because we heard the soundcheck. I only wonder, if they were doing the soundcheck all day long, because somebody had told me that they also heard the soundcheck already at 14.30 p. m. What we had heard in the later afternoon was only the orchestra. While we were waiting for the gates to open I first saw Nigel walking through all the waiting concert-visitors away from the venue – and after a while Al and Dave did the same. Nobody noticd them – unbelievable – do they all only know Chris and not his band? Or was everybody so well-behaved and pretended not to know them in order to let them go without any fan-attack back to their hotel?

The doors finally opened at about 18.40 p m., we searched for the signs, which Lore had put up for us ‘Internet-friends’, it was a bit like “Schnitzeljagd” (scavenger hunt or paper chase), but then we found the meeting-place. Do only I have the feeling that the time then began to pass much, much quicker than it did before? Suddenly everybody was there – lots of people I had seen often before. Astrid was there, and I can’t tell all the names, I certainly would forget somebody, but it was great to meet Dimitra!!! We had exchanged several nice e-mails during the last maybe 2 years. And she even had a present for me: a nice greek candle-holder in Santorini-decor (and a CD-ROM)! That was so kind of her (thanxxxxxxx!!!)– and I had nothing to give to her!!!!! But it was great to see her! I immediately recognized Arash, he looks like on his community-picture, Lore was ‘full in action’ giving away pieces of sticky tape for us to write our names on. But I still had my Dortmund-button from Nov. 2006. So I didn’t need any tape. We opened our wine-bottle and ate some of the prepared sandwiches, but I hardly had time to eat nor drink, because it now became very exciting to talk with everybody. It was nice to get to know Kathy and Robert from Belgium, I can’t even remember how it happened that we started talking together. To some people I didn’t manage to say more than “hello”. Time flew!!! Longer fan-meeting next time again, please!!!

Very soon Astrid told us that those of us, who had read the community website yesterday evening, would know that she had prepared a little surprise for us: She had talked to the management and got the allowence to bring 20 people to a short meet & greet before the concert. And as there were so many people from abroad she would give those people who had had to travel rather far some stickers, which were the ‘ticket to the meet & greet’! Ok – I only live 129 km away......! No chance. But Melanie....? - Astrid stood on a bench while telling us all this – and she immediately knew a few people, who would get ‘tickets’, like Arash from Iran, a couple from Russia, someone from Sloviakia and Ursula from Switzerland etc. My friend Birgit shouted: ‘What about Melanie from Liverpool?’ Astrid agreed and gave Melanie a ticket. Soon Astrid did not really know who to choose anymore. I was walking around with photo-camera and camcorder (video) and so I asked, if they would need a camera-woman. Astrid had to admit, that a video would be very good, so I got a ticket, too. Wow. Good that I didn’t know this before and that I didn’t have any time to get very, very excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was just happy!!! Very happy!!!! - And I again realized, that only people who SAY what they think or want can be helped! I always used to be rather shy (when I was at school and also later) and always tried not to catch the eye of anybody. But I love CdeB’s quote: “It’s better to have tried in vain than never try at all”, and that was simply what I had done that late afternoon!

There was not much time left till the meet & greet should take place. I just rang up Nicole to tell her what was going on, then Sheila from England came to me to introduce herself. She told me she had been living in Weeze about 20 years ago because of her husband, who was at the airforce in Weeze. Meanwhile Weeze is an airport for cheap flights. I once wanted to fly from Weeze to Vienna, had booked a flight with V-bird, but before my flight took place the airline got bankrupt and I never saw my money again nor did I fly to Vienna (to visit my cousin). I could have bought 3 CdeB tickets for the money I lost!!!!! Better not think about it! Shiela, Chris R. and Alison had met CdeB already in the afternoon at the first soundcheck, so they did not need to go the the meet and greet with us and were so kind to leave their tickets for other fans.



At 19.30 p. m. we 20 lucky people went with Astrid to the right side of the stage and waited. After a while we were allowed to enter a backstage-area (outdoors). Because I was the ‘official’ photographer and camera-woman (a friend of mine meanwhile simply calls me ‘cawo’) I didn’t mind not to be on the group-picture, which we took, I took pictures with several cameras which the others handed over to me, but then somebody (sorry, I don’t know the name, maybe he was from Russia?) took some pictures, and I also gave him my camera and posed with the others for the group-picture. But then Chris arrived!!! So I went to the front and got my camera back. Chris saw this and one of the first things he said was: ‘Hello Doris, how are you?”. I think I first didn’t really say anything, maybe I said “good”, but then I certainly more thought than said: “busy” (because I had to film and take pictures). I switched on the camcorder as soon as I could and filmed the whole meeting, which lasted only 5 minutes.
I think it was Carina, who told him about a wedding where she had been before (not her wedding!) this day and had sung ‘In a country churchyars”, also Arash told him how much he loves him, then Chris joked with little Tabea (Annette and Stephan’s daughter), Melanie told Chris the half-time-score of Sunderland ./.LFC – it was still 0 : 0. Melanie’s colleague Mark, who is stewart in Anfield, had texted her the score, and also intended to text her the final result. Very intersting! Chris signed a lot of tickets, CD covers and even a hand and hugged a few people before Chris Andrews, who had been with us all of the time, told him it would be time to go. The last words Chris said were: “Tschüss, bye Doris” while looking into my camera. So you see, in spite of not having time to pose for pictures nor asking for any autograph he ‘signed’ my video by saying something to me – he really knows how to please absolutely everybody! And he tickled my belly while saying this. I really should make more gymnastic for my belly, shouldn’t I?



We then only had time to search our seats before the concert began. In spite of having tickets for row 2 left we were sitting on the right side from the audience’s view! The concert was great! Chris sang the first few songs solo. He said, he had organzied something special for us for later that evening: an eclipse of the moon. I must say, I didn’t manage to see the moon untill we were on our way back to the hotel at about 23.00 p.m.
While he was singing “Shine on” Melanie got a text from Mark again, telling her that Liverpool had won 1 : 0 and Torres had scored. So now we could go to the stage and give him our roses. One of my friends got my video-camera in order to film how we (Melanie, Kesrstin and I) brought our roses to Chris, that was nice. We were the first ones, but lots followed us! Melanie told Chris the football-result and he asked who had scored. She told him: Torres! Suddenly a little boy was standing in front of the stage (like last year in Gymnich, it was like a deja-vu). I took the boy (maybe it was even the same boy as last year? Only 1 year older?) and lifted him a bit higher to the stage, so that he could give Chris his gift.



Then the band appeard during “Borderline”. After 1 hour we had a 15 – 20 min. break (which I used for texting!), then Chris returned on stage with band AND orchestra. That was great! I loved the orchestra-sound, I even liked “Leningrad” with the orchetra. It sounded much, much better than last year, when he sang it solo (but with orchestra from the tape). The song which I liked most that evening was “I’m not crying over you”!!!! My new favourite-song for the moment!!!
My phone had rung several times that evening, and usually it was Nicole. She listened to nearlythe whole concert via my phone!!!! Her poor telephone-bill!!!!
After “Lady in Red”, during which Chris walked through the audience, we all hushed to the front and we got good places.
While I was standing there my Liverpudlian friend rang me up twice. Explain me, why I at all answered the phone, I knew I would not understand any word!!!! It was too loud. And it must have looked very funny from the stage to see somebhody trying hard to understand something at her phone during the concert! Lol! He even rang twice!!!!
Much too soon the conert was over. And Chris had said before, that it would become a very looooong concert. Including break it had lasted about 2 ½ hours. But we knew this before – so we were not too disappointed. And WHAT we saw during the 2 hours and a bit was absolutely great!



After I had told my friend that the concert was over I got another call – NOW I could finally understand him!!!!!
It was about 22.30 p.m. Time again passed so quickly. Some of us had become hungry, but we somehow didn’t manage to go to any restaurant. After having eaten something in the venue we went back to our hotel, ‘killed’ the last bottle of wine and watched my video, which I had filmed. We then finally only slept at 2.00 a. m.
The beds were a bit short (for my taste) and the pillows too thick, besides we sweated very much, but it was only for 1 night.

Sun., 17.08.2008:

On Sunday we slept untill about 8.30 a. m. and got slowly ready for breakfast. I texted my family to let them know how the concert had been – and to wish them a nice day. They were invited at my little niece’s baptism, which I would miss. There were soooo many events that weekend – I couldn’t be everywhere – and the CdeB weekend including international guests and hotel-rooms was already booked and planned before little Ronja was even born. Sorry, I couldn’t be there. I also missed my Godson’s birthday-party on Saturday afternoon/evening.

All of us gathered for breakfast at 10.00 a. m. – The breakfast in the Mercure-Hotel on the Jülicher Straße was very, very good – they even offered saucages and scrambled eggs – like for a full English breakfast!
We checked out at 11.30 a. m., brought our luggage to the car and then walked together into Aachen City to make a bit of sightseeing. We didn’t see much more than the Dom (Cathedral) of Aachen and a ‘Printen’ (gingerbread, for which Aachen is famous) store, but we met Chris and Stewart, and later Kathy and Robert from Belgium crossed our way. CdeB-fans everywhere…. .
We had a nice lunch in an italian street-restaurant, then we quickly made our way to Cologne, because I wanted to show Melanie in the limited time we had the Cathedral of Cologne (Kölner Dom). In the car we listened to the albums “At the end of a perfect day” and “Crusader” and sang along. We even enjoyed “Brazil”, we were in such a good mood! While approaching Köln (80 km from Aachen) we rang up Eberhard, who lives in Köln. We only had 80 min. time in Köln, so it was just enough time to climb the Cathedral tower – which was very crowded. Back downstairs Eberhard and his son just had arrived at the platform in front of the Dom, we only chatted for 10 min., then all of us had to leave again. But it had been nice to meet him!
And Melanie will come back next year without CdeB – then we’ll have more time for sightseeing and relaxing!

I brought Melanie to the airport Düsseldorf and I arrived back at home after a wonderful weekend at 19.00 p.m. During the last 10 min. of my trip home it had started to rain. I know a nice irish singer who wrote a song named “Timing is everything”…… !

I was so tired that I only managed to sit down in front of the TV!
Melanie had to wait a bit longer till she could lie down in her bed. Her plane even was 1 hour late…., but she met Alison who had booked the same flight as she had.

It had been a wonderful weekend with a lot of driving, a lot of sunshine, a lot of friends and much fun – and the reason for all this was – like so often: CdeB!

And now I have no concert nor flight tickets left. High time to make new plans!!!! Perhaps UK-concert-dates for Nov./Dec. in the UK, close to Liverpool, maybe in the new Echo-Arena? It would be nice to celebrate my 40th birthday there (but how would I explain this to my family and relatives?).

Still awake?
Well done! xxxxx