… a set without big surprises, except for the fact that Melanie was not there:

The Rhythm Of The Heat
On The Air
Intruder
D.I.Y.
Steam
Blood Of Eden
Lovetown
No Self Control
Solsbury Hill
Family Snapshot
Lay Your Hands On Me
Big Time
Signal To Noise
Sledgehammer

In Your Eyes
Biko

The concert day in Lyon started early as usual. I took the metro to the final destination Stade Gerland. There was a designated front-of-stage area which I had a ticket for. After talking a walk halfway around the stadium I found a marathon gate leading to one side of the stage which was labelled “acces devant scene” (i.e. front-of-stage access). So we started waiting there - the first fans that morning. It was a bit strange that no-one joined us and after a few hours we got the reason: a security guard told us that the actual entrance would be about 250-300 meters down the road! As we arrived there we joined a few dozen of others who were queueing there since the early morning. We told them that we had queued at the wrong entrance since the early morning as well so we didn’t have to go to the very end of the queue.

At our “gate” there were single fences with about half a meter in between. Down the (long) road there were more fences about every 100 meters. According to the tickets doors were to open at 17.30. During all the waiting there was only one security guard standing at our entrance. His main duty was to open the fence to let cars pass by. Right next to our gate there was the entrance to the rest of the field. At 17.30 (still just one steward at our gate!) the door for the “rest” of the field was opened. People at our gate got anxious and my worst fears became reality: One security instructor shouted to the single steward at our gate that he should let people in now! So completely uncontrolled the whole horde of people stormed the fences! I was in row three at our “entrance” and by the time I passed the first fence it was already about to fall down. I really don’t want to know what happened to people behind me. I hope no-one got injured! Total disorder and panic! So far so bad - the next problem was that we had to run all the way down these 300 meters to the entrance to the field. A long way if you’re sprinting! By the time we reached the marathon gate me and the others could barely run but rather walked the last few meters. If you think that was about it with the bad organization you’re wrong… When we got inside the stadium we weren’t allowed to enter the field directly but had to walk around half the front-of-stage area. Across that area there were security guards lined up. We had to wait in front of them and their plan was to move slowly towards the end of this area. After all the fuss so far people were already uneasy and so this plan couldn’t really work. In the end the guards tried to hold us back but at one point every one tried to sneak through and so we finally got to the front row. What a piece of work!!! After the first bunch of people had passed uncontrolled the guards lined up again and did that until the front-of-stage area was nearly full. Unbelieveable! What an unnecessary procedure. The guards wasted here inside the stadium should better have been at the first gate and make people enter one by one!

The weather in Lyon was great. Partly cloudy, but dry with a lot of sunshine. I even got a bad sunburn. For the first time since Düsseldorf (indoors!) I saw the rain cover of the stage being removed for the stage. The show was maybe the most powerful performance I’ve seen on the tour. The band really seemed to let loose. There were the usual mistakes but I didn’t care at all. The drum duet was maybe the longest on the whole tour with parts I had never heard before. It simply didn’t seem to stop! Some songs like Duke’s Travels were extremely powerful and during Firth Of Fifth Phil drummed like hell. All in all memorable evening! Even a little better than Munich which had been very good already.

The next morning I had to fly on to Rome - my final destination on the European tour. EasyJet took me across the Alps and during the approach into Ciampino Airport I had a perfect view on the city center including Circus Maximus! Weather in Rome was as good as it gets. Temperatures high in the 30s and sunny. I took the bus to Termini station and walked past the Colosseum to Circus Maximus to see how the situation was 1 1/2 days before the show. As I arrived there the steel structure of the stage was almost ready. The video walls, a lot of lights and the actual stage the band plays on were still on the trucks on their way to Rome. Around Circus Maximus there were about 50 people sitting or standing. No sign of anyone queueing yet. So it seemed that the rumours about fans camping & queueing one or more days before the show were nonsense. I spent the afternoon with a bunch of friends and in the evening we had a very nice dinner with about a dozen of other fans. After midnight we were heading back to the hotel (a lot of us stayed in the same place). But me and 2 others were a bit restless and wanted to know how the situation at the venue was. When we arrived there at around 1.00 there were a few tents and some people sleeping on a slope at one side of Circus Maximus. All in all there were about 15-20 people waiting at that time. In the end we decided to start waiting as well. So I laid down on the grass and took a first nap. But as it was quite chilly above the ground with the humidity hovering over the still pretty warm ground. So I walked back to the hotel and got myself some warmer clothes. All in all I could sleep about 2-3 hours that night which I think isn’t that bad considering that I’m really not used to sleep open-air. Shortly before sunrise the trucks had arrived from Lyon. While they were waiting for the load-in I took a shower at the hotel and had breakfast.

More about the concert day in Rome and a show to remember in my next entry.

Ulli