Take That in Concert Progress Live München 2011/07/29
Part 3/3 The end of Take That
This took me some time to write, sorry if you've been waiting for this. It has almost been a week since the concert. Which happened on Friday the 29th of July 2011 in Munich at the Olympiastadium. It was the final concert of Take Thats Progress Tour 2011. I actually already forgot half of it. I mean, I leave the concert and then it is already gone from my mind - at least it feels like this. Don't know why this happens. Maybe my brain just wants to tell me I need to watch it again, again and again. But that's not possible anymore, like I wrote it was the final date of the show.
We (My mum and I spent a girls weekend together, she's also a TT fan and Gary is her favourite) went to Munich on Friday via ICE from Cologne. Started at 9 a.m. in Cologne and arrived around 1 p.m. in Munich. I've never been to Munich before, but my mum knows a lot about it - she went to school there and visited countless times, she's from Bavaria. The weatherforecast said it would rain so I was already prepared for a similar experience like in Hamburg. And believe it or not at 3 p.m. when the doors opened it started to pour down. The clouds were extremely dark and I was sad thinking it was going to be the same as in Hamburg. At least it wasn't as cold. But after about 45 minutes the rain stopped and it didn't come back for the rest of the night! Wow, really thankful for that.
So after checking into the hotel and having lunch with dozens of TT fans at the local Pizza Hut we went into the Olympiapark where the Olympiastadium is located. I already checked the webcam of the stadium for days so I knew that the stage was build up already and at one point they also had OM coming out. Well, since we had seats we decided to go on top of the Olympiatower. You have a great view of the Alps on sunny days, but as you know this day wasn't very sunny. But you had a great view from up there down at the stadium which was slowly filling up. We spent about half an hour there. It would have been funny to watch the concert from there. ^_^!
We went inside the stadium which was pretty empty, even when the Pet Shop Boys performed. Although it looked sold out later at least a few rows behind us there were some empty seats. Some people at the concert bought their tickets just at that evening so it was certainly not sold out even though it looked pretty full. The floor area at least looked crowded. I'm not a 100% sure but I think München was the biggest venue, it just seemed bigger than Hamburg or Düsseldorf. I didn't buy any merchandise, the grey T-Shirt I wanted was sold out and I don't really fancy to buy a T-Shirt for 30 EUR that I don't really need. I have one T-Shirt, I bought it in Düsseldorf. The only thing I bought was the two missing cups, hey, now I have the set of three, too!
All in all he seats this time were ok. The pictures I took are not as good though. Best seat was certainly the one in Düsseldorf. Probably one of the reasons why I would rate Düsseldorf as my favourite concert if I had to choose between the three. Since everything was basically the same, I will write about it like the Düsseldorf concert.
I was also happy with my seat for another reason. You could see TT running in and out of the stadium there. Robbie was already running around and waving before the PSB even started. And Howard and Gary were waving to us when they went behind the stage. I could also see the ballerina dancer from Pretty Things partying with the crowds at the end of Never Forget.
Some videos on Youtube show that Jason already was at the B-Stage and watching the Pet Shop Boys from there. Wow. Basically you can watch the whole concert again from various perspectives on Youtube a lot of people film the performance. It is great, but on the other hand I prefer the times when people were having fun clapping and dancing at a concert instead of making videos. I mean, it seems like people don't live the moment anymore. I realize I'm also guilty when it comes to making photos. But ultimately I much prefer enjoying the moment instead of creating fancams and stuff. I can watch the DVD of the concert later anytime. Yes, it's not the same concert - but it basically is. I mean they change a little bit - but not much. Even most of the jokes are the same.
Before The Flood you can hear the intro of Man from Progressed and somewhere in
the concerts even an instrumental of Happy Now was played. That is why I wasn't sure
if they played Happy Now or not!
This time I catched some of the yellow confetti stuff from the Greatest Day performance. Munich also was full of Robbie Fans - reminded me a bit of Hamburg. They went more crazy for him here yet again, not comparable to the level of screams TT received. Howard says his usual sentence "Vielen Dank, dass ihr immer an uns geglaubt habt!" I think he said that in every german concert. Instead of Moin, Moin Mark says Grüß Gott (bavarian greeting) in Munich. I don't even remember what they said in Düsseldorf. Maybe just Guten Abend or something. I can't think of a specific local greeting.
Robbie does his usual programme. Instead of talking to the danish fans he shows us his naked a*s! There is a part in his solo section, after Come Undone I think, where he sings some lines of Bootylicious from Destiny's Child and Irreplacable (To the left line) by Beyoncé. He mooned us at Bootylicious. I'd rather wanted to see Howards bum again, but ok. *LOL* Then we do the Mexican Wave, which was fun.
Mark eats a banana during The Flood performance. When the blonde girls brings the drinks at the section with the wine and the milk some male staff? members come out with her dressed in Dirndls and wigs and bring it in big german beer mugs. In the Rudebox/Clap your hands Rap there are some references to Michael Jackson, I think, I heard Robbie rap: Jackson, rest in peace or something along these lines. The part where they talk about the old times, where Jay usually said that Robbie left TT and Robbie answers "You sacked me!" they reverse it in Munich. Jay says that he was the one who sacked Robbie and Robbie says "No, I'm the one who left!"
They all get a bit emotional because it's the end of the tour. Because it is the last time we'll ever see it, Gary joins the Take That and Party Routine. ;_; Robbie says it's the end of Take That and the end of Robbie Williams. Well, I hope not. Mostly I hope that it's not the end of TT4 I just don't think I could stand that. But all of it seemed so final. They say it all the time - it's the final concert and sound emotional and teary, too. At the end they also jump around with the dancers and sing Olé Olé. And in Relight my Fire they also change one line during singing. It usually goes I got hope in my soul and they sing I got soul in my hope - but they already did that in the concerts before, I think.
And then they sing Eight Letters go down in the crowds and leave. I thought they might do another song since it was the final, but they didn't. ;_; And that was it. I can't believe it's over. I've been looking forward to these concerts for months. And for one thing, I think it's not going to happen again. Not with Robbie. If there was one thing that is obvious after the concerts it is that Robbie Williams is a solo artist. I love the songs on Progress and Progressed, I think it is the best TT album to date and I loved the concert.
But I'm not sure if I like it better than The Circus Live. If they would do it again as a 5 member group I definitely would prefer them to have no solo sections. And the way they entered the stage (TT4) is so undramatic in comparison to Robbies entrance, like I wrote in the Düsseldorf entry. The light at that point, the explosion, the way he jumps into the stadium, it's just so much more dramatic and WOW. So it is not that suprising seeing people freak out more for Robbie, which still hurts me. I can't help but still feel bitter about this, even though I don't want to. I sometimes wonder about how Jason and especially Howard feel about all this. Howard is so quiet and doesn't talk a lot - but I just feel that it was mainly Gary and Mark that wanted Robbie back.
Anyway, it is over now. I really pray that TT will be back, make another album and tour again as 4. And I hope that they'll come back to Germany. I hate all this "They couldn't have done it without RW" talk. They did the Beautiful World Tour in 2007 here and I don't remember seeing empty seats. Of course, Germany is much more RW land, but there are also loads of TT fans here. Rob can tour and make his solo fans happy, but I really want TT to think of their own fans that support them.
So Progress Live 2011. How was it? Good, really good. My favourite performance is probably Kidz. But I enjoyed Love, Love, The Flood, Pray and also Never Forget. For the solo sections. I think Greatest Day for TT4 and Feel for RW-solo. The DVD will be released in November. One small light at the end of the TT-less period which is going to follow now.
This took me some time to write, sorry if you've been waiting for this. It has almost been a week since the concert. Which happened on Friday the 29th of July 2011 in Munich at the Olympiastadium. It was the final concert of Take Thats Progress Tour 2011. I actually already forgot half of it. I mean, I leave the concert and then it is already gone from my mind - at least it feels like this. Don't know why this happens. Maybe my brain just wants to tell me I need to watch it again, again and again. But that's not possible anymore, like I wrote it was the final date of the show.
We (My mum and I spent a girls weekend together, she's also a TT fan and Gary is her favourite) went to Munich on Friday via ICE from Cologne. Started at 9 a.m. in Cologne and arrived around 1 p.m. in Munich. I've never been to Munich before, but my mum knows a lot about it - she went to school there and visited countless times, she's from Bavaria. The weatherforecast said it would rain so I was already prepared for a similar experience like in Hamburg. And believe it or not at 3 p.m. when the doors opened it started to pour down. The clouds were extremely dark and I was sad thinking it was going to be the same as in Hamburg. At least it wasn't as cold. But after about 45 minutes the rain stopped and it didn't come back for the rest of the night! Wow, really thankful for that.
So after checking into the hotel and having lunch with dozens of TT fans at the local Pizza Hut we went into the Olympiapark where the Olympiastadium is located. I already checked the webcam of the stadium for days so I knew that the stage was build up already and at one point they also had OM coming out. Well, since we had seats we decided to go on top of the Olympiatower. You have a great view of the Alps on sunny days, but as you know this day wasn't very sunny. But you had a great view from up there down at the stadium which was slowly filling up. We spent about half an hour there. It would have been funny to watch the concert from there. ^_^!
We went inside the stadium which was pretty empty, even when the Pet Shop Boys performed. Although it looked sold out later at least a few rows behind us there were some empty seats. Some people at the concert bought their tickets just at that evening so it was certainly not sold out even though it looked pretty full. The floor area at least looked crowded. I'm not a 100% sure but I think München was the biggest venue, it just seemed bigger than Hamburg or Düsseldorf. I didn't buy any merchandise, the grey T-Shirt I wanted was sold out and I don't really fancy to buy a T-Shirt for 30 EUR that I don't really need. I have one T-Shirt, I bought it in Düsseldorf. The only thing I bought was the two missing cups, hey, now I have the set of three, too!
All in all he seats this time were ok. The pictures I took are not as good though. Best seat was certainly the one in Düsseldorf. Probably one of the reasons why I would rate Düsseldorf as my favourite concert if I had to choose between the three. Since everything was basically the same, I will write about it like the Düsseldorf concert.
I was also happy with my seat for another reason. You could see TT running in and out of the stadium there. Robbie was already running around and waving before the PSB even started. And Howard and Gary were waving to us when they went behind the stage. I could also see the ballerina dancer from Pretty Things partying with the crowds at the end of Never Forget.
Some videos on Youtube show that Jason already was at the B-Stage and watching the Pet Shop Boys from there. Wow. Basically you can watch the whole concert again from various perspectives on Youtube a lot of people film the performance. It is great, but on the other hand I prefer the times when people were having fun clapping and dancing at a concert instead of making videos. I mean, it seems like people don't live the moment anymore. I realize I'm also guilty when it comes to making photos. But ultimately I much prefer enjoying the moment instead of creating fancams and stuff. I can watch the DVD of the concert later anytime. Yes, it's not the same concert - but it basically is. I mean they change a little bit - but not much. Even most of the jokes are the same.
Before The Flood you can hear the intro of Man from Progressed and somewhere in
the concerts even an instrumental of Happy Now was played. That is why I wasn't sure
if they played Happy Now or not!
This time I catched some of the yellow confetti stuff from the Greatest Day performance. Munich also was full of Robbie Fans - reminded me a bit of Hamburg. They went more crazy for him here yet again, not comparable to the level of screams TT received. Howard says his usual sentence "Vielen Dank, dass ihr immer an uns geglaubt habt!" I think he said that in every german concert. Instead of Moin, Moin Mark says Grüß Gott (bavarian greeting) in Munich. I don't even remember what they said in Düsseldorf. Maybe just Guten Abend or something. I can't think of a specific local greeting.
Robbie does his usual programme. Instead of talking to the danish fans he shows us his naked a*s! There is a part in his solo section, after Come Undone I think, where he sings some lines of Bootylicious from Destiny's Child and Irreplacable (To the left line) by Beyoncé. He mooned us at Bootylicious. I'd rather wanted to see Howards bum again, but ok. *LOL* Then we do the Mexican Wave, which was fun.
Mark eats a banana during The Flood performance. When the blonde girls brings the drinks at the section with the wine and the milk some male staff? members come out with her dressed in Dirndls and wigs and bring it in big german beer mugs. In the Rudebox/Clap your hands Rap there are some references to Michael Jackson, I think, I heard Robbie rap: Jackson, rest in peace or something along these lines. The part where they talk about the old times, where Jay usually said that Robbie left TT and Robbie answers "You sacked me!" they reverse it in Munich. Jay says that he was the one who sacked Robbie and Robbie says "No, I'm the one who left!"
They all get a bit emotional because it's the end of the tour. Because it is the last time we'll ever see it, Gary joins the Take That and Party Routine. ;_; Robbie says it's the end of Take That and the end of Robbie Williams. Well, I hope not. Mostly I hope that it's not the end of TT4 I just don't think I could stand that. But all of it seemed so final. They say it all the time - it's the final concert and sound emotional and teary, too. At the end they also jump around with the dancers and sing Olé Olé. And in Relight my Fire they also change one line during singing. It usually goes I got hope in my soul and they sing I got soul in my hope - but they already did that in the concerts before, I think.
And then they sing Eight Letters go down in the crowds and leave. I thought they might do another song since it was the final, but they didn't. ;_; And that was it. I can't believe it's over. I've been looking forward to these concerts for months. And for one thing, I think it's not going to happen again. Not with Robbie. If there was one thing that is obvious after the concerts it is that Robbie Williams is a solo artist. I love the songs on Progress and Progressed, I think it is the best TT album to date and I loved the concert.
But I'm not sure if I like it better than The Circus Live. If they would do it again as a 5 member group I definitely would prefer them to have no solo sections. And the way they entered the stage (TT4) is so undramatic in comparison to Robbies entrance, like I wrote in the Düsseldorf entry. The light at that point, the explosion, the way he jumps into the stadium, it's just so much more dramatic and WOW. So it is not that suprising seeing people freak out more for Robbie, which still hurts me. I can't help but still feel bitter about this, even though I don't want to. I sometimes wonder about how Jason and especially Howard feel about all this. Howard is so quiet and doesn't talk a lot - but I just feel that it was mainly Gary and Mark that wanted Robbie back.
Anyway, it is over now. I really pray that TT will be back, make another album and tour again as 4. And I hope that they'll come back to Germany. I hate all this "They couldn't have done it without RW" talk. They did the Beautiful World Tour in 2007 here and I don't remember seeing empty seats. Of course, Germany is much more RW land, but there are also loads of TT fans here. Rob can tour and make his solo fans happy, but I really want TT to think of their own fans that support them.
So Progress Live 2011. How was it? Good, really good. My favourite performance is probably Kidz. But I enjoyed Love, Love, The Flood, Pray and also Never Forget. For the solo sections. I think Greatest Day for TT4 and Feel for RW-solo. The DVD will be released in November. One small light at the end of the TT-less period which is going to follow now.