The same holds for this review. I posted it before in the old forum, but for fans that have never seen her in concert i want to share this experience once more:
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Vanessa-Mae’s Tour of Change concert in Berlin: Friday, December 7th 2001
A journalist wrote on a UK Tour of Change concert that Vanessa-Mae does not belong to the class of most charismatic artists on stage. I say to this journalist that after Friday evenings concert in Berlin that he is wrong. I noticed on all four of her concerts that I attended, including this Tour of Change concert, that Vanessa-Mae makes great impression with her very personal approach of the audiences and that she is in full command and control of the complete evening. The audience always appreciates the small introducing talks of Vanessa-Mae to the music as a whole and to specific pieces she plays a particular evening. Moreover, Vanessa-Mae walks around the podium giving all people the opportunity to obverse her from as close as possible. In summary, Vanessa-Mae gives the audience what they come for and the high expectations are fully met. The audience reacts to her invitations to clap, dance and sing with her. I call that charisma. Vanessa-Mae played exceptionally well this concert and she was very energetic and lively on stage. She was impressive and looked happy to really be there and motivated to make it a special evening. In this, Vanessa-Mae graduated with ease. The audience rewarded her with standing ovations several times.
I met with Sebastian shortly before the show started. We were seated next to each other.
Friday evening’s concert was held in the new arena ‘Neues Tempodrom.’ A venue designed for a diverse kind of activities ranging from pop concerts, classical concerts, dance, opera and circus. The surroundings of the new building were not completed yet and several constructions around the Tempodrom are still on their way at this very moment. Vanessa-Mae’s performance was the first concert in a long row for the initiation of the venue in Berlin’s rich cultural life. At the beginning of the concert Vanessa-Mae told the audience that she considered it a great honor to be give the opening concert in this splendid hall. I can very well imagine that she see it this way, because the Tempodrom is really a wonderful venue with great acoustic characteristics. The seating of the audience to the stage is very good and gives most of the spectators a good sight on the happening that is going on. The audience is placed in kind of amphitheatre of steady tribunes and depending on the nature of the performance, seats can also be placed on the open place before the stage called the manege, or this place can be used e.g. in case of a circus performance. The roof of the building is special, because it runs into a point above the middle of the manege. The point of the roof is maybe an estimated 25-30 meters high.
I made about 50 photos during the concert. I had 100-300 mm zoom auto-focus lens available and with this I was much better equipped for the concert than I was for the Zurich concert last summer. I was seated on the amphitheatre tribune on the first row in one of the mid sections. A good seat and because of my tele-lens, I think I succeeded in making good pictures. I expect to have the results next Tuesday afternoon.
I was a little disappointed that there was no tour brochure or any other merchandise available for the concert. Vanessa-Mae told that she came from Prague that morning, and that she was due to leave immediately after the concert for a next tour stop on Saturday. Maybe it was simply not possible to have merchandise available at each concert due to logistic reasons.
The concert was a mix form mainly tracks of the new album Subject to Change and Storm. Here is the track listing with between brackets the violin Vanessa-Mae used for the piece:
Art of War (acoustic)
Deep south (electric)
Picante (acoustic)
Inca Dream (acoustic)
Solace (acoustic)
I am a Doun (acoustic)
White Bird (electric)
Toccata & Fuge (electric)
Storm (acoustic)
----- break -----
Love is just a game (acoustic)
Bach Street Prelude (acoustic)
Clear like ice (electric)
Hocus Pocus (electric)
Aurora (acoustic)
Embrasse Moi (no violin)
Retro (electric)
Laughing Buddha (electric)
Destiny (electric)
----- encores -----
White Bird dance version (electric)
Storm (acoustic)
The concert lasted more then two hours, including a 15 minutes break and encores.
For the first part of the concert Vanessa-Mae was wearing the same white shirt with only a wide left sleeve and open right shoulder and a blue jeans with light blue pieces sticked on the upper legs. During the second part, she had a purple shirt with glitters, which was a mirror image of her first white shirt. She also had changed jeans into a blue gray one, with dark spots all over it. As for her face, I could she in my lens that Vanessa-Mae had heavy dark eyeshade and also her lashes were accentuated with dark mascara. Needless to say that I found her very beautiful.
As I said before, Vanessa-Mae always gives small talks to the audience to introduce the music or to ask special attention for a particular piece of music. I will tell something about this together with a few of my impressions on several pieces. The concert started with the Art of War, which is a suitable to acts as opening number. For tonight’s version, Vanessa-Mae had added more parts for the violin to it, and the whole piece became more balanced and an increased tension was the result. Vanessa-Mae then told the audience something on the nature of the concert in respect to her new style on STC. Then Deep South and Picante followed, after which Vanessa-Mae said that two more slow pieces would follow to balance the concert. One of these pieces was Solace, which is one of my favorites on STC. Solace features Vanessa-Mae on acoustic violin accompanied by a guitar and it really makes me shiver over and over because of the emotions. I particular like that piece very much. I am A Doun is a familiar piece on which Vanessa-Mae sang the introduction and was ten assisted by two background female singers. Vanessa-Mae’s singing of White Bird made her charming only one-sided right cheek dimple visible. It made her so nice and lovely. I like that a lot.
Then followed a talk of Vanessa-Mae about that she looked forward to her Germany concerts, because it had been for more than two years since her Four Seasons tour that she was touring through Germany. T&F and Storm ended the first set of concert. The public with warm greeting accepted both musical pieces and a standing ovation set the break in the program.
The second part started with Love is Just a Game. The singing of Vanessa-Mae and the background singers for this song is absolutely a joy to hear. Bach Street Prelude was also one of the highlights of the concert. Vanessa-Mae on acoustic violin was accompanied by only a percussionist using all kinds of small instruments to make little noises. Vanessa-Mae was sitting down on her knees and the other man was sitting and walking around her with his instrument. Both were bringing the best out of the other making this piece to the one of the absolute highlight of the evening. It was s sheer joy to see it. After hocus Pocus, Vanessa-Mae introduced the band and the additional singers.
After Laughing Buddha, Vanessa-Mae announced the end of the show in her personal way by saying that she wanted to play all night, but that we had to go to bed and she on a plane to a next concert destination.
Then the concert ended with the playing of destiny. And this turned out to become memorable indeed. The hall virtually exploded during Destiny. At one moment all the people were shouting and clapping and Vanessa-Mae jumped down the podium and walked around the manege. Then she came to the side were Sebastian and I were sitting.
At one moment she stood about only 3 meters away from us. She was incredible beautiful. You can then recognize how small and tiny she actually is. But she is so gorgeous. The skin is of her arms, shoulder and open belly is unbelievable smooth. Her face is completely smooth and flawless. The very visible but perfect make-up looks very natural on her, because Vanessa-Mae simply has the perfect face and skin for using quite a heavy make-up. It really suits her very much and I am glad to have seen it on her from so close. I hope that the pictures of this special moment are supportive in keeping this memory alive.
After the concert, I tried to have a ‘thank you’ card delivered to her, but the German guy I spoke to wasn’t willing to help me in this. He also said that there was no chance in getting a signature. Sebastian and I went to the backside of the building where a door was to an underground garage for artists and equipment. After a short while, a large Mercedes came out there and I saw Vanessa-Mae sitting in the car on the back seat. She was away before we could do anything.
This is the final of my report. It has become a (too) long story but I hope it serves in giving people that couldn’t go to one of her concerts an impression of how it was. I will give more information if anyone has more or specific questions.
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I want to make one addition on an important detail that I somehow forgot to mention at all.
Vanessa-Mae showed during the show some of her charming clumsiness.
Vanessa-Mae was kneeled down during Bach Street Prelude. Somehow she started to loose balance and she almost felt aside. Vanessa-Mae managed to keep playing and she succeeded in restoring her position again. The audience was silently laughing about this incident.
I just think it is part of her that she is clumsy from time to time. But it is amazing that a girl with such a fine control over her movements (violin playing and skiing) fails so often under reasonable normal circumstances.
