Roger is always good for a surprise
The show in the "Alte Oper" (Old Opera) in the middle of Frankfurt in Germany on March 8, 2011 was a very special show. It was the first concert of the tour in Germany this year. The fans in the Frankfurt area had to wait a few years to see Roger on stage again because his last show in Frankfurt was in 2007.
Even if you have enjoyed a lot of Roger's concerts, Roger and his team are always good for a surprise and that makes the show something special. Because of this, instead of adding a list of all the great songs that were perfectly performed, let me describe the "Frankfurt Specials" only:
When Roger needed the guitar for the second song to play "Give A Little Bit," he noticed that his guitar was not tuned correctly. He mentioned that he and his crew arrived the day before from Canada and that they are still under the influence of jet lag. Furthermore, he even forgot to tune his guitar for the show. To fix this, he asked Aaron to play a "C" on his keyboard and started to tune his guitar. Roger announced that the concert will be a bit longer tonight, because his 12 string guitar is not that easy to tune. This brought some smiles and laughs to the faces of the audience. During the tuning process, the sound engineer, Howard Heckers, came to the front of the stage and passed an iPhone to Roger. It had an app running that can be used to tune a guitar. The audience was happy to become a part of the "sound check" and after a few final adjustments, the guitar sounded like it should. It was good to see that Roger and his team didn't become nervous. There was no doubt, that the professional experience of decades helped a lot. I am sure that a lot of other artists would not have been able to manage such a "problem" that cool.
Another suprise was that an 11-year-old boy named Christian, who came to the sound check and impressed Roger when he played a song on the piano, was invited to play the piano part of "School" together with Aaron, who played the keyboard. Christian did a very good job and was a bit worried but he received extra applause from the audience. This must have been a once in a lifetime experience for him.
Aaron got a cold, but was able to play and sing his parts perfectly. He had to use an antiseptic liquid to clean the keyboard for Roger to prevent an infection. Compared to last year, Aaron brought even more elements to the music by additional vocals and instruments. It is good to see that Roger and Aaron always want to be better than in previous shows.
Most people in the audience were standing for the encores and the last song "It's Raining Again" was celebrated like a party.
I spoke with other fans during the intermission. A few of them saw Roger for the first time live. They were amazed about the quality of the songs, which was much better than the Supertramp recordings that one can hear on the radio sometimes. I recommended that they order the new live album in addition to the DVD. The good thing about the live album is that it is closer to today's show than the DVD because the DVD was recorded a few years ago without a lot of Aaron's extras.
I am looking forward for the show next Saturday that will be 500 meters under the surface and I am ready for another surprise....
Dieter Burkard |
