VANESSA-MAE ON TOUR FOR CHANGE

LIVE IN BERLIN, DECEMBER 2001

The program 

Art of War (acoustic violin)
Deep south (electric violin)
Picante (acoustic violin)
Inca Dream (acoustic violin)
Solace (acoustic violin)
I am a Doun (acoustic violin)
White Bird (electric violin)
Toccata & Fuge (electric violin)
Storm (acoustic violin)

----- break -----

Love is just a game (acoustic violin)
Bach Street Prelude (acoustic violin)
Clear like ice (electric violin)
Hocus Pocus (electric violin)
Aurora (acoustic violin)
Embrasse Moi (no violin)
Retro (electric violin)
Laughing Buddha (electric violin)
Destiny (electric violin)

----- encores -----     

White Bird dance version (electric)
Storm (acoustic)

concert listing used by Vanessa-Mae and her crew
 

Introduction

In December 2001, I travelled to Berlin in order to visit Vanessa-Mae’s ‘Tour For Change’ concert on the 7^th in ‘Das Neue Tempodrom.’ The next day, the official opening of the new venue would be celebrated with a great gala evening that would be broadcasted live on German television. I combined the concert of Vanessa-Mae with a short holiday of four days in Berlin. I had an appointment with Sebastian from Poland to meet at the concert. I had sent him a ticket and we were seated next to each other. It was really great to meet a colleague fan and go to a concert of our Vanessa-Mae together.
 

The concert

A journalist wrote in his report on a UK Tour For Change concert that Vanessa-Mae does not belong to the class of most charismatic artists on stage. I say to this journalist, after this evenings concert in Berlin, that he is wrong. I noticed on all four of her concerts of Vanessa-Mae that I attended so far, including this Tour of Change concert, that Vanessa-Mae makes great impression with her very personal approach towards the audiences and that she is in full command and control of the complete evening. The audiences always appreciate the small talks that Vanessa-Mae makes to introduce 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. People 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 fully motivated to make it a special evening. In this, Vanessa-Mae graduated with ease. The audience rewarded her with standing ovations many times.

I met with Sebastian shortly before the show started. We were seated next to each other, and although we had never met before we were at ease with each other immediately. 

Friday evening’s concert was held in the new arena ‘Das Neue Tempodrom,’ a venue especially designed to serve as arena for diverse kind of activities ranging from pop concerts, classical concerts, dance, opera and circus. The surroundings outside of the new building were not completed yet and several constructions around the Tempodrom building were still on their way in December 2001. 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 honour to be give the opening concert in this splendid hall. I can very well imagine that she considered it in 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 activities happening on the stage. 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 arena, or this place can be used for the show 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 arena. I estimated the point to be about 25-30 meters above the floor.

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 earlier that summer of 2001. I was seated on the amphitheatre tribune on the first row in one of the mid sections. A good seat and because of my lens, I think I succeeded in making quite good pictures.

For the first part of the concert Vanessa-Mae was wearing the a white shirt with only a wide left sleeve and open right shoulder and a blue jeans with light blue pieces embroidered on the upper legs and below. During the second part, she had a purple shirt with glitters, which was a mirror image of her first white shirt with a right sleeve and open left shoulder. She also had changed jeans into a very nice flowered blue grey one. I could clearly see and recognise through the lens on my camera that Vanessa-Mae had lots of make-up on her face with dark eye-shadow, liner and pink lipstick. It is needless to say that I found her very beautiful

I was a 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 from mainly tracks of the new album Subject to Change and Storm. The concert lasted more then two hours, including a 15 minutes break and encores. I received an official listing with the concert program from a fan in Berlin shortly after the concert. This listing shows that the actual program as played that evening deviated from the list in track order on a few points, and that also ‘Inca Dream’ was added as extra piece during the evening.

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 and great to acts as opening number for the show. For tonight’s version, Vanessa-Mae had added more parts for the violin to it, that made the piece 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 slow pieces would follow to balance the concert after the hectic of the start. One of these pieces was Solace, which is one of my favourites of the album. Solace featured Vanessa-Mae on acoustic violin accompanied by a guitar and it really made 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 playing 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 instruments and tools. Both were bringing the best out of the other making this piece to 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 to the audience.

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 arena. 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 and perfect make-up looks very beautiful and natural on her, because Vanessa-Mae simply has the perfect face and skin for using make-up. It really suits her very much and I am glad to have seen it on her from so close. I took two photos of this precious moment that she stood so close to me. Unfortunately, the lights in the hall were dimmed and it was too dark for good photography and my photos are out of focus.  Nevertheless the poor quality, I show these two photos to give an impression of her looks and of how close the was to me.

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.
 

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I want to make one addition on an important detail that I somehow forgot to mention at all. During the show, Vanessa-Mae showed 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 minor 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 sometimes under reasonable normal circumstances.

Photos of Vanessa-Mae live in Berlin

Photos of Vanessa-Mae live in Berlin before the break (click thumbnails to view larger images)

Photos of Vanessa-Mae live in Berlin after the break (click thumbnails to view larger images)

Copyright VMSPOS © www.vanessa-mae.nu, Groningen June 2004