Naturelich

Tomorrow morning we are heading for the Metallica concert in Berlin. This concert is one of three Metallcia gigs in Germany (the other two are at the Rock am Ring / Rock im Park festival). As a part of the band's Escape From the Studio Tour 2006 we are looking forward to a great concert in a wonderful arena. Berlin's Waldbühne is loacted directly next to the Olympic Stadium. Back in 2003, we had seen Metallica at the Stadion an der Wuhlheide. Metallica had just released their St. Anger album. Three years ago we were able to get to the first row. This year we will prefer a spot in the seated area. Not only are the acoustics superior (we tested this 2 years ago), but with over 30 years, now, I just don't have the energy to compete with the energetic pogo-16-year-olds in row #1.
I hope to get a report up soon after the concert... :)

Posted by Naturelich at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I enjoyed a sunny late-afternoon in Düsseldorf's trendy media harbor (together with the Robbie geeks). We had a coffee (or hot chocolate) in a café, were chit-chatting a bit and took a long walk through the area. I am still trying to cope with yesterday's "club tour". Interesting how easily your right ear can become half-deaf. The geeks are now on their way to the Robbie Cinecast in HDTV quality at the UCI theater. We are planning to get tickets for his next tour - maybe we are lucky. I presume the tickets will be difficult to get!? But anyway, while they are watching the concert, here is a nice link to a Robbie Williams blog (in German): Robstuff.de.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Naturelich had the chance to see Reinhard Mey in concert. Today, the great German writer and singer played in Osnabrück. We had excellent seats in row 9 to the right of the stage. Mey played many songs from his latest album Nanga Parbat (a ballad about Reinhold Messner and his brother who died on mountain Nanga Parbat). He also played plenty of his famous song, most notably Über den Wolken which he has not played live for quite some time. The playlist also included (I can't remember the order, just some of the titles, sorry for this!):

• Nanga Parbat


• Friedhof


• Douce France


• Sven


• Alles ok in Guantanamo Bay


• Ich kann!


• Ich glaube nicht


• Annabelle, ach Annabelle


• Meine Söhne geb' ich nicht


• Je t'aime


• Viertel Vor Sieben


• Als De Tag Van Toen (in Dutch, French and German)


• Serafina


• Der Biker


• Das Narrenschiff


• Wie ein Baum, Den Man Fällt


• Vernunft breitet sich aus über die Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Since this was the second concert on his tour, Reinhard Mey was in an extremely good modd and the audience really went along with his songs. Standing ovations ended a great evening. His new song was the funniest piece of the evening. Let's just say Power on...

Posted by Naturelich at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In about 30 minutes, German radio station NDR2 will broadcast a live recording of Tori Amos. On her Original Sinsuality tour, Tori played Frankfurt am Main on June 28nd, 2005. The playlist includes the following songs:

• Father Lucifer


• Winter


• Piano Man (Billy Joel cover)


• Over The Rainbow (H. Arlen cover)


• Your Cloud


• Spark


• Never Seen Blue


• Tear In Your Hand


• Toast

The audio quality should be great! And the best news is: you can listen to this from anywhere in the world by using NDR2's webcast (available in both Real Media Player or Windows Media Player).

More information is available here (in German though).

Posted by Naturelich at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morrissette has released an acoustic version. This album features all the original songs (Ironic, Head Over Feet, You Oughta Know, Hand In My Pocket, etc). A special website is available at http://www.alanis.com/jaggedlittlepill/. My personal favorite so far: Not the Doctor. Strange, as I always disliked that song from the original album.

Posted by Naturelich at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are some photographs from the concert in Cologne.

Love of my life

Please link to this page - do NOT transpublish the images.

Continue reading "Pix from Queen + Paul Rodgers in Cologne" »

Posted by Naturelich at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Today, the greatly anticipated concert by Queen + Paul Rodgers was held in Cologne's Rhein Energie stadium.

We arrived pretty early at 18:00 hrs and bought some tour t-shirts. They're kind of a must as you don't know whether Queen will ever tour again. Almost immediately after we had picked our spot inside of the arena the heavens opened and rain poured down on us. We got ourselves a rain"coat" for EUR 3,- each which helped a little. But not much. Really. It was not (only) us, the entire crowd was really bothered by the ugly weather. It stopped raining for a while but dark clouds were right above us. Probably that's why Queen + Paul Rodgers started playing at 20:00 hrs. As always on this tour, there was no supporting act. Unfortunately, both facts kind of lead to a very boring kick-off. The crowd was not heating up at all. Brian May and Paul Rodgers were looking at each other in disbelief. The crowd was simply quiet. Some friendly applause after the song, but almost no one sang along, or clapped their hands or anything. Maybe most visitors were just to old for that and had forgotten how it is to participate in a rock concert. Anyway we tried our best to cheer everyone around us up but it did not really help.

The concert was floating forward until the rain began again. The sunlight was almost gone now and darkness surrounded us. Maybe both wet and darkness inspired some people to go along. Because all of a sudden the mood was changing and the crowd got more enthusiastic. Finally. Pheeeew. It would've been a disaster if they had not.

The rest of the concert was fabulous, although Paul Rodgers seemed to have some problems with his voice. But anyway, it was a great thing to see Queen live - at least once in my life...

A particular special was We Will Rock You. Since the German version of the musical is hosted in Cologne, the actors joined Queen for this song. It was kind of cool to see so many people on stage - their outfit was really great. They also added some additional spice to the song.

Click below to see the setlist. I will also add some pictures, once they are provided to me by a special someone... :-)

Continue reading "Queen + Paul Rodgers in Cologne" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Here are more supplemental pictures to the U2 concert in Gelsenkirchen. Read Naturelich's original entry here.

The stage

Continue reading "Supplemental U2 pictures" »

Posted by Naturelich at 3:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just tuned in to AOL music. They feature an All Metallica radio stattion. 24/7 Metallica. The station is also going to play rare B-sides and live material from the Madly In Anger World Tour. The first four songs I tuned into were Master of Puppets, Sweet Amber, Overkill and Blackened (LiveMetallica.com, Denver 31st March 2004) . Quite an interesting mixture. I am pretty sure, listening 24/7 to Metallica is pretty dumb - even for hardcore fans. The live tracks and B-sides will be a clear incentive to turn in every know and then. It's good to know that someone is always playing one of your favorite songs....

Click here to launch All Metallica radio (requires installation of an ActiveX plugin)

Posted by Naturelich at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have just discovered a wonderful thing: the Tori Amos Setlist Database at www.toriset.org. It is so great: you can look at all the rare cover songs she has played, you can view trends and go way way back to a concert you have seen.

For example, here are the setlists of two concerts Naturelich attended:

In Oberhausen she played the magnificent River by Joni Mitchell. This was probably one of the greatest cover songs I have ever ever heard.

Posted by Naturelich at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was the third time I was able to watch Tori Amos live. I had seen her before during the Strange Little Girls Tour in Basel on December 13th, 2002 and during the On Scarlet's Walk Tour in Oberhausen (January 21st, 2003). Today, her Original Sinsuality Tour hit Bonn's Museumsplatz (directly next to where the Tutanchamun exhibition was hosted earlier this year). It was a great concert although she did not play the usual Cornflake Girl. She started a few minutes before 20:00 hrs with 4 pianos on stage. Tori was in a good mood. She said if the weather was hot, so was she. The crowd, though, was very disappointing. Maybe it was the heat, but they certainly where not hardcore fans.

The setlist included many songs from her current album and a few classics:

During this tour, Tori plays cover songs in a session called Tori's Piano Bar. Today, she played Elton John's Daniel and Don McLean's Vincent. She pointed out that Daniel was probably the first song she knew how to play and was also one of her favorites. A funny thing happened during that second song. She started it once, then stopped abruptly. "I guess I fucked this one up..." and started again, this time a little bit slower and more passionate.

My personal favorites where Parasol, Original Sinsuality, Happy Phantom and China. All extremely great on a hot summer's night.

Continue reading "Tori Amos in Bonn" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For a limited time LiveMetallica.com offers 9 songs from the February 3rd, 1989 show. The band had previously published free bootlegs of their old shows on the MetallicaVault. But due to cost considerations, this site is now taken down. The heritage is carried hence forward by LiveMetallica. Content is supposed to change each month.

The first show published there adds up to a total running time of 44:06 minutes of free and live Metallica music. Get it before it's gone.

Posted by Naturelich at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U2's Vertigo//2005 tour hit Gelsenkirchen's Veltins-Arena and Naturelich was able to get a ticket - what a rare occassion. The event was fabulous and one of the greatest gigs I have seen - of any band - ever. To be honest I am a fan of the old U2 - those magnificent songs like With Or Without You, Where the Streets Have No Name or Sunday Bloody Sunday. I got their latest How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb album and found it was okay. No song stood out as being as classy as the old tunes...

...but this was before seeing them live. The experience was stunning, the atmosphere great, the audience ein Hammer. And the music even better. These songs really work when played live. And they did play With or Without You. What more can be asked?

...oh, yeah, Bono wore a T-shirt with Schalke on the front and 04 on the back - a nice gesture...

Here is the full setlist:

Break 1

Break 2

Posted by Naturelich at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I just bought a complete batch of Queen + Paul Rodger's Live Downloads. Similar to Metallica's LiveMetallica website, Queen and Paul Rodgers are offering (parts of) their concerts for sale (i.e. download). Each song is at GBP 0.99 if paid by credit card. The quality is stunning, the audience is terrific. This is particularly true for Barcelona's and Rome's Love of My Life, Fat Bottomed Girls from Paris and Munich's All Right Now. The quality is even better than on LiveMetallica.com. You actually feeeeel like you're standing in the middle of some 60,000 people singing and dancing along. Get a shot at it if you like the band. This rocks!

On a sidenote: saying this is not easy for someone from Düsseldorf *fg*, BUT: Cologne, we love to visit you for this...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Possible cover art for The Questionable Truth: Part 1 by Limp Bizkit

Imagine accepting the truth is part of the chorus in Limp Bizkit 's new song The Truth which has gone out to US radio stations a few days earlier. They are back! And they are louder, heavier, cooler. An absolutely great performance is available on their blog. Click here to check out the link to their video...

The album will be released on May 2nd or 3rd. The following tracklist has been rumored on the internet:
01 - The Propaganda
02 - The Truth
03 - The Priest
04 - The Key
05 - The Channel
06 - The Story
07 - The Surrender

For my personal taste they are using the word The a little bit to often in here, but we don't care about the titles as long as the music is great, right? Maybe Part 2 will have all songs starting with "A" or "An"... :D

[addendum as of June, 4th 2005]
The Truth is currently the song which gets played in my iTunes the most often. Play count is at 60 and steadily rising. It's a great metal song with an incredible chorus. Truly a great masterpiece...

Posted by Naturelich at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The third single Life Burns of Apocalyptica's album Apocalyptica will be released on 11th April 2005!

Here we go for the tracklist:

I have also just checked Apple's iTunes music store but the single is not yet available for download.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Scala Choir & Kolacny Piano Duo concert in Cologne's E-Werk was wonderful. They played most of my favorite songs. Scala had decided to give the gig, although Stijn Kolacny could not make it. Nonetheless it was a great event. The playlist (in a different order, but this is the best I can remember):

I was hoping they'd play two particular songs: Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Wolfsheim's Kein Zurück. But unfortunately they did not -- baaad luck... Maybe next time?!

Scala means very honest music, very lively music, very true music. Steven Kolacny announced a new album to be published later this year containing songs in German language only. Although I am German - and since they are really successful here - I would still love to hear more and more English stuff. I think it is more important that the song fits Scala and not the language it is in.

Oh, and yes, the choir was supported by Kryptos Quartet. They had an absolute magnificent cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! I loved it!!

Additional support was given by a band from Bruges called Galope. Their lead singer joined in for the song Eskimo- he has a magnificent voice...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apocalyptica has released their new Album Apocalyptica. Today, Mr Postman brought the special edition which contains three bonues tracks, the Bittersweet video and the Apocalyptica Player software. The bonus material includes a variation on Quutamo with vocals in different languages:

Quite an interesting idea, I think! Together with the increased use of drums (introduced on Reflections) and vocals Apocalyptica has developed their musical style and moved it forward. I think the Finnish band, headlining this year's Rammstein tour, is going into a good direction, although I still very much like the rather quiet titles, inspired by Finnish melancholy.

At any rate, the prize for the hardest song is earned by Betrayal/Forgiveness with Slayer's Dave Lombardo on drums. As discussed elsewhere in this blog, the most romantic and most beautiful (at least to the Naturelich ear) is Ruska. Distraction sounds like a cover of a Metallica track which Metallica has neither written nor performed.

This album is definitely a recommendation for music fans in general and metal/rock fans in particular. Congratulations, Apocalyptica on a wonderful album.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today, I received the Apocalyptica newsletter with links to short pre-listening clips for each song. The good news: the album will be released on January 24th. This is just about two weeks to go! Below is the track list.

[1] Life Burns
[2] Quutamo
[3] Distraction
[4] Bittersweet
[5] Misconstruction
[6] Fisheye
[7] Farewell
[8] Fatal Error
[9] Betrayal/Forgiveness
[10] Ruska
[11] Deathzone

The name of the song I loved so much during the pre-listening event last year is called Ruska! It is glorious!!

Apocalyptica will also be headlining for Rammstein on their upcoming tour. Now, we finally have a reason to visit Rammstein in concert?!?

Posted by Naturelich at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

You can get Apocalyptica's Bittersweet EP at iTunes music store Germany. This EP features an additional exclusive song as compared to the regular single: it is called Quutamo. Great stuff...

More infos on Quutamo:

Posted by Naturelich at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to Jenny, he-who-forgot-his-digital-camera (Naturelich) has now the possibility to enjoy some great pictures from the listening event.
Jen has also given permission to publish some of her pics on Naturelich blog, but make sure to visit her site for tons of more pictures (section Apocalyptice Pre-Listening Köln). Thank you, Jenny :-))!!

Eicca and Perttu

Continue reading "Photos from Apocalyptica Pre-Listening Event in Cologne" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Nov. 24, I received an email from Universal Rock Webteam, stating that I had won two tickets to the Apocalyptica Listening Event in Cologne on Nov. 30th. The venue for this event was the Kölner Filmhaus on Maybachstrasse in Cologne's MediaPark. A pretty low-tech place but it was cool to hear the new Apocalyptica CD before everyone else - even in low key.

Well, the party started at 20:15 when Eicca and Perttu came on "stage". They made a brief statement, about the album being only two weeks old, and them still having to adjust to it. Get the vibes. And then they started playing the CD!

The CD will contain some very heavy metal songs which make excellent use of the rhythmic drum beats. For my personal taste, those were sometimes a little bit too overwhelming, as I like the old Apocalyptica (without drums) a lot. The heavier songs are followed by a lighter, slower and more romantic or sentimental song. These drastic changes in speed also seemed a bit too huge for me. I would have preferred a sequence of heavy -> medium heavy -> slow -> medium heavy -> heavy as this works better for listening straight through the opus.

This being said - >75% of the new songs are superb!! Some where brutal, some melodic, others somewhere in between. Very much enjoyable and I can imagine myself building my own sort order and listening to this album up and down!

I especially liked the second to last song (title still unknown to me) which had this wonderful, brilliant melody of a piano in the background - which worked extremely well with the cellos. Let this be the next single!!

The first single - Bittersweet, featuring vocalists Ville Valo and Ylönen - is a great sentimental balad with potential to reach the charts (IMHO). It was very well received by the audience and is available on their site for viewing.

After listening through the CD, they went peeing (this is a quote!) and we enjoyed the Bittersweet video on a large screen. Wonderful video - they also showed a B-Roll at the very beginning which was interesting - although not quite as colorful as the original video... I guess they have digitally enhanced the colors here and there?!

After the video finished, they started signing and answering questions. I got my very own copy of Bittersweet signed. Naturelich. The stayed virtually forever to take lots of pictures with fans.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Smoking Gun: Backstage

Have you ever wondered what a rock band requires from the venues they are playing at? The Smoking Gun has the answer and displays the official insurance requirements, dressing room, security and catering needs of Metallica's 2004 US arena tour. Here's the highlights:

Posted by Naturelich at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A documentary about Metallica. Well, we have certainly seen some of those:

The time has come to go and see Some Kind of Monster - a documentary about Metallica - in the movies. Stay tuned for a full review...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Depeche Mode :: Enjoy The Silence 04
I just bought my first song at iTunes: the winner is: Enjoy the Silence 04 - Re-interpreted by Mike Shinoda. Scheduled for an official release on October, 18th 2004 the song is already played on radio stations in Germany. I heard it earlier yesterday morning and immediately liked it. Obviously, this is naturelich caused by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park (Vocals, Beats+Samples, Keyboards, Guitar). And also a little bit by Depeche Mode. The song is incredible. I bet you'll hear it soon and like it as much as I do. It has this very familiar Linkin Park/Mike Shinoda-like samples and vibe behind it. IMHO it gains a lot of power through this! A definite recommendation not only for DeMo / LP fans...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just got a new toy: Apple's iPod! IT stores 40 gigs of music - which is just about the space I needed. The iPod has great acoustics compared to my previous mp3 hardware-players. It integrates neatly with car audio systems (although this is still pending). And it's fun. Although you can't get Metallica at the iTunes store...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I was visiting the MetonTour website and discovered that they have actually some live footage from their concert Auf Schalke. The concert took place earlier this year and was Naturelich visited by yours truly (and friends & family). The band played Metal Militia for the first time in Europe - since 12th December 1984. And guyz: MetOnTour is the place to find it - other than LiveMetallica.com. Even more strangely, a pregnant woman approaches Jaymz Hetfield during the Meet'n'Greet Metallica section to actually get her stomach signed. I guess being a heavy metal icon is not soooooo easy...

Posted by Naturelich at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, I was finally able to buy Metallica's new single Some Kind Of Monster. I was fortunate enough to grab a copy which included the special SKOM t-shirt. Although I have not yet seen the film, the disc is wonderful and contains the following tracks:

We have been to the We Will Rock You musical in London. It was brilliant! For a Queen fan this is a must! Even for someone not so much into the group - go see it in London - as there are plenty of hardcore Queen fans transforming this venue into a real rock concert . The crowd was singing along to the most famous songs (We are the Champions, We Will Rock You, Bohemian Rhapsody) and giving standing ovations at the end. Naturelich, we had to buy some glowing lights to participate in the grand finale - this was real fun!

On second note, be aware that the show mainly consists of the two first Best Of-albums from Queen the legendary band. Although, the song texts have been revised but not too much-you will be able to identify them easily. As my sister pointed out: it is astonishing that they were able to create a sensible story line from the most famous Queen songs. Thus, the songs really are applicable in a broader sense and we figured this is why Queen must've been successful.

There were some special moments giving tribute to Freddy Mercury - the legendary frontman and singer - and other rock icons such as Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, etc.

I will spare you further details of the story (the official website has plenty of material). Go and see it, the atmosphere was one of the best I have ever seen (although I have not been at a live Queen concert).

On a final note: the musical will come to Cologne, Germany in December 2004. If you are interested, you may want to check the official German website for additional news.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally! Finally! Finally!

LiveMetallica.com released all European Leg concerts of Metallica's Madly in Anger Tour. I have just bought and downloaded the show from Gelsenkirchen, Arena auf Schalke. A very dear friend, my sister and myself thought it was an excellent show, and now I can here it again, and again, and again.

This concert was special, as MetallicA played Metal Milita, a song they have never played in Germany before (and only once in Europe in 1984). So, another two hours, seven minutes and fourty-three seconds before I can go to bed. 'Tallica gives you heavy, baby...

Posted by Naturelich at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)