The concert in Dnipropetrovsk
June, 5, 2005
Ice Palace "Meteor", Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine

The story by Alina (Kiev) especially for www.thomas-anders.ru
Photo: Alina & Olegus
Translated by beilie
Thanks to Anna (Kiev)
Special thanks to my husband Olegus, who attended me in this trip and helped me in everything
The materials of http://gorod.dp.ua site were used in the preparation of this report

Dnipropetrovsk (or just Dnepr, as its inhabitants say), was found in 1776. It is placed near the middle part of Dnepr River in the Central Ukraine. Its population (according to the statistics of April, 2005) consists of 1,053 millions of people. Dnipropetrovsk, one of the most beautiful Ukrainian cities, is the main trading and industrial center of the Eastern Ukraine.

We arrived in Dnipropetrovsk early in the morning and, after getting acquainted with a map, went to the pay desk of the Ice Palace on foot, sightseeing the city, which we have visited for the first time.

We approached the pay desk almost in an hour. It was still closed, but there were a lot of those who had a strong desire to buy tickets (judging by the bags, they were the newcomers from other cities). On my way to the Ice Palace I was surprised because of total absence of advertising posters. I could notice the first one only near the pay desk, and I understood, why I couldn’t notice them before. These posters were placed very wittily – they were pasted on the posts along the roads, but not in the special advertisement hoardings. As a result, the organizers could manage to kill a flock of birds with one stone: it was a lot of advertisement, so, people were informed about the concerts. And on the other hand, these posters were pasted on the posts to last, and it could save them from infringements of fans, which, of course, would like to carry off at least one poster. In short, the major part of the advertisement could survive till the concert day, although few posters looked pretty shabby.

The second surprise was an inscription on the poster. We were puzzled a bit by the words: "A legend of Crimea" quite near Thomas’ name. Finally we could understand that "A legend of Crimea" was the General sponsor of the concert, a vine-selling company. Its advertising slogan was "Recall the pleasant..." And together with the inscription "Modern Talking" before the name of the hero of party it gave an impression that we shall return back to the past...

This feeling became stronger while audience started to collect an hour before the concert. People from all ends of the country came to the first concert (after the long break) of Thomas Anders in Ukraine. Kiev, Odessa, Zaporozhye... Obviously, a lot of people visited the concert with the whole family: mothers, which still remember Thomas in 80-s, together with their adolescence daughters, which came to love this singer in late 90-s, while MT’s comeback. We could notice even three generations as well, which proved the proverb that love can conquer all ages, especially love towards music – it is the matter of eternity. The audience numbered approximately 4000 people.

We could notice an old lady, about 70 years of age, selling a huge bucket of fresh roses near the entrance. "Buy the flowers for Thomas Andersen!" – shouted she and told every customer a passionate story: "I came here, thinking to buy a ticket, but 70 hryvnas is too expensive! I could probably pay 30... Ok, maybe, I’ll sell these flowers and get enough for the ticket! Oh, I loved them so much! I was a real fan of them! How did they sing! And this Andersen was so handsome! The red-haired one was not so nice, but this one!.." The wisely set advertising campaign worked well – the old fan of MT could sell her roses very fast.

Finally the doors were opened, and the audience rushed inside. But all preparations were finished and the musicians appeared on the stage only in 40 minutes.

The concert started from "Tonight is the night" with wonderful guitar solo, which became a tradition. After this song Thomas greeted the audience. He could get in contact with audience very quickly, and this contact became deeper after his personal greeting of those who appeared in his field of vision.

"Are you fine?" – asked he the girl in the first row. "No" – she gave a squeak in shy. "No? You’re not fine? You’re not fine?!!" – shouted Thomas indignantly and after a while asked her again: "Are you OK?" This time she responded affirmatively. "Yes? But "fine" means "OK"! Just to let you know," – said Thomas. And then, during the whole concert he didn’t forget to ask her after each song: "Are you fine?" and it was confirmed not only by this girl, but by all audience as well. The concert was performed "live", and it intensified much the whole impression.

After the first song people rushed towards the stage. And our heroic guardians reacted immediately. They pushed aside the most assertive fans and made seat down these spectators from the first row, who tried to dance in the close presence of their idol; they set the strict order of giving the flowers and the gifts, because the crowd of volunteers was very thick without decrease. However, Thomas repeated quite often: "Thanks, but I’m here for singing. You know, singing, like la-la-la..."

The more excitement increased, the more the guards became united and desperate. By the middle of concert all fans were separated from the stage by the triple cordon of guards, controllers and militia. However, it couldn’t belittle the joyfulness of the audience, and the atmosphere created by Thomas and his band could only improve it! He was cheerful, joked a lot and communicated with audience actively. We were happy because of total absence of language barrier; people responded Thomas’ words quite vividly in spite of the fact that he spoke English without translation.

We were pleasantly surprised that people appreciated songs from Thomas’ last album no less than MT hits. It’s a pity that there were quite a few solo songs in the concert’s program. After "Independent Girl" one of guys near the stage started to scream crazily: "Anders! Come on, sing "Brother Louie"!" And the girls standing near responded indignantly: "We don’t need any "Brother Louie"! Take this idiot away!"

After traditional unit of "In 100 years/King of love" Thomas had to receive one more bunch of flowers. A middle-aged lady continually rushed to the stage and tried to pose against the background of her favorite singer. Her friend, however, could not take picture of such a pathetic moment because of a guardian, who dragged away on-the-fly this troublemaker. But finally the lady – Thomas’ fan – could win the single combat. After the third attempt she was depicted against the background of Thomas draped herself round the guardian, dragging her away.

During this time Thomas continued to talk with audience. "I love you!" – shouted an Oriental girl from the first row.

"What? – asked Thomas and repeated aloud for everyone. – She says she loves me. Well, where are you from? – he specified. – Are you from China?" – and he moved to the opposite side of the stage singing: "She has China in her eyes".

However, instead of this song he performed "Love is forever", and after it he recollected the contest "Deutschland sucht den Superstar-2003", while his band started to produce dissonant sounds in order to remind him that he was talking too much. "Fired!" – Thomas said to his drummer and continued his speech naturally. As he said, the song "TV makes the Superstar" was conceived as the hymn of this contest. The audience was glad to hear this song, excluding a guy who continued to demand "Brother Louie" and even tried to sing it on Russian.

During the breaks between the songs two young girls ran up to Thomas with a tattered bunch of roses. "All kinds of summer flowers..." – started Thomas, hardly recognizing these flowers. "All kinds of Spanish roses" – added he after examining them in details. Lars, a guitarist, significantly played a well-known Spanish melody. "All kinds of Spanish Guitar... – continued Thomas, inspired even more. – All kinds of la dolce vita... Here is for you. No face, no name, no number!" The audience exploded in applause.

After this song a girl with a splendid bunch of red roses could approach the stage. "Red roses for a blue lady... – Thomas thanked her while singing dreamingly this line from Guy Lombardo’ song, and then specified: - I sing about it. Do you like this song?"

After finishing dealing with the crowd of fans, Thomas sat down on the lighting installation on the edge of the stage, obviously getting ready for something special. ("A very, very personal song!" – as he said). However, such a romantic moment was near to be spoiled, because his extempore seat suddenly swayed. But Thomas could maintain balance and remarked with laugh: "Ok! I’m not so fat!"

While Thomas spoke about his work with "Holiday on Ice" and about the matter his song was devoted to, two girls took pictures against the background of Thomas one by one. Thomas, being taken aback a bit by their activities, was even blanked for a while. "Are you fine?" – asked he finally. And when satisfied girls thanked him, he responded with his permanent politeness: "You’re very welcome!" and continued developing his idea concerning the importance of dream in human life and the things he was seeing in his children’s eyes. "My children! – he corrected himself with laughter. – Well, my child," and added that he had only one child, and he didn’t know if he would have more. Of course, this heartfelt speech about love and dream was completed by a song "Just dream."

Thomas sang "You can win if you want" and "Win the Race". While representing this song he asked if the audience knew Michael Schumacher and imitated a sound of the engine of "Formula 1" bolides on work – very naturally! Then he turned back to the issue of dream and performed his last solo song at that day – "Live your dream".

The song was completed with presentation of musicians – guitarist Lars, drummer Nick, keyboard musician Bernd and bass-guitarist Rob who was presented by Thomas as Thorsten. Thomas said a few warm words about each of them and even tried to announce numbers of their hotel rooms! He didn’t start to present next musician until the reaction of audience became truly stormy. Afterwards Lars felt the total freedom and started to rush about the stage, communicating closely with audience here and there. And Rob-Thorsten showed that he didn’t wear the T-shirt with inscription "Guitarist of Thomas Anders." However, it couldn’t prevent him from performing with all his heart his own guitar solo.

After the procedure of presentation Thomas remembered suddenly about an Oriental girl from the first row: "Where is my friend from China? China!" – called he with various voices and even whistled some Oriental melody right after the keyboard musician. Finally a girl appeared and approached him. "What is your name?" – asked Thomas. She had to repeat her name several times until Thomas, pronounced the unknown word industriously, was satisfied with result. "So, I speak Chinese fluently!" – concluded he proudly and performed a song "China in her eyes" especially for her. And then he called her again and asked if she liked the song. "Thomas, I love you forever!" – she responded in total delight. "For always and ever" – he reacted immediately with a line from the song.

The concert was completed with medley of MT-80 hits: "Geronimo’s Cadillac," "Jet Airliner," "Atlantis is calling," "Brother Louie" and "Cheri Cheri lady". These songs didn’t need a special presentation, and the audience, as usual, appreciated them with delight. A poor sufferer, waited for his "Brother Louie" since the beginning of concert, was finally satisfied! Before performing this song Thomas remarked, that he was going to sing it on the special demand.

Then Thomas thanked everyone: "You’re a beautiful audience! Wonderful!" Besides he demonstrated his knowledge of Russian language, which he could enrich (with the help of Lars) with the phrase "Ja lublyu tebya!" ("I love you"), arousing the delight of audience. But the one amazed us mostly was Thorsten, who managed to ask almost without accent: "Where is the train station?" and told us his address on Russian. However, after Thomas’ question about his telephone number he answered on English with shy, that he didn’t have money for the telephone.

The end was marked by another amusing incident. In spite of the guard’s efforts of containing the crowd, two guys could break through, and one of them rushed to embrace Thomas and shake his hand, while other one shouted in microphone: "I love Modern Talking! I love Thomas Anders!"

Thomas behaved stoically in non-standard situation; he could bear encroachment upon himself and just clapped one of the guys on the shoulder. Then both fans were taken away by the came round guards. One of controllers tried to help catching these troublemakers, but instead was caught and pulled away from the stage being grabbed by the legs by the pugnacious guardians. "I’m working here!" – he shouted, but the guards didn’t set him free immediately.

Thomas performed "YMHYMS" for encore, and it was sung by audience instead of the soloist. Then Thomas said goodbye and disappeared behind the scenes.

The taxi, which carried us to the railway station, was equipped by TV. And, like on the demand, MT with its clip YMHYMS-98 appeared on the screen! All passengers (90% of them were the audience of the concert) were overfilled with delight! We were going together with Thomas’ "Chinese friend" – and we took her picture (of course, with her permission).

We leaved the hospitable city – but we did not separate from Thomas, who could present us a real party! We still hope that we will meet soon, and during the next concert we will hear not only the old songs, but a lot of new solo songs as well.

Thank you, Dnipropetrovsk! Thank you, Thomas! See you later!