Last concert of the summer tour of the Global Spirit Tour. Unbelievable it's now over.
So I needed two days for sorting my thoughts.
After the Moscow concert Depeche Mode cancelled the Minsk Show. It was a shock, because Dave was admitted to the hospital. But it was actually just a gastrointestinal infection and he could leave the hospital quickly.
There was speculation that the disease had only been invented because very few tickets were sold for the Minsk concert, as they were so overpriced. But Dave was really ill. He is a human. Peter Gordeno wrote a few days later via the Facebook site of Depeche Mode: " Dave is superhuman".
Maybe he is, but definitely human....The Kiev concert was held as planned. I heard it was not sold out.
Then 2 days later the Warsaw concert, which should have been very great. Unfortunately, I did not find either Kiev or Warsaw fans who wanted to write a takeover.
I flew on Friday with my younger son to Cluj via Dortmund with Wizz Air.
Take care what you book with Wizz Air. I didn't read my flight confirmation very well. I have overlooked that the dimensions for the hand luggage were significantly smaller than normal and so I had to pay, what nasty surprise, at the airport 40 € for my hand luggage. Grrrr.
We landed at the very small airport in Cluj. If you ever come to Cluj, take a taxi from the airport to the city but make sure the driver uses the taximeter. We catch a taxi with a friendly driver and paid less than 6€ to our hotel, which lay on a small hill. From our window we saw a Christian cemetery. I found the sight of the crosses soothing, because we were now in Transylvania.
Our hotel "Villa Escala" was more a pension, the owners were a nice and very helpful couple who had lots of great tips for us. We spend 3 days traveling in Cluj and surroundings, but with more time you could also sit in the garden or use the swimming pool. A large fridge provided for the best drinks. So really perfect.
My son and I walked this first evening across Cluj. We had a great meal in a nice modern restaurant. later we went by bus to a bigg mall, where I picked up my Depeche Mode tickets. We got a bit lost and were in a suburban area. There it was then already very poor and the houses were built in the typical East style, prefab buildings. But all the people were very friendly and helpful.
You have a great view over the city from the park.
You can see the very modern "Cluj Arena". next by the arena is the "Polyvalent Hall" and thanks to these new buildings, there are now many events taking place in Cluj. The basketball European Championship, the Untold music festival and last but not least Depeche Mode.
The St. Michael's Church and the Matthias Corvinus Statue at Unirii Square, the largest and important place in Cluj. There are many restaurants and bars. Cluj is a very young city with many students.
Paul and I found a nice restaurant, called "Zama" where we both got a delicious meal and local beer.
We slept very well in our quiet room. I started the day with a 30 minutes run through the hills in our neighborhood. It was already over 20 degrees at 9 am and so it was a very hard training.
My son woke up and we started our common day with another walk through Cluj.
My son is happy about his classical English breakfast.
For us Romania is very cheap. Unbelievable that we are in Europe. The differences in the standard of living are still very large.
Later two friends of us arrived in Cluj and we rented a car and drove a bit into the country. A very hilly and woody country, but quite sparse. It was very hot and as our host people told us, this is not good for farming, just very unusual hot.
We met cows wandering alone through the country, made a stop at a dam and found finally after a few hours driving our final destination : The Scărişoara Cave, an underground ice glacier.
Wikipedia says:
" It is the largest tourist attraction of the Apuseni Mountains in North-Western Romania. The entrance shaft with steeply sloping rock walls is 50 meters wide and 48 meters deep. Via a ladder of steel, which is fixed in the stone, the cave entrance is reached over 450 steps.
The underground ice caves have a circumference of 75,000 cubic meters and a thickness of up to 26 meters. Their maximum age was estimated to be 3500 years using pollen analysis. The Scărişoara cave is only a small part of a much larger underground system, spread over several floors in this region."
We had a few problems to find the cave, between, we were dependent on the advice of an old little Granny, who was walking in the hills outside the cave.
She suddenly sat with us in the car and pointed us the way through wild gesticulate, because another communication was not possible.
Somehow we realized, however, that we now moved away from the cave and thanks to a few tourists besides the road who spoke Romanian and German, we found out that the old lady used us only to be driven home. Very funny and it was not easy to get her out of our car again.
We reached the cave 10 minutes before closing and we descended the steep cold steps down to the cave, and spent a quarter of an hour admiring the stalactites and stalagmites of ice.
Wonder of nature.
We also needed a long way to get back, because the only road to Cluj was closed due to torrential rainfall. we arrived very late in Cluj again and felt very tired into our bed.
Typical Romanian hay bales, all mounted-up by hand.
Lake Izvorul Muntelui, which is used for generating electricity.
The ice cave:
Wonderful nature. Very little inhabited, everything very lonely, but beautiful.
The Sunday was mainly under the sign of Depeche Mode.
Cluj was a wonderful surprise for us, we did not know what expect us there. Such a charming little city. But on sunday morning I was very excited because of Depeche Mode, the last concert of the summer tour, the first small farewell ...
We enjoyed a good breakfast and sat a long time in a wonderful patio cafe : Casa Tiff.
They have a open the whole day long, a very good option for all: breakfast, lunch, dinner. They have great self-made lemonades!
Then we started to our last walk through Cluj before we went to a restaurant which offers only vegetarian and vegan meals. Our hosts said that the "Samsara Foodhouse" is the best restaurant in Cluj.
The city is full of street art, I'm a big fan of street art.
"Casa Tiff".
Eroilor Boulevard
Avram Iancu Square with the Metropolitan Orthodox Cathedral
Visit the church, very beautiful and interesting inside.
We met this girl in a supermarket. She made the t-shirt by her own, very simpel, but I like this idea so much!!
Museum Square, mother wonderful small place with restaurants and cafes. This city have more places where you can sit outside as my hometown.
The " Elisabeth Bridge" across the river "little Somes" or " Somessul Mic".
The Menu of the "Samsara Foodhouse" is a book and it is not easy to decide what you want to eat, because everything sounds so great and interesting. They have many vegetarian options but also vegan and raw vegan options. Paradise for me. But my three non vegetarian mates enjoyed the meal like me.
I started with this raw vegan borscht.
Followed by a raw vegan zucchini lasagna.
And raw vegan cakes as dessert.
The waiter told us, as he saw the t-shirt of my friend Manuel, that Mr. Martin L.Gore was a few hours before us there in Samsara House to enjoy a cake for his birthday, today.
I found this picture on the Facebook site of Depeche Mode. It was taken by Peter Gordeno, who was the takeover of the day of the Facebook site of DM.
A very funny coincidence wanted us to sit at the same table as Mr. Gore before us.
It was my best vegan meal in a restaurant ever and it is one of a few reasons for coming back to Cluj.
Check it out, if you be in Cluj. You will not be disappointed and you will get an idea how wonderful a life as a vegan could be.
After a short break in our hotel it was time to walk to the Cluj Arena, only 10 minutes walk though the Central Park of Cluj from the city.
The tickets were very cheap for us. You get two front of the stage tickets for Cluj for the price of one Fos Ticket in Germany.
Thankfully, the ticket prices have been adjusted to the cost of living in Cluj. This is not always the case, as we have seen by the prices of tickets in Minsk and Kiev. That is why it was a concert with fans from all over Romania, from all over Eastern Europe and many fans from Western Europe. A brilliant mix for the last concert of the summer tour and the 56th birthday of Martin Gore.
It was the second Depeche Mode concert for my son Paul in his life. He saw them in Dusseldorf on the Delta Machine tour. I was happy to have him with me because most of my travel mates didn't come to Cluj and I missed them.
The mood was wonderful in the small modern arena, maybe 40000 people were there.
Before the concert we became a few instructions for the concert.
There were lots of banners like this.
The headlights are a good indicator of the weather. Sometimes they are wrapped in protective wraps, then the band expects bad weather. This time the weatherman seems to have told them good weather.
I like the german word : Wetterfrosch. Literally translated : weather frog.
Paul and I stood on the right site of the catwalk. Our friends Manuel and Sabine preferred the view from further back in the middle. Before the concert we spoke about our behaviors in a concert. I am a very loud concert visitor, I always have to jump, dance, clap my hands, sing, scream, sometimes cry. I can not do otherwise, anyway not at Depeche Mode.
Manuel and Sabine prefer it quieter. I was curious how Paul would find my behavior.
The concert started around 9 o'clock in the evening, unfortunately it was still very bright, which I personally do not like so much. Setlist as usual, but I was happy about it. In the course of a tour I always get used to the setlist. I'm like Dave, I always like the same procedure, deviations make me mess.
But after the first song " Going backwards" dave broke with his habits. Normally he welcomed the audience after the second song but in Cluj he greeted the fans after the first song with " Welcome to Cluj!". I think Cluj is a difficult word for him and he wanted to get it over quickly.
From the beginning it was a very good concert. Most of the people sang the whole time with the band, many people danced very wild, all had so much fun including me and my son. He is one of the still kind, he has enjoyed the concert as an observer. Dave Gahan with all his poses and grimaces and wild dances he liked very much.
After " Corrupt" which was very cheered the concert went on. At last it became dark and the mood was even still better.
This leg came now to its end. I'm exhausted from the last weeks. It was so much fun to visit all these beautiful cities, the brilliant concerts, but it was associated with little sleep and a lot of physical effort and I'm quite groggy. But look into his eyes, even super human Mr. Gahan is exhausted. He looked so tired and I hope he will recover well from all the touring strains.
Dave went out after " Cover me" which was amazing celebrated by the Romanian fans, so wonderful how such an quiet song could excite the masses.
And now the Birthday child Mr. martin L. Gore sang his two songs. I have no words for this wonderful mood in the stadium. It was so heart touching even for me. I'm not the biggest Martin Gore fans, like a few of you know ( I will explain it in the next blog, my summary of the summer tour), it was so wonderful to see how he was happy about everything. The fans held "happy birthday" signs and everyone turned on the flashlights of their cell phones and they threw roses at the catwalk as he came forward as he sang " Home". He grabbed one and put it in the mouth like a blade of grass.
Dave came back after " Home" and he conducted us to bring the song to the end and let us sing "Happy Birthday". He himself was not singing, I thought that was a bit of a pity, but that's the way he is.
But he kissed Martin very sweetly. I have to say the mood in the band especially between Martin Gore and Dave Gahan is now again very good and that makes me looking hopefully into the future and to the upcoming concerts.
One of the highlights was "Everything counts", but all songs were frenetically celebrated by the fans.
And finally, how could it be any different it started to rain at " Stripped". But nobody cares, the party went on. I couldn't take a lot of pictures, because I had to enjoy every moment, I breathed again everything exactly to consume it in the next to month without Depeche Mode.
Two good pictures of the Birthday child. Saw him not often so relaxed as in Cluj.
I think the band is happy to get a break, to going back to their families and meeting friends....
"Heroes".
Here I must continue to criticize. I think it's nice to sing this song as a tribute to Bowie, but amazingly many people do not know this song and it often caused incomprehension among the fans. "What is that song?" "I do not know ?" And therefore the mood was sometimes a little lame and that did not deserve the song. Dave could already say something like "I sing this song of David Bowie because he was my hero ...."
I was every time happy when I saw fans like this young woman. She was very touched by the interoperation of Dave.
The last two songs was crazy party, Dave was just about to flip out, he danced around like a madman. My son found this very funny, he was very impressed of " Personal Jesus". He took this last pictures, because I went crazy, too. I screamed it all out, don't know what all, but I felt fantastic after doing it.
And suddenly it was over. These were wonderful, very emotional weeks, which have reached its climax in Cluj. A high-attitude Euphoria.... flying high, never want to come down again....
but for the moment it was a soft landing, knowing in two month I will see Depeche Mode again in Las Vegas. I met a lot of fans after the concert which will see them again first in winter and they were really sad after the concert.
Thank you, Mr. Gahan! After small start difficulties I have again found to you, my "Personal Jesus".
It is a kind of religious feeling I have for you!
Andrii saw many concerts of Depeche Mode on this tour, most of them in the first row and he looked like a happy man after the concert.
Sitting here in my kitchen, wrote now this last concert report for a while.
I spent a lot of time writing the blog, to see all the photos I made is a challenge. But now I have Tomorrow I will write a summary about the last weeks and I have a few small puzzles for you. You can even win something small.
But now I have an eternal memory of these great weeks, I am happy to have taken the time for my blog. Of course, I wish I had and will have many readers. I hope the blog has pleased you, a little feedback pleased my heart! Stay with me and if anybody like to take over the blog for a concert, please contact me. I am still looking for writers for the American concerts.
"The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves after all
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves after all".
