Depeche Mode in Milano or the night of the faun!

After a wonderful morning in Turin, we made our way to Milan with our hire car!!
Our hotel was beside the Forum Assagio, where Depeche Mode plaid this evening.

It is far away from the center of Milan and we rented this hotel because it was a problem to go back to the center after the concert. For me it wasn't a problem, I was so often in Milan, which is such a wonderful city ( maybe you have read my Milan summer blog), but my friends didn't want to see Milan.....

So we staid in the hotel and had there Dinner.
Then it was time to go to the concert. I was so excited because in the summer I saw one of the best concerts of Depeche Mode in the San Siro stadium.

Can they do it again?

We were a group of four friends, the two boys had very good seating places and we girls had standing. The standing area was totally full and we decided to go upstairs to the boys.
I am the " Master of the Universe", if you want to grade yourself up and with a little arm-twisting
I convinced a security guard to let us go upstairs into the seating area.
Normally you can find a free place but this time not. The arena was totally sold out and we couldn't find a place. So my three friends packed themselves onto the two seats of the boys, but there was no place for me anymore....
I could stay on the stairs and yes, right, I wasn't the only one... many fans did the same like me and stand on the stairs  because they didn't have a seating place. The security guards came and called us to leave the stairs. We had to follow them and now they wanted to control the tickets for this area.
But I hadn't a seating ticket and I saw the near future how I had to leave the concert.

If you need a little bit help of your friends....sometimes it didn't work......
I love the Italian and one more: A nice italian guy, Carlo, said to me:" Come on, follow me, we had to leave very quick....!"
And we ran away from the security guards through the arena and finally he brought me back to the standing area. There were lot of friends of him and he invited me as his "friend from Germany" and they were so friendly to me, gave me beer and cigarettes and "I was singing and dancing with many distance friends again!" Thank you, I will never forget!

And Milan did it again: still before the concert started, nobody sat on the chairs. They clapped enthusiastically to the DJ Set, wow.
And as the band entered the stage a wave of applause swashed through the arena. Mr. Gahan was so overwhelmed, he greated the city with " Good evening; Milano!"
I was so thankful for this, because as he said " Good evening, Turin" two evenings before I ask my friends, why couldn't he said in Italian: Torino? But goes!!!!!

It was one of the best concerts of the tour, my number three. The concerts in summer were better because they were outside, it was warm and we saw the stars and the set was longer. But it was the best winter concert and I am sure, nothing will be better on this tour. So I enjoyed every minute, I forgot my friends, yes, that's true, and I sponged everything.
I hung on Dave's lips, I was so happy.
My new italian friends made a real big party and we danced like dervishes at " Personal Jesus", the best song of the evening.

It was a kind of modern ballet, I had the feeling I was in a new performance of " L'apres midi d'un faun" and Mr. Gahan was the faun. I know Nijinsky himself would have loved it.
As the greatest dancer of the universe died in 1950 he said: "I will be born again as a horse" but Thursday evening in Milan I saw something from the spirit of him on stage in Mr. Gahan.
( But sorry, I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors !)

One drop of bitterness: I missed my friend Martin from Cologne. Wished you was there with me.

After the concert I said " Goodbye" to the wonderful Italians I met, you saved the day!! Mille grazie!!

I went alone to our hotel and after two hours waiting I went to bed.
Later I got a message from one of the others and we talked things out.
No hard feelings, shit happens.

If I think at Milan, I will remember " la nuit d'un faun" and Carlo!

Depeche Mode in Turin or one of my biggest dreams comes true

Sometimes it is very stressful to blog when I'm on tour.

The days here in Italy running so fast!!

But I try to share a few of my impressions of the last days and I will start with the arrival in Turin on Tuesday morning.

Everything went fine from landing in Milan Malpensa airport to parking our rental car in the garage in Turin.

We had a wonderful hotel in Turin near the train station and a market.

I love the markets in Italia, wow, so many different vegetables and fruits.

The first afternoon we walked through Turin for a first impression.

It is an interesting city, old but not so stylish like Milan, it has a special charm, a little bit morbid.

We found a small restaurant where we had a good italian meal and then it was time for warming up for the concert.

It was concert number 50 of the Delta Machine tour for me in Turin so I put my best outfit on, a pink sequined dress.

We had very good places on the right side of the stage and it was a wonderful concert.

I screamed so loud, Mr. Gahan noticed me and at " Personal Jesus" he looked at me and he sticked his tongue out at me, haha, I was happy!!

We stand straight behind the monitor engineer Sarne Thorogood.

I met him several times on different DM tours at the airport or one time at the acropolis in Athen and sometimes we talked a little bit.

He saw me and waved to me.

Nothing special happened in the concert, but it was one of the best. From the first minute the whole audience is standing and the Italians are the best backsingers a band could have.

They sing every note of a song, best example is " Enjoy the silence"!

The Italian version of this song is the best in the world!

It was a succesful evening for me to be in my favourite country on a Depeche Mode concert!

Mille Grazie Torino!!

Next day finally one of my biggest dreams come true:

We visited the new stadium of Juventus Turin, which is my favourite football club.

The goalkeeper of Juve is Gigi Buffon, he is my hero in Football!!

We made a big stadium tour with a guide and got the chance to go in the dressing room of the team and I sat on the place of Gigi!!

It is a very modern stadium, the seating places are very close to the playing field, so it is a very intimate athmosphere there. Must be fantastic to see a game there.

One day I will came back with my kids to see a game with Juventus and Buffon!

After the tour we made a walk through the Juventus museum, where we saw many relics of the club.

And then I bought 4 jerseys for my family in the Juventus store.

Fantastic day, I was so happy, thanks to my friends which coming with me, because they aren't Juve fans!

Then we drove on a hill for an great view over Turin and the Alps!

Wonderful panorama!

The evening we spent in one of the many bars of Turin and drank a lot of glasses red wine, because we were in the Piedmont, one of the best wine- growing districts of the world.

The Barolo come from there!!

Turin is a very young city, you can have lots of fun there.

The young people looked very individual. Not so cloned like the youngsters in Germany, not so bourgeois!

Next morning we had breakfast the second time in a wonderful small bakery.

Italian people are so friendly, it sounds so nice when they greeting you with " buon giorno" with their loud and melody voices. The old lady in the bakery recognized us at the second day and I feeled like home !! 

Only a few hours left before we had to leave for going to Milan and we used the time to visiting the "Mole Antonelliana", a unique tower which is the emblem of Turin.

We went by an elevator upstairs to the observation deck, it was cruel because the elevator was levitating in the middle of the tower!!!

What a amazing view we had.

I was happy to see the Juventus stadium in the distance again with the panorama of the Apls in the back!!

Spectacular!!!

After a nice Italian meal we left Turin, but I'm sure I will be back!!!

Arrivederci Torino!!! Bellissima!!

Depeche Mode in Zurich or the after show party

After a nice breakfast with my kids I went to the airport and flew with a group of friends to Zurich where we very fasten went to our hotel, because we wanted to start with sightseeing directly.

Zurich is not a big city but you can do many things there.
We started with a trip with the Polybahn, a small rack and pinion railway which brought us on a hill to the University of Zurich.
There we had a first overview on Zurich and the lake of Zurich. Wonderful!!

Then a short walk through the narrow streets of the old town, crossing a bridge over the river Limmat and visited the cathedral of our Lady which has wonderful stained glass designed by the artist Marc Chagall. I saw them in 2003 the first time but I had to see them again!!!

After a short stop at the Lake of Zurich we took a mountain railway to the Uetli mountain.
This railway is steeply rising, wow, and on the Uetli mountain you have a breathtaken view over the Alps.
We good such a great mood from this wonderful trip, we became very giddy and tried to speak Swiss.
It's like German but it is a special dialect, in Germany we call it Swiss German.
We added to all words the syllable -li. For example: trip become trip-li.
We snickered like small kids.

After a very expensive meal it was time to go to the Hallenstadion to see the first concert of two in Zurich of Depeche Mode.
To be honest I did not know what I can write about the two concerts. Bad bad bad. The audience were sleeping. We came ten minutes before the concert started and we could go through the people until the third row. We were very near to Martin and Dave and we enjoyed that.
Thank god, tomorrow I will fly to Italy where they can party!!!

Who now is thinking the Swiss people cannot party : you've got another think!!
The after show party was great. I can't remember the name of the DJ's, but they did a good job and many fans danced the whole night. We had lot of fun and came back to our hotel in the early morning.

But we stood up a few hours later to continue our mountain railway tour in Zurich.
We drove with a tiny rack and pinion railway, ups, was a bit like in a roller coaster. Another wonderful view over the lake and back down to the ground.
Then we took our last railway to the mountain Dolder.
From afar we saw a wonderful building, looked like a Palace or something like this.
As we reached the mountain where the railway ended, we saw that the Palace was a hotel and yes, it was the hotel where Depeche Mode stayed, because there stood some fans and the security chief of Depeche Mode came out of the hotel and drove away with a limousine. But we didn't see Depeche Mode.

Before our trip guided us to the lake I needed a stop at Sprüngli, the best pastry shop in Zurich where I bought a box with "Luxemburgerli", a typical swiss pastry filled with cream in various tastes. Delicious!!!!

Then finally the Lake. Wonderful.
And we visited the grey Minster with the two towers where the artist Sigmar Polke designed the stained glasses. Zurich is very versatile.
Last a typical Swiss meal in the old town, very expensive again, but very tasty!

And time again for the second concert. It was the same game like the first day, we went straight into the third row and had a nice concert together but the atmosphere was still worse than the first evening. Grrr. Depeche Mode were very closed, but which wonder?

And as we wanted to left the hall we met many friends from all over the world in the foyer. The bars were still open and they played Depeche Mode. And then something happened with the sleepy crowd. A kind of flashmob, a spontaneous after show party and we were in the middle of.
More than an hour we danced, sang, drank with heart and soul and the tide turned!!!

All together it was a great trip. We went back at noon on Sunday and now after one and a half day with my kids, I'm ready to go to Turin, first point of our Italy trip with Depeche Mode.
I'm very excited because the summer concerts in Rome and Milan was the best concerts for me until today. But I had to go to bed, only 4 hours left until the alarm clock is ringing, oh no!!!

Good night-li!!

Depeche Mode in Dresden or he got the banana

My cold got a little bit better, so I went very glad to the Cologne airport, where I met my friend Sylvia . We started the journey with to cans of cold beer and managed it to get the last call for our flight, ups.

In very good mood we landed in Dresden and made a quick sightseeing tour through the city.
It's such a beautiful town, I like the new builded " Church of our Lady". We went inside, unbelievable
beauty!!!

Then we visited a kind of christmas market, sounds strange, but there was one.
They had a huge chute and we liked it like kids to climb the high and slipping down, haha, what a fun.

Then we met a lot of other friends in our hotel which layed at the Prager Street, a big street with many hotels.

We drove to the fair-trade hall of Dresden, a small hall without seats, where Depeche Mode played the last Germany concert yesterday evening.

We had front of the stage tickets, so we had a good view.
It was a very good concert, maybe not like Mannheim or Frankfurt or Hannover, but a very well done concert.
They changed again " in your room" for " should be higher", I hated this, but what can I do?

We had such a lot fun together, we all started to counting down. After the Dresden concert now 9 concerts left for me, oh my God.

But I didn't cry at " Enjoy the silence", I was very proud!

The german fans kept up a lot of different sheets but on the most of it stood" Fletch". ( there was a few with " Mart" and " Dave" and " Thank you".
On Facebook there was a movement for Fletch, was called: " we Fletch together".
There was a while where Dave ignored Andy totally and the fans wanted to change this .
Since a while they hugged after the concert again, but Dave never introduced Fletch as " Just can't get enough" like on the summer leg of the tour.

Yesterday as he came at the end of the catwalk at "jcge" he read the sheets and then with a bitchy smile he introduced Andy again" Mr. Andrew" Fletch" Fletcher"!!
And some fans in the front rows gave Dave a big blow-up banana and he brought it to Andy!!
Now Mr. Banana is back! On the last tour Andy ate sometimes a banana on stage and the it was a running gag for the fans to bring blow-up bananas to the concerts on the last tour.

The crowd was screaming so loud, wow, Dave is a real good entertainer, he know what the audience want!!!
The next song was " I feel you" and it was my favorite of the evening, Dave danced like a berserk.
And me, too.

And then " Never let me down". Wow, what a feeling. I shed the tears, now, but I wasn't the only one, there was adult man with tears in their eyes.
My eye shadow was smudgy, I looked like Alice Cooper.
If you didn't know, I like a very coloured eye shadow, it is my hallmark in the black world of Depeche Mode fans.

Depeche Mode, the best band in the world.

After one beer together with friends we slept because we had to catch a very early flight back to Cologne. Working day!!

There was another funny anecdote. As we got in the train to the airport, I met a very old Depeche Mode friend of mine and it's funny because the most of the time I met him in trains or in the subway in different cities all over the world.

At the airport we thought about the idea of a soap about our Depeche Mode travel group.
The reality was the best screenplay. It was a crazy year on the road with Depeche Mode.

I hope you will me attend for the last 9 concerts.
Next stop Zurich !!!