GOSSIP live in Cologne (05-07-2019)
GOSSIP is back! After the band with the mighty frontwoman, Beth
You would surely book a big venue for an anniversary tour because you know that all the fans will want to be a part of this unique event and also you never know if you’ll see GOSSIP for the last time or if they do another tour with a new album.
So it was a big shock when I arrived at the venue and only about 60 people were waiting for entrance and it was only 15 minutes before open doors. Ok, it was a very hot day, so the fans might come a bit later. Also, there was a lot of traffic on the streets. At this point, I knew the situation was a little bit strange but still I hoped that the venue would be full by the end of the night. Well, I was wrong.
MEGGIE BROWN started the evening with her unique show.
It’s not so easy to find information about MEGGIE BROWN. Her style is pretty unique and so is her show. On her Facebook page, she states “Terrifying Hi-Fi pop songs” and “Crying for 14 years”. She has no website, no more information. So, who is MEGGIE BROWN?
The important thing is that she opened for GOSSIP, with a super unique and interesting show. The audience enjoyed the show and also people asked for merch, which unfortunately wasn’t available at this show. Later in the evening, you could see the band dancing to GOSSIP’s encore in the back of the venue.
GOSSIP’s Beth Ditto became an icon and role model for the LGBTQ-community.
Beth Ditto became a powerful figure and an icon and role model for the LGBTQ-community a long time ago. So, no doubt many people from the community attended the show. You also couldn’t miss the two Drag-Queens in the foyer and in the venue itself.
Standing ovations when GOSSIP entered the stage.
The gap between MEGGIE BROWN and GOSSIP was too long. The concert-goers started getting choppy. It should start at 9 pm. But when GOSSIP finally appeared on stage, with Beth Ditto in a metallic-green dress, the audience went crazy.
The band started with powerful songs like: “Pop Goes the World” and “Love Long Distance”. After the first song, frontwoman Beth Ditto said that she was nervous and that the people made it so easy. Also, she said many times during the show, that her voice is broken. But seriously: Her voice was on point from the first seconds to the last!
Much like Beth-Ditto, the show was full of humor and anecdotes from the past. Always when she talked too much, her lovely drummer Hannah Blilie interrupted her by starting the next song. Beth Ditto is such a funny and lovely person. Her German is pretty good and so, many spoken parts were a mix of English and German. Also, she told the audience, that her cousin attended the show, too.
GOSSIP came with a full band and a DJ.
We all know GOSSIP is a band with three members. But for their live shows, they tour with a complete band and a DJ to add the right sounds into the songs. You couldn’t notice, that this band played one of the first shows after six years. The relationship between the band members seemed so familiar and except for Beth, who missed the lyrics at the beginning of the show, there were no mistakes.
No matter where you stood in the venue, the sound was perfect. But the light was not what you expected for a GOSSIP show. It was pretty dark and often Beth stood in the dark. Some front lights had helped to avoid this. People go to concerts not only for the music – they also want to see the band
The audience celebrated all of GOSSIP ‘s hits.
When a band celebrates the anniversary of an album, they usually play the whole record. But GOSSIP didn’t. They played nine songs from “Music For Men”, but the album consists of 12. They also played two covers, two songs from “The Joyful Noise” and thee from “Standing In The Way Of Control”. These 16 songs and also Beth Ditto’s talks between the songs, made the concert last about 100 minutes, which is a good average.
Gossip ended the show with their biggest hit “Heavy Cross”.
For the encore, Beth Ditto changed her dress. The metallic-green dress had to give way to a black one with golden upside-down crosses in the same style. With the new dress, she rocked the three last songs with lots of power and still lots of joy. With “Heavy Cross” was the perfect song for GOSSIP to end the show. The concert-goers went wild again and started hard to dance. A g
However, I have mixed feelings about the show. For sure, it was GOSSIP and they rock the stage no matter what! The sound was amazing and the audience celebrated a big party with GOSSIP. But then there was the empty venue. Palladium has a capacity for round about 4.000 people. The security told me, they expected around 1.500 people! I’ve never seen this venue so empty!
To make it look better they hid many parts with curtains. So, maybe that is the price you have to pay as a band when you disappear for 6 years. To be fair: PINK also played on this day in a big arena. But had another day made a difference? It’s hard to believe because the music of both artists is very different.
Also, the dark front of the stage was a big letdown for the show. The show itself was brilliant. The setlist was the right one for this event and you could see the band had fun on stage. Actually, it seemed they never split. The people who came to the show had a lot of fun.
But what does the number of concert-goers tell us about the success of the band? Although the band didn’t show any disappointment about the empty venue, it’s hard to believe that GOSSIP will reunite for a new album or even another tour due to the low numbers of sold tickets. For the show in Berlin, it was the same. Only time will tell if there will be more GOSSIP in the future. But one thing’s for sure: the show was fun and if you didn’t attend this show, you really missed out!
Did you attend this show or one of the other anniversary gigs? Tell us in the comments!
For all photos, please visit my gallery on Flickr.
