Basel konzert

Thanks a lot to Kutschi who went to the gig in Basel last night and posted a long review (below) and a beautiful photo (above) to org.uk.

"I'm ashamed for my country. Full of great expectations and loaded with excitement I packed my camera equipment into my black Fred Perry bag, got hold of my friends and made sure they'd join on my way to what could've been the best night of the season. We arrived in Basel fairly early and not an indie soul insight, just some cheerful kids on the playground enjoying the mild and sunny winter day. Me and the gang found ourselves a lovely table in the sun, got out our booze and killed the afternoon with laughter, drink and song.later on we had a little chat with Drew, shot some polaroids and got our bits n bops signed. none of the other kids seemed to even have the slightest clue who he was.some time later in the afternoon my friend sighted the lovely Mr. D. so we walked up to him and had our pictures taken. Somehow I lost my voice - which has never happened before, believe me. Peter has been absolutely lovely, and noticing me being a nervous wreck he gave me a big old, fluffy cuddle. We quickly got our scrapbooks signed and then let him deal with the attention hungry, heart-attack-endangered tabloid fans. hours passed. the sun has faded away. the wintery frost came over us. we moved ourselves to the bar for a nice cuppa hot chocolate. after waiting for what seemed forever we finally queued up to get into the venue. i got my photopass sorted and went straight to the front.support band played their songs. nothing special really.break.finally the infamous babyshambles got on stage. crowd went mad. photographers went mad - me included. security got mad. madhouse. The boys opened their show with "Carry On Up The Morning" then played "Delivery" had to stop shortly after the song though because there was a "Brixton-NME-Awards 2007" - incident going on. The crowd was going absolutelx mental and pushed so hard that the band was forced to leave the stage and the security got busy fixing and securing the barriers. the madness lasted for about 5 long minutes. band came back on stage and continued with another tune from Shotters Nation - Crumb Begging Baghead. after the song Bilo lifted his trilby and ruffled his hair - my personal highlight of the concert so far. ;) anyways. the band was in great spirit, they all seemed to be in top form, Peter looked great and so did Mik. Drew and Adam looked top as usual. The played very lovely guitar solos and Mik did a great job on the Harmonika. Though the band was amazing, the crowd was an absolute and utter JOKE. Bad enough that they didn't know the names of the band members let alone recognized them when they walked past them - they hardly knew the chorus to Albion and Fuck Forever. They threw beer at the band and they just acted like righteous fucking cunts.I felt ashamed and angry at my fellow concert goers and felt a strong urge to snipe a whole bunch of 'em. Apparently Peter noticed the shite crowd aswell, he said something in the likes of: "There are about 3 guys in the front row who really put some effort into this, the rest of you were RUBBISH" which in my opinion was a very mildly and nicely shaped statement.what was even more ridiculous, the crowd didn't even get this and cheered at Peter's insult. afterwards they played Fuck Forever as their final song and Mik and Pete started doing the Nazi salute. Then our boys left the stage without another word having been said".

SETLIST: Carry On Up The Morning, Delivery, Crumb Begging, Side Of The Road, The Blinding (great instrumental at the end of the song), The Whole World Is Our Playground (requested by one of the few hardcore fans. stopped after a couple seconds because the crowd didn't have a clue about this tune and was utterly awful), You Talk, Unbilo Titled, Killamangiro, Albion (lovely long intro), Back From The Dead (my real concert highlight), Back From The Dead, Outro, Fuck Forever.

Word to Babybear: Sorry for the interruption to the show tonight folks if you were there but there were serious safety issues and someone could have been hurt. Part of the job is to help bring you the entertainment but there's no way we'll continue a show if it appears someone could be hurt. Anyway, on the bus bound for the low countries. Big singalongs and too much Leffe (for me) so ...... Nighty night!

The tour is quickly wrapping up. Tonight it's Amsterdam. Oh my gosh the memories!