OK, I’ll try to keep my reports short, ’cause otherwise they won’t be online before I’m off to Hamburg to see the German shows… =;-)
But of course I have to write a little about how I decided to go to Norway to see not only the concert in Oslo (I’ve done that before, so what *g*) but also the ones in Stavanger and Bergen – otherwise you’ll regard me as totally crazy, I guess (well, probably you would be right, aehem… *g*). Very simple: Why should I go to Oslo for just one concert, I’ve been there before, it’s the third concert of the tour – so nothing _really_ special. Plus, I didn’t have any summer vacation this year. Plus, there were some Crazy Norwegians who came up with the idea to travel to all concerts. So the idea was at hand: Go to Norway, do some vacation, and then see the first concerts of the tour! And this was definitely the right decision! First I spent four days in Bergen, doing all the touristy things (in the rain, of course – and when I decided to spend all of the last day inside, shopping and visiting museums and stuff, of course the sun came out – so in the end, that was my nicest day in Bergen and I had to save the shopping for Oslo and the museums for my next time in Bergen *g*). Then I got on the boat to Stavanger the next morning, enjoyed the beautiful view during the trip (did not really enjoy the waves, though… *urghs*), got to Stavanger in beautiful sunshine and walked around without any plan for the next three hours or so, just enjoying myself (and apparently managing to appear invisible at the right time, like when suddenly in the city centre four men in black were walking towards me and I couldn’t find a hole in the ground to disappear in *lol*). Very nice town, but honestly I was happy to meet up with all the Crazy Norwegians (don’t know if you want your names in here, so I’m just gonna stick to that term, okay? *g*), ’cause there’s not really _that_ much to do in Stavanger. OK, would have liked to go out to Preikestolen, but for that, the time was too short.
OK, but I wanted to keep it short (ha ha ha… *g*). So, Vorspiel at home, and then we were off to the concert, ’cause we had decided to get into front row. We also managed, a little bit too far to the side though, so I have to admit that this report probably sounds a little… hmm, less enthusiastic, I would say… than the other ones. I loved the concert, but it just felt weird to stand in first row without anybody pushing from behind. *g*
Also, it’s really weird if concerts start with things that you _definitely_ wouldn’t expect to happen at a concert. I’m not gonna go into that, but well, Kaizers are just different from any other band I’ve loved before. =;-)
So, the concert started with Geoff Berner on… aeh, I’ve been looking for this word in English throughout the last week. Trekkspill. Maybe I should look it up… ok, accordion. Could have guessed that. Playing that and singing and _talking_. Mostly talking. I found him extremely boring that night, but I just wanted to see Kaizers anyway. And my opinion about him changed _very_ soon. Almost directly after the concert, that is. *gg*
And then it was finally time for the first show of the Maestro tour! Hmm, now I don’t know if you really want to spoil your fun by reading about it… ok, let’s just do it like this, I’ll first give the “general” things common to all the shows I’ve seen so far and the setlist and put a spoiler warning around, so you could just skip that part if you want to. Then after that I’ll write about what happened at that concert specifically, there will probably be some minor spoilers in it (like: “during this and that song”), but well, if you don’t want _any_ spoilers, just stop reading. *g*

***SPOILER***

OK, so let’s first get to the stage setup: A BIG new logo in the back – not the round gas mask sign anymore, but a red neon “KAIZERS Orchestra” sign! I thought it was very ugly at first, but it gives very nice effects, like when it is turned on in the beginning of the concert during the intro (which is still the Russian Dance, by the way), or when it is blinking in between, it just looks very impressive. Only thing I have to critizise is that it’s not in the right font, it should be the typewriter font – but probably it was cheaper like this. =;-)
Then a lot of different lights on the stage, street lamps in the background and some spotlights on stage. All works together very well, I just LOVED the light effects. Apart from that, nothing new – ok, Minken’s drum set is red now, Hellraizer has a new jacket, and Omen uses the trekkspill pretty often. But those are minor things. Oh yes, and there were two sax players. The twin brothers from Czekoslovak… shit, how do you spell that? Oh, wait a minute – that doesn’t even exist anymore! So probably from Czeck^H^Hquia? Still don’t know how to spell that… *cough* Aehem. So, Ed and Frank, on the sax. But they won’t be there on the European tour, too sad – it sounded great, and they really contributed a lot to the songs! But no… “we can’t afford that”… *sigh*
Lots and lots of new songs – almost all of the new album. So here’s the setlist (taken from a Norwegian newspaper, I don’t know for sure if the order is correct, but at least it’s all the same songs as I wrote down afterwards, and I guess they got it right): KGB, Delikatessen, Knekker deg til sist, Di grind, Container, Senior Flamingos adieu, Blitzregn baby, Bøn fra helvete, Christiania, På ditt skift, Auksjon, Papa har lov, Kontroll på kontinentet, Dieter Meyers Inst. Then the first encore: Evig pint, Ompa til du dør, Maestro. And then the Gypsy finale as second encore.
Just going through the songs now, this is not only my impression from the first concert, but from the three I saw until now:
KGB is an awesome opener, Minken comes out first and starts playing (everybody clapping their hands, of course), then Thunder comes in, and then one after the other enter the stage – until the Jackal comes out, stops the music, and then the audience starts singing with “Å Meyer, gi meg et kyss….” And the saxophones… haa, great! Delikatessen is very very nice live, of course, knew that before. I don’t really know yet if the “dance” Hellraizer and Killmaster are doing with their guitars in the end is supposed to look cool or what, but at least it’s funny… *gg* Knekker deg til sist is great also, don’t remember anything “special” about that one though, then it’s time for some old songs – they changed the beginning of Container a little, it’s a lot cooler now! Then it’s Øyvind’s big time in Senior Flamingo, the punky Blitzregn Baby, then the first “real” use of the barrels in Bøn fra helvete. And then my favorite song of all three concerts – Christiania. I love this song on the record, and live it’s just terrific. Everybody singing along, even after the band has stopped playing… gåsehud. =:-) I fear this won’t work like this in Germany, but please please please keep on playing that song, I think I could listen to that for an hour and not be sick of it, it’s just amazing… hach. Then På ditt skift, probably the only song I can accept after Christiania. *g* Auksjon, also very nice live, then Papa har lov… hmm. I’m not sure if I like that one. I liked it in Bergen, but in Stavanger and Oslo I was bored. Let’s see how it’ll turn out. It starts with the audience clapping the rhythm, then Thunder coming in with the bass all “Harlem oriented”. After that Kontroll på kontinentet with the same introduction as always, nothing new there (I was a little disappointed about that after the first show, but actually I like it so much that it’s great they kept it!), and as last song Dieter Meyers Inst. – and this is just awesome live also. Singing along at the beginning, then Kaizerrock at it’s best, and the the barrels at the end. OK, they didn’t manage to get the barrel part right yet, but in time they will, they have enough possibilities to practice. *g* The off the stage, back on to the sound of an alarm from the speakers (the don’t have their sirene with them anymore =:-(), then Evig pint, Ompa and Maestro. And then in the end the Gypsy finale with a changed second (or third?) verse in Bak et halleluja.
OK, what else. The crew is wearing suits, except for the backliner, but he is dressed up as Elvis instead, which always leads to a lot of talk on stage. *gg*
I think that’s the major parts…

***END OF SPOILER***

So, long spoiler part. Now the minor spoilers. =;-)
They had some “confetti-canons” with them, luckily only in Stavanger *g*, that exploded during Sigøynerblod – very nice effect, but I’m very happy they are not taking them on tour… those things tend to condition you very fast, and I don’t want to draw back every time I hear Sigøynerblod. *lol* Plus, the confetti tasted very bad. =;-) (No, I didn’t eat it, I just breathed it in. Not nice. *g*)
“Elvis is in the house! He decided to work in the back of the stage now” – “Oh, I thought that was Elton John!” – “No, he’s dead…” Aehm – at least I THINK that was the conversation. Of course everything (or most of it, at least) was in Norwegian. I understood fairly much this time, but still I can’t really be sure yet if what I understand is also what is being said. *g* So, whenever I write down some announcement, that’s a rough approximation. =;-) And there’s a lot of things I didn’t really get at all.
The Jackal has a new microphone – custom made! “Do you know Sennheiser? Can you all say Senn-hei-ser?” How much did he get for that?!? *lol* And it’s custom made, they only have three custom made mikes, one for Prince, one for Barry White, and one for yours truly… Aehm ja. Sure. *rofl*
When the Jackal got an acoustic guitar for one of the songs, he said something like “OK, now we had a lot of Kaizers, now I have the acoustic guitar, now it’s time for one of my solo songs!” And he actually played the first chords of Go tell her… *g*
And when he took of his shirt, he asked the girls in the audience to also take off their shirts and throw them on stage – what some actually did. Nicely, Killmaster tried to give them back at the end of the concert, but I doubt that he really got it back to the right people, but well. *gg*

OK, so that’s what I remember. I was very excited about the whole thing, so I probably forgot a lot, but who cares. =;-)

After that, we watched them getting their Gold Records for Maestro (it’s actually not a very smart idea to drink champagne over the frame of a Gold Record, but it definitely looks cool *lol*) and went to Cementen to celebrate the start of the tour.