I loved the novel, so I was a bit skeptical about condensing it all into a single movie. Needless to say, it’s not a verbatim adaptation of the original text. On the contrary, Tykwer and the Wachowskis took audacious liberties, changed most of the endings and left out huge portions. And I’m perfectly happy with that, because they turned the stories into something slightly different, something that fits the big screen wonderfully. My eyes were glued to the screen throughout the movie. There were many innovative ideas that fit the format perfectly. I even enjoyed the way the music was handled, something I hadn’t expected.

Two thumbs up!

1. Waiting for the Hurricane
2. The Spirit of Man
3. Up Here in Heaven
4. Missing You
5. The Traveller
6. Ship to Shore
7. The Mirror of the Soul
8. The Same Sun
9. The Escape
10. Greater Love
11. Already There
12. The Fields of Agincourt
13. Tender Hands
14. Living on the Island
15. Love and Time
16. Summer Rain
17. I’m Not Scared Anymore
18. Borderline
19. The Ballroom of Romance
20. The Lady in Red
21. Blue Bayou
22. Let It Be
23. Lady Madonna
24. Long Train Running
25. Africa
26. Brother John
27. Bal Masqué
28. Don’t Pay the Ferryman
29. High on Emotion
30. The Snows of New York
31. The Moonfleet Finale

1. The Storyman Theme (Intro)
2. Don’t Pay the Ferryman
3. Waiting for the Hurricane
4. Eastern Wind
5. Lonely Sky
6. In a Country Churchyard
7. We Can Work It Out
8. People of the World
9. The Revolution
10. Light a Fire
11. Liberty
12. Borderline
13. Say Goodbye to It All
14. Love and Time
15. There’s a New Star Up in Heaven Tonight
16. The Lady in Red
17. Africa
18. Timing Is Everything
19. Don’t Look Back
20. The Storm
21. Where Peaceful Waters Flow
22. High on Emotion
23. Read My Name
24. Crusader (Encore 1)
25. Transmission Ends (Encore 2)

(Quelle)

• Joseph M. Siracusa: Nuclear Weapons – A Very Short Introduction
• Elisabeth Rank: Und im Zweifel für dich selbst
• Jennifer E. Smith: Die statistische Wahrscheinlichkeit von Liebe auf den ersten Blick
• Dan Brown: Das verlorene Symbol
• Nicholas James: Cancer – A Very Short Introduction
• Andy McNab: Signal Bravo Two Zero
• Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games
• Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire
• J. Meade Falkner: Moonfleet
• J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Elisabeth Streit: Renates erster Flug
• Elisabeth Streit: Renate als Luft-Stewardeß
• J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin: O’Brien Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music
• Lloyd Alexander: Der Setzerjunge
• Justin Cronin: The Passage
• Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin: J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Kevin Brockmeier: The Short History of the Dead
• John Green: Das Schicksal ist ein mieser Verräter
• Ian McEwan: Solar
• Flavia Company: Die Insel der letzten Wahrheit
• Susanne Schäpler: Schwarzes Blut
• Shania Twain: From This Moment on
• John Green: Paper Towns
• Frank Portman: King Dork
• Arthur C. Doyle: A Study in Scarlet
• Ildiko von Kürthy: Unter dem Herzen
• Arthur C. Doyle: The Sign of Four
• Laurie R. King: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice

Yesterday we took our car to drive to grandma’s house
I sat behind the steering wheel right next to my spouse

She was really confident we didn’t need a map
But I had just installed a new direction finding app
So five miles down the dusty road
My smart phone said: “turn right”
My wife protested: “no, no, no
Turn left by the traffic light”
I didn’t know just what to do
So I kept driving straight ahead
My phone said: “calculating new route”
While my wife was getting mad

After three such incidents things getting tense
My phone said we were getting there, ignoring some dead ends
But ten miles down the dusty road
It said: “please turn around”
My wife protested: “no, no, no
We should be westward bound”
I didn’t know just what to do
So I kept driving straight ahead
My phone said: “calculating new route”
While my wife was getting mad
My wife was getting mad

“Unquestionably the funniest song you will ever hear about THE FAULT IN OUR STARS.” -John Green

This ain’t a book about a ballet dancer
No, it’s a book about a book about cancer
But there is something that is more important
This book mentions Natalie Portman
In 3 out of 25 chapters – I think she’s pretty scarce
That’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”
Yeah that’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”

If you do the math then you will see
22 chapters without Natalie
The ones that mention her are way too short, man!
John Green should have added way more Portman
It wouldn’t have been as difficult as landing a rover on Mars
That’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”
Yeah that’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”

At least the book doesn’t end in the middle of

Confession

Natalie Portman is actually mentioned in 4 out of 25 chapters. How embarrassing. Shame on me.

The Making of…

This song is a good example for lyrical revisions. After reading “The Fault in Our Stars“, I didn’t really consider making a song about it. There are already plenty of sad TFiOS ballads out there; no need to add my rumbling ramble to the choir. I didn’t ban the idea of a TFiOS song from my mind, either, just like I find that it’s never the wrong time to write a song about Natalie Portman. It took me one ride to work to consolidate the initial idea and to come up with the title. I felt so original! Fortunately, I went on to elaborate the lyrics. Had I looked up the title there and then I might have been discouraged by the fact that there were already a dozen or so videos on YouTube alone discussing the faults in “The Fault in Our Stars”.

The next day, I toyed around with a few lyrical chunks, again on my way to work. At first I wanted to build on the repetition (“The fault in the fault in…” and “A book about a book about…”), but I couldn’t come up with a third one (let alone a fourth). That evening I assembled a first draft, which looked like this:

I didn’t know it was going to become a 52-second song at that point, although the format is very much in my blood. I had almost all the pieces in place when I picked up my guitar and started writing the music. I abandoned the initial refrain soon, because the melody line clung too closely to the chord changes. I tried various rhythms and keys until I settled with a nice shuffle feeling and happy chords (D and G). Adding a C suited the melody and spiced things up a little. I was still looking for a second verse and a proper chorus (and the Ark of the Covenant), when I realized that I already had enough lyrics for a 52-second song. In order to compress the arrangement I added h with a  descending bass that goes via E to the conclusion G, A, D. With the music pretty much in place it was time to flesh out the lyrics, especially the rhymes. Hardly anything rhymes with Portman, I thought, only to find that “important” comes sufficiently close. The opening line is weak. (It was partly inspired by the TFiOS FAQ.) I find that the very beginning is the best place for a weak link. It was going to be an upbeat song and most people’s attention span lasts at least three quick lines. So I focused on finding a nice rhyme for the chorus, instead. I chose “scarce”. Little did I know that it doesn’t actually rhyme. Coincidence had me watch a SciShow video in which Hank Green said the word. I decided to keep it after a short, futile search for an alternative.

The second verse was a mess of complicated sentences, stuff like “I did the math and I can tell you now, lo and behold, yadayada” and “22 chapters that are Portman-free”. I had to force myself to start from scratch and state everything as clear and as simple as possible. You can’t imagine how happy I was when I realized that I can replace “Portman-free” by “Natalie”. The “short, man”/Portman rhyme was there in the very beginning. It provided a nice way to make clear that it’s actually not the fault of the book, but the fault of its author. The Mars rover references was tricky, but I think I managed to find a bunch of words that make sense and fit the music. The last line was just an afterthought, because the song had to end at some point. Full disclosure: I sang “At least the book didn’t end in the middle of fishing boat proceeds.” Here’s the final draft of the lyrics:

The recording started with the drums (on Saturday), which I had to record with my cameras mic (hence the bad sound quality). I didn’t use a click. I hadn’t played drums in months. I had only ten minutes before I had to leave for a family birthday. I first tried playing with brushes, but that sounded too vulnerable. It took me three more run throughs to find the actual patterns and then a couple of takes on camera, included one that took exactly 52 seconds. As I said, the format is in my blood now. A few days later (on Monday) I added guitars, keyboards (including the bass line), and eventually vocals. The footage in the video are the actual takes, so you can see that it was getting dark by the time I recorded the vocals. I doubled the last line of each chorus on piano (good idea) and I enhanced the snare and bass drum with MIDI drum sounds (questionable idea). Mixing was easy. It mainly consisted of turning the volume of the drums lower. Next, I assembled the video clip. Then I went to bed. And now this is my most viewed video on YouTube!

The solo versions of the songs lacked extensive solo parts – which was a good thing, if you ask me. There were no excessive sing along parts, no fancy song intros; we got “pure” Chris de Burgh. There were a lot of ballads on the setlist, which was fine with me. “Love and Time” worked very well in the new arrangement and “Carry Me (Like a Fire in Your Heart)” was just soo beautiful. There were a couple of songs I found less engaging, like “It’s Such a Long Way Home” and “Oh My Brave Hearts”. The latter one is just rehashing “The Revolution” in my opinion. Thankfully, “The Revolution / Light a Fire” was played, eventually. I had seen some of the previous setlists online, so I wasn’t completely surprised by the setlist. Still, the songs that were requested specifically in Bamberg (e.g. “In Love Forever”) were pleasant surprises. I’m so glad this tour takes place, because as much as a “regular” concert can be entertaining, the “immediateness”, the anything-goes aspect made this evening unique. Chris also told us that he had learned a new phrase in German: “Die Küche ist geschlossen.”

He was in a good mood and had no trouble at all entertaining 1200 people for about 2.5 hours straight. It was clear that he couldn’t play all requests; and personally I would have liked to hear any other song from Moonfleet (great album) than the two he played (“Pure Joy”, “Everywhere I Go”). But I’m not complaining. There were so many great songs (“The Road to Freedom”, “In a Country Churchyard”, “Where Peaceful Waters Flow”, “Waiting for the Hurricane”, “The Girl With April in Her Eyes”) from almost all albums, I rarely stopped smiling. A particular highlight this time around (itwas only my second Chris de Burgh concert after Trier 2009) was “Say Goodbye to It All”. It was preceded by “Borderline”, which sounded good, but cheesier than necessary due to the e-piano-strings. The all piano version of “Say Goodbye to It All” gave the song a fresh feeling, made it less repetitive and, well, I enjoyed it immensely. I was surprised how well “A Woman’s Heart” worked as a dancing song. The funniest part of the evening was probably when he sang the line “the perfect man” and hinted at himself with a grin.

The performance was spot on and certainly not something you get to see every day (or even every year). I don’t think it resembled the early days of Chris’ career, when he had to struggle with sound, lighting and (Supertramp) stage managers. Still, it showed the essence of the music as well as the charming personality of the man way better than any fancy stadium show could ever do. My seat in row 2 had cost more than 80 Euros, which was quite expensive in my opinion. Then again, there were hardly any empty seats in the room, so it all comes down to supply and demand. And this evening wasn’t about economics, but all about music and stories. And I had a great evening!

1. First Steps
2. Fatal Hesitation
3. Sailing Away
4. Missing You
5. Here Is Your Paradise
6. It’s Such a Long Way Home
7. In Love Forever
8. Tender Hands
9. Songbird
10. Pure Joy
11. Borderline
12. Say Goodbye to It All
13. The Road to Freedom
14. Sailor
15. Oh My Brave Hearts
16. Waiting for the Hurricane
17. In the Ghetto
18. Love and Time
19. Carry Me (Like a Fire in Your Heart)
20. The Girl With April in Her Eyes
21. Spirit
22. In a Country Churchyard
23. The Lady in Red
24. The Revolution / Light a Fire
25. Everywhere I Go
26. A Woman’s Heart
27. Where Peaceful Waters Flow
28. Don’t Pay the Ferryman
29. High on Emotion
30. Those Were the Days
31. The Snows of New York
32. Goodnight

I usually prefer artists who don’t stick to a static setlist during a tour. Now last night was very much a dynamic event. It helped that the concert felt a bit like a living room show due to its size. Consequently, Dr. Frank’s set was filled with surprises and requests. (I got to hear “Will You Still Love Me When I Don’t Love You?”!) All those great rocking songs from the Mr. T Experience worked very well in an acoustic setting. For once, you could hear all the lyrics perfectly. Did anyone ever award some prize to Dr. Frank for the most clever and wry punk rock lyrics? Why not? What do you mean, there’s no Nobel Punk Prize? Anyway, the show was great and the mood was relaxed. There were so many amazing songs! I feel compelled to list some titles, because they remind me of the fun I had during the gig: “You’re the Only One”, “Swiss Army Girlfriend”, “Jill”, “Sackcloth and Ashes”, “Swallow Everything”! The lack of recognition from mainstream music fans breaks my heart. And yet I’m totally happy that I got to experience this concert close up. The next time Dr. Frank comes to town (or as in my case to a town that’s a three-hour drive away) you better go see him!

1. How’d the Date End
2. I Wrote a Book About Rock and Roll
3. You Today
4. My Name Is Morgan (But It Ain’t J.P.)
5. More Than Toast
6. Mr. Ramones
7. You’re the Only One
8. Swiss Army Girlfriend
9. ???
10. Fucked Up on Life
11. Now That You Are Gone
12. Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend
13. Jill
14. Will You Still Love Me When I Don’t Love You?
15. Sackcloth and Ashes
16. She Turned Out to Be Crazy
17. Swallow Everything