N'Abend Berlin!

The mandatory - and highly anticipated - CD to Reinhard Mey past autumn tour waiting time photographically on the most beautiful, for uninformativsten Booklet long; from the words "included in the 'then do it good' tour 2014" one might conclude that CD is a compilation of various evenings; but it sounds like all of a piece, because the engineer did a great job, and the preliminary announcement, according to at least parts for a change are not times in the Circus Krone in Munich, but at the end of his tour in 2014 was recorded in Berlin.

As usual, Reinhard Mey has again written for the current tour two new titles, of which this time opened an evening: in "N'Abend Berlin" (the names of cities varied nature depending on venue) asks Mey his audience to be good to him. The other, "You can not always tell the truth", comes before the encores and is as usual amusing, but not quite the bang as two tours laid back the "men in the construction market" and the "Abendpantolette". What stands out is that Meys announcements for the songs "'84 Live" were always in greater detail since the album, this time turn out unusually compact.

Titles like "I love you", "The Biker", "The Ship of Fools", "Farewell, farewell, good night," "Above the Clouds" and "six forty-five" adorn in for about a quarter of a century - more or less beautiful - regularity its concert programs and therefore also his live CDs, and they may be very good for the concert sequence are ("Friendly faces", "Good night, friends") and Mey may feel very comfortable with them; But as much as I appreciate some of them, with so many studio albums and a so rich songs treasure like his I wish now but, Reinhard Mey would sometimes grab a little deeper into this and so provide a bit more variety; alone "Thank you, dear fairy godmother" is now the third year in a row there - not counting the studio version.

What really impresses me is - next to his Although graying, but this time full of hair - that when Reinhard Mey with 71 years no signs of aging can be identified: his voice is still fully there, and drops his guitar playing a little quieter than usual, Mey seems it while still loving perform than usual, careful, melodic; here and there he built small variations that I was not used by him. Incidentally sounds his guitar fantastically. With three songs - the "biker" in "Thank you, dear fairy godmother" and "made a piece of music by hand" in - he has built small text variants that actually heard him give pleasure.

Reinhard Mey plays 11 of the 17 songs from his latest album; this time he is singing a striking number of songs about parents and children (and below is not even "father and son)": "Little Comrade," one of the most touching children's songs that I know, he sang in 1980 in "seasons" for and his son Frederik; "Barrettes and bows and ribbons" for his now adult daughter (the song he quotes lovingly of "Little Girl" from "color" album from 1990), and "drive your boat through a sea of ​​candles" (a kind of "human Young 2013 ") is probably devoted to his grandchild, born 2012. After several years of vegetative state died on 21.5. 2014 Meys son Max, the "Let's now quietly going on the helm" and the title song of the latest studio and this live album, "Then take care", apply. Who knows Reinhard Mey a little, knows about this tragedy in his family and what is meant when it is in "If you're with me," of "a wound that does not heal" sings, so he can also stand alone and both songs speak for themselves - not for nothing that he has chosen the theme song as a tour title. What I can not quite understand, is how he manages it, particularly "Then take care", which touches many listeners to tears, for 60 days every evening so passed in front of thousands of people to sing, without tearing it where appropriate. On the contrary: Mey acts on this recording not only composed and confident, but even casual and cheerful, and I wonder sometimes repeated: where the man infected the only way? In a talk show interview a few months ago Mey stated that he regarded himself as absolute lucky, the life have always meant well, and that was around the time of death of his son. I was somewhat suspect, because suspected when all optimism I could such a statement in such a situation not quite understand. Maybe it's really the music that gives him at all, maintenance; My favorite song on this CD is his "fiddler".

How often I like Meys songs live and solo presented better than in the studio versions, and even songs that do not respond as others such as "wool", "The handkerchief" and "father jacket", I can in this form much more abgewinnen than there.