Thanks for letting me use it!

To sum it all up in one word, Belinda's performance at the Cher concerts
was fantastic! Before the shows, I was a little sceptical about the
audiences' reaction. You need to know that Belinda's situation in Germany
is somehow similar to the U.S., since nothing of her material after the
"Runaway horses" album successfully hit the charts here. Her "classical"
songs from Heaven On Earth and Runaway Horses are played quite frequently on the radio (not on TV)
though, and many people in the audience were familiar at least with those
songs.

But Belinda's performance was so good that she got the whole audience cheer
loudly through all her songs! Her voice was in great shape, just like at
the acoustic tour. The band also did a very good job! And except for one or
two heavy peak level adjustments in the middle of a song and Belinda's
voice falling out for a few seconds at one concert, the sound was also good.

Each venue was sold out or almost sold out at about 10,000 people, in
Leipzig even 12,000. The age of the viewers ranged from about 10 to 60
years. That's all I can reply to the "A woman over 30 can't reach the
younger generation who mainly buys records"-statement.

At the first show in Hannover, there was a guy from the promoting local
radio station who announced Belinda as a special surprise guest. He also
mentioned her new album, which was the first time that I heard this in
Germany (and also the last time as of yet :-( ). People were cheering up
when she appeared on the stage an started right into "Live your life be
free". That was a strong intro, which the audience obviously liked.

Belinda was were funny and energetic at each concert. She moved and danced
a lot on the stage, and she interacted very well with the audience and made
them clap along with the rythm of the songs. She also talked a lot. "It's
like - ghosh! - 20 years or so since I played last time in Germany. Shame
on me!", she said. Well, it wasn't that bad, but the ten years she hasn't
been here were already too much so I could agree with the last statement ;-)
.

Of course she had her obligatory glass of wine on the stage, and maybe she
used it a bit too much at the first night ... she stumbled three times over
a box with electronical devices and almost fell down once. But it wasn't
too bad, since she made the audience laugh by this. Probably the box was
only standing in her way, at least it was located somewhere else at the
next concert and she didn't have any problems with it. Instead, she lost
her tambourine in Frankfurt, so it flew in a high curve across the stage
and finally off it. It took a while until the security guy noticed what
happend and gave it back to her. "You know, I'm a little bit clumsy", she
remarked, making the audience laugh again.

Most of her songs defenitely matched the taste of the audience - that's why
it was such a good choice to tour with Cher! The applause became louder
after each song, even after the songs they probably didn't know. Especially
"Big scary animal" - which I'm sure hardly anybody had heard before - was
great, many people went with it and clapped along the whole song. The
enthusiasm came of course to its peak when she played "Leave a light on"
and "Heaven is a place on earth". Cher could hardly archieve the same
reaction in the audience as when Belinda performed "Heaven" with "Turn back
time" and "Believe"!

In Hannover, she played "My heart goes out to you" as the last song, which
was very nice because that was the only slow song at that night (including
Cher), and it's always beautiful to see such a big crowd holding up their
lighters. Unfortunately, she didn't play this song at the other concerts.
After her performance in Hannover, the announcer from the radio station
appeared again and gave a bunch of flowers to Belinda. He remarked twice
(in German) how cute she looked after she'd gone off the stage ;-) . Then
the battery of his microphone fell out, so he couldn't announce Cher
anymore. But that wasn't too bad, as we had already seen the main act of
the evening ;-) .

Leipzig was the hardest place for Belinda, because the people there didn't
know her songs as well as in the other cities - probably because this was
East-Germany when she had her biggest hits in the 80's and she didn't get
much airplay at that time as an American artist. It seemed that Belinda was
aware of this, so maybe that's why she shortened the setlist to only 8
songs, leaving out "Emotional highway" and unfortunately also "Big scary
animal". She tried to explore the audiences' knowledge of her songs by
letting them sing the chorus of "Heaven" (for the first time on the tour),
but it failed badly. This for sure wouldn't have happend in the other
cities! But the people obviously liked her anyway. There was a loud
applause after each song, not much less than after Cher's songs. And after
her performance I heard only praising comments from the people surrounding
me.

While the reaction of the audience in these cities was already great, it
was fantastic in Frankfurt. Many knew all her "classical" songs and could
sing the chorus very well. I noticed some girls next to me who also knew
all the lyrics of the older songs, and I'm sure they were not the only
ones. Keep in mind that the people didn't know about Belinda's appearance,
since it was kept as a secret! To top it all, the audience in Frankfurt
even demanded an encore after Belinda had left the stage (and this wasn't
started by us few die-hard fans)! Usually, people are only waiting for the
supporting act to go by quickly and hardly show any bigger reaction. I've
also seen supporters beeing booed. But to me this was the first time that I
saw the audience demanding an encore from the supporter! They did without
success though, because the stage had to be rebuilt and there wasn't too
much time. Cher did not even think about giving an encore by the way. The
lights went on almost immediately after "Believe" was finnished, which was
quite disappointing for the audience.

It was so nice to see that Belinda can still fill a 10,000 people-venue
with enthusiasm in a country where she had her last hit 10 years ago :-) !
The only sad thing is that this great chance to promote her new songs was
missed.

Dirk

thanks a lot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!