Hanson Colonge Germany Concert 98
by Magda Wallmont

You asked about the concert which took place in Cologne, Germany 13/6 1998 and well...what can I say? All Hanson concerts (as I'm sure you know) totally rock. Unfortunately I only had the chance to go to one considering that Hanson only played in 3 places in Europe. It was so cool for me being able to go to Germany (from Sweden!) and see them. I really wanted to fly to London as well and see them at Wembley arena (the biggest arena in Europe) but I thought that would be a bit too much. First of all, I have to say that the whole deal with selling and buying tickets here in Europe is so different from America (and it's essential to mention if you want to understand how ppl get their "seats"). For example, you can't buy special tickets for a particular seat, and it's not like first row tickets are more expensive than lawn seats. It's not like that at all. First of all, there are no SEATS. The concerts take place at sports halls, or concert arenas, where seats don't exist, so everybody's standing up. To me, it sounds dead dangerous to be standing on seats, you can break a leg or something! Anyway, so all tickets are equal, and it's just up to each person where you're going to end up on the concert, depending on how early you get to the concert arena. So what I did, was that I came 15 hours ahead. Which means that I stood there from 4am till 6.30pm!!!! It was the most exhausting and long 15 hours of my life. And I had only slept for like 3 hours that night (before the concert) because on the 12th of June (the day before the concert) I stood outside the Hyatt Hotel in Cologne, till 11pm waiting to see Hanson arrive, which I did! They came at 11pm, the whole family and it was very cool. (you can read my review about that here on HansonHouse as well).

So I went home att 11pm, slept till like 2.30am and went off to the arena. But the atmosphere there and all the fans were so cool and so great, we had a nice time together while we were waiting. Fortunately the sun was shining so sitting on the ground wasn't that bad. =o) There's one highlight in the whole waiting process and that was that at a certain poin we all started cheering for Zac Tay and Ike or Hanson. There were like 2 girls screaming: "GIVE ME AND H!" and the whole crowd goes "H!!!!!!"..."GIVE ME AN A!!"...."A!!" and so on, then when the whole spelling of "Hanson" was done, they said: "WHAT DO YOU GET?!" and we all (8000 ppl) yelled " HANSON! HANSON! HANSON!" and we did the same thing with each of their names. And they must have heard this screaming in choir becausethey opened a window above us all in the arena, and put out their 3 little heads and waved to the fans underneath them, it was SOOOO COOL!!! And I have never heard anybody scream louder than we did when they did that!! Anyway, they let us in at around 6.30 and then you had to RACE to the main part of the concert hall, where the actual concert was gonna take place and since I was one of the first ppl in line, I got a first row little "seat" of my own, right in front of Ike and Zac. But since the stage wasn't that big, I saw very much of Tay as well. Well, then the lights went out and of course everybody thought that Hanson was coming out but no, it was some German band or something. (Admiral Twin never went with Hanson to Europe).

Everybody was getting more and more excited and we couldn't wait to see Hanson. All of this time we had been waiting, for over a year to see them in real life. That dream would soon come true. Ok, so the German band walks off, the curtain is drawn, and they put some music on for a while. The excitement in the crowd is rising and rising and from time to time, you hear someone roar "Taaaaaylor!!!" or "Zaaaaaac!!". And all of a sudden, we hear someone trying the drums back there behind the curtains, on stage, banging on them.. EVERYBODY goes NUTZ because we know it's Zac back there by his drums! It was such an awesome feeling, to know that soon it'll all start..!! Then in a split second the curtains go off and there they are, standing by their instruments and start paying right away, Gimme some Lovin!!!! I could not believe my eyes...! And at the same time, there was such a huge and drastic push from behind, I thought that I would die..!!! Girls were fainting all around me and I remember this particular moment when one of the first row girls fainted, right at the beginning of the concert, and the bodyguard pulled her out and carried her in the space between the stage and the crowd you know. and I remember seeing that and at that moment I looked up and looked at Ike and, it was so funny, because he was playing and at the same time he looked at the fainted girl being carried and he made this incredibly shocked and surprised look on his face and followed her with his eyes! He almost looked worried as if she was alright or not!

It was so cute, and I remember laughing when I saw that..! *lol*...and also, I have to say, that one of my first reactions when I saw Tay was: EEEW, LOOK AT THOSE PANTS HE HAS! Everybody thought so really...he looked like a clown in them, they were all tight and had colored stripes...ugh, *hehe*. Well, then they played more and more of course...it was so stupid really because everybody was screaming so hard that you couldn't hear a word the guys were saying to us in the microphones. And due to all the pushing also, the whole experience is kind of blurry to me. I felt like a canned fish in there, I really thought that I would die or that I would have to ask one of the security guys to pull me out. It's really not all that cool to be in the 1st row because everybody else wants to be there too, and you really feel that during the concerts! I remember that so many girls were being pulled out from the 1st row that Tay said to everybody at one point to take at least 3 big steps back not to kill us in the front!! But of course they didn't. The security was goin nuts as well, it was CRAZY! After a while, while the guys were still playing the first couple songs, I remember seeing a man walk by, in the gap between the stage and the crowd (where all the security stands as well), with a video camera in his hand. I looked a bit closer, and then I realized it was Walker filming his sons! It was so awesome because I've always wanted to see their parents in real life, and so me and a couple of other squished girls in the front (nobody else really noticed him!) screamed loud (because of the music) "WALKER, WALKER!" towards him, and he heard us, turned around, and scanned us with his camera..! We were like sooo excited, laughing and waving to the camera, screaming "Hiiii!"...He really looked sweet, he was smiling at us and waving. BuT then when the others also noticed him (once he had turned around), they pushed so hard from the back that he had to leave fast. But several times after that, we saw him up on stage, filming Zac by the drums, Tay and Ike as well. It was awesome. But now I found out that the video only includes Seattle so my hopes of being on the Concert Video are out. =o( Well, then the acoustic part of the show came up and they (finally!) moved Zac up, and so he was RIGHT in front of me...I WAS SO HAPPY because I think Zac is the coolest little kid on earth! I didn't see Tay at all almost because he was on the other side and on top of everything, he was sitting down. But I saw Ike's head which rocked..!! *hehe* That was an amazing part of the show, but the emotional peak for me was when Ike sang More than Anything. That kind of tore my last little string which held it all together in me.

I wasn't hysterically crying, but quietly for myself, because I was moved by his beautiful voice and I had never heard that song before either. And amazingly enough, it became all quiet in there while he was singing...it almost felt like we were all listening to him carefully. But of course, there were also idiots there who chanted TAY TAY TAY while he was singing which REALLY PISSED ME OFF. I mean, he wasn't even there and the stupid girls could at least have given Ike his 5 minutes in the spotlight..! *GRRRR!* Well, another cool thing was that Zac went up to the right side of the stage, (in front of me and others) and threw a HUGE bottle of water at us and I got SOAKED!!! I guess the guys saw that the 1st row ppl were worst off, we really looked half dead!! Zac went crazy with the water, it was so cool..! Then at one, later point, Tay also took water and threw it at the crowd, and at that point I had been pushed more to the middle of the stage and that was, more or less, the point where he threw in the BOTTLE after emptying it...I have one thing to say: I wasn't even THINKING of TRYING to catch that bottle. I mean, girls were BEATING eachother up and pulling oneanother's hair to get it, and I WITNESSED that!! It looked very dangerous, so even though I saw the bottle land a few heads behind of me, I just didn't care. I thought it was VERY cool, when during Look at You, something took place, which surprised everybody I think. Ike all of a sudden goes over to Tay, takes his guitar off, replaces Tay at the keyboard, Tay grabs his mic, and WALKS OFF FROM IT...he goes up to the middle-front of the stage, bends over the crowd with the mic and yells: NOW I WANT ALL OF YOU GUYS TO SING ALONG WITH ME!!!

Man, lemme' tell ya, PPL WERE SINGING!! It was L-O-U-D!!! It had been loud the whole time I guess. during most of the songs, I couldn't even hear HANSON sing, it was only us it seemed like! Well, okie...then after the last song, Man from Milwaukee, they went off the stage. I could not believe it was over. I had been standing in front of the hall, waiting for 15 hours, and all of a sudden it was all over. It felt like the concert had lasted for 5 minutes. But then I hear everybody chant in choir, something in German which I didn't quite understand, and it was "ZUGABE ZUGABE ZUGABE"...I was thinkin: What the hell..?! But then I started going "Zugabe" as well, and it turned out that Hanson came back! My spirit turned up again, and this was my alltime favorite moment of the whole concert. I was standing in the MIDDLE, right in the FIRST row...Hanson comes out, together, all 3 of them and PLACE THEMSELVES IN THE FRONT, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the stage with a mic. My heart literally stopped beating and my eyes were about to pop out of my head. They were RIGHT THERE. Right in front of me. I could see every sweat drop and every little wrinkle on their faces, it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The ppl I admire so much and respect so much for what they're doing were right there in front of me. I almost felt like reaching out to them or something. And then their 3 sweet voices start to sing a short part of "Weird" a cappella...my eyes were watering again. Because it was so beautiful but also because I knew this was the last time I would see them for real in, probably, a LONG, LONG time. That was my last view of them, last moment, and they were standing there together looking so tired but so happy at the same time, singing like angels...and there were girls all around me, crying, screaming hysterically, I was weat with sweat, I was emotionally, physically and mentally EXHAUSTED. I looked at them every instant, trying not to even blink so I wouldn't miss a single second of their sight. Then they walked off and they never came back again. Once the pressure decreased and I didn't feel anybody pushing behind me, I thought I would collapse. Because all that pushing had kept me standing on my feet, and I hadn't realized it till then. I was so dehydrated and tired that during about 45 minutes of the concert, I hadn't been standing up with my own strength, I had been leaning on the others.

It was a pretty scary feeling. And once it was all over, I didn't know what to do with myself. It was a panicking feeling because I saw ppl lying down on the floor in the hall, crying and screaming frantically...they were devastated that it was over, but also shocked that they had just seen the real Hanson for 90 minutes. I was looking around me, almost hyperventilating, and felt completely confused and shocked because I guess it hadn't sunk in that I had just been standing in front of my idols. I was completely soaked, I looked like I had been hit by a bus or something. It was terrible. And at the same time, I felt so empty. Because I had been looking forward to that day for over a year really, but once it was settled that I would go, for about 3 months. The anticipation, excitement, and all that waiting....my dream would soon come true, my ultimate dream, to see Hanson live...and now that it happened, my dream was fulfilled. And it was all OVER. That was hard to accept. But to make it all short (man, this is a long story, sorry!!), I guess the empty feeling went away after a while and now I have new concerts to look forward to, and i'm hoping Hanson will tour in SWEDEN next time so i won't have to go half across Europe to see them again!!! But when you look at my concert pictures remember that it wasn't at all as cool, calm and harmonic as it might seem in the pictures' clarity and quality. I went through HELL during that concert as well, and it was the most chaotic and crazy thing I have ever experienced and witnessed in my life. The hysteria among the girls around me was crazy and physically,
it was a shock for me. It was a vey exhausting and confusing experience, but it was all worth it!!

Magda