Sarah Connor – Muttersprache Tour

My second concert on the Tollwood Festival this year was Sarah Connor. Apart from her Christmas Show, this was the first concert I’ve seen from her since 13 years. Some things change – some never do!

Things that changed:

• Her supportig act of course. Last time I saw her it was “Natural” – remember them? Well, at least one of their members, Marc Terenzi, right? This time it was Max Giesinger. We really enjoyed his set and everyone sang along to his latest hit “80 Millionen“
• Obviously, Sarah now mainly sings in German. Inspired by her participation in the German TV show “Sing meinen Song – Das Tauschkonzert” (imho the best music show on TV!), where she had to cover German songs from Xavier Naidoo, Roger Cicero, Andreas Gabalier and Gregor Meyle, she recorded her latest album in German and also did a lot of songwriting herself. There are some awesomely deep and beautiful songs on the album like “Das Leben ist schön” or “Augen auf“. A lot of people have preconceptions when it comes to Sarah Connor, but some may be surprised to discover her all anew on this record.
• This kinda “naughty girl” affectation is gone. It never really fitted her in my opinion, because I always saw her as this nice woman, who was very natural and open as a person. She did sing a medley of her old hits like “Let’s get back to bed, boy” and “French kissing“, but she did so with some humour. Only her mega hit “From Sarah with love” was done in a serious way but with a whole new arrangement.

Things that never change (hopefully so…):

• girl can still sang! 😉
• She’s still digging Michael Jackson. She sang a beautiful, slowed down version of “Rock with you” and her band and background singers did a very groovy “Working day and night” cover. As she did in 2002 and 2003 when I last saw her, she immediately asked to have our MJ-banner when she saw it during “Rock with you”. She showed it to the audience and danced around with it before giving it back.
• The interaction with her fans is still very intimate. She seemed to recorgnize several of them and really appreciates her followers. People who had bought a special boxset of her latest album where even given a pass and got into the venue earlier. We didn’t stay to meet her after the show this time, because we had just talked to her a year ago when she was in Munich, but I’m sure she stopped for her fans on her way home as always.

 

Sarah Connor – Christmas in my heart Tour

It’s been quite a while ago since I last saw Sarah Connor. I think the last time was ten years ago when I accidentally bumped into her on the Echo After-Show Party and we had a small chat. Well, that’s also a funny story, but maybe another time… So when I read that she will be coming to Munich with her “Christmas in my heart”-Tour, I decided to go. She played at the Philharmonie Gasteig together with Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra.

Her “Christmas in my heart“-album was already released in 2006, but she explained during the show that it had been a dream of hers ever since to bring it on tour. She also recounted how they had already started to rehearse in September when it was still summer outside – now, so close to Christmas, the decoration with a huge, American-style Christmas tree and a manger of course fitted the season. Sarah herself looked very festively in her long dress and blonde curls. Is it just me or does it have a touch of Marilyn Monroe? Most of the songs throughout the concert were, of course, Christmas songs, mostly traditional ones, but she also slipped in a few soul classics as well es some of her own tunes. With “Too close to crazy” and the encore “Little love”, which she sang sitting on stage with some of her fans, she introduced two new songs from her forthcoming album. My personal highlights were the always beautiful “Have yourself a merry little Christmas“, her rendition of Etta James’ “Something’s got a hold on me” (girl can SANG!) and the improvised, from traditional over jazzy to souly version of “Leise rieselt der Schnee”, which funnily was the song that brought her a record deal, as a tape of her singing the song made a record executive call her.

A surprise during the show was the appearance of David Hermlin, son of orchestra leader Andrej. He not only duetted with Connor on “Santa Clause is coming to town” and stepdanced, but also sang a solo song (“Christmas dreaming”). This 13-year old boy could have a career ahead of him. He can sing, dance, looks cute and is such a natural on stage. He kinda reminded me of little Michael Jackson. Google showed me that that was not a coincidence.

All in all a very enjoyable evening with great music, a very likable and natural Sarah Connor, who obviously still has a close connection to her fans, and of course with Christmas in our hearts! 😉