When Michael Patrick Kelly, many may better know him as Paddy from the Kelly Family, is nearby, you got to take advantage. Though, maybe you’ve seen the last season of “Sing meinen Song” on VOX and know now even as non-Kelly-Fan, who Michael Patrick Kelly is. And nearby means in this case over the boarders in Germany. 😉 New friends, we met at the Kelly Family concerts in Dortmund, told us about the concert at Honberg-Sommer in Tuttlingen and swoop we were off to see it together.
Tuttlingen is a small town in German state Baden-Württemberg with about 34’000 inhabitants. On this Saturday afternoon, when we’ve been strolling through town to find some lunch, not much was going on there. We met some Kelly Fans and were asked, whether we’ve been the Swiss girls from the newspapers. Umm, no, we weren’t 😉
Explanation: The evening before a group of Swiss fans arrived there and stayed at the festival location over night. But that weren’t us. I wouldn’t want to sleep in front of a concert location.
Honberg-Sommer festival
Since 1995 during 2,5 weeks the wonderful festival at the area of the Honburg ruins takes place: The Honberg summer. National and international stars keep performing at this festival. For instance, next to Michael Patrick Kelly this year the wonderful Amy MacDonald, Anastacia, Samy Deluxe or our Swiss soul star Seven were on the programme. We even met a woman, who had one of the limited festival passes for all 16 concerts. Apparently she only paid € 300 for it – so about € 19 per concert. This is great! When else do you get the possibility to see stars like Anastacia for less than €20?!
When we arrived shortly after noon, about 30 people were sitting in front of the entrance. All the food stands outside the concert area weren’t open before 6 pm though. A pity actually that there wasn’t anything happening earlier. But even after our visit in town, there wasn’t much more happening after our return. Only about 1 hour before doors opened, people slowly showed up. Sadly many believed then, that it was okay then to skip the queue.
But the box office was also standing stupidly directkly in front of the entrance. So people, who got one of the “Sunshine tickets”, directly went into the queue in the front. Sunshine tickets you wonder? Generally about 1300 people fit into the festival tent. But if the weather is good like on this evening, they sell some additional tickets at the box office.
Admission was a little catastrophe and kind of dramatic. Somehow the organisers underestimated the run on Michael Patrick Kelly’s concert. There was a lot of pushing and shoving. It sure wasn’t as bad as back in the earlier Kelly times, but not a lot of fun. Everyone wanted to be in the front. Especially of course the ones who had been queuing for hours.
In the end it showed though, that mainly the first 3 rows were fighting for their spots. Everyone after seemed to arrived quite relaxed and calm. My friends were already standing sidewards in-between the 2nd to 3rd rows. As soon as the support started, latest at the start of Paddy’s concert, suddenly there was a lot more space. Everyone had spread. I didn’t have the elbow by the one behind me in by back all the time anymore.
Jona Bird kicked off the evening
The Mannheim folk electro band Jona Bird was support and kicked off the evening. Many complained already that there was a support act and had a little strange discussion about the band name. By the announcement and appearance of the band, I could imagine that I eventually might like them. Musically I liked them quite well, vocally maybe a little less. They quite likely won’t become my favourite band, but all in all I found them ok.
Michael Patrick Kelly rocked Tuttlingen
Michael Patrick Kelly, Or Paddy as Fans still call him, played a great, about 2 hours concert with his five members band. They started the show with “Golden Age” from his new album “ID” and played a great mix of all his solo albums, some songs from the Kelly Family time as well as great covers.
From the very first tune you could hear, that the concert, his songs were more rock than at the last concerts I’ve seen. He seems to be a lot more confident and certain than back then. His voice was clear and reliable, whether in the high or deep pitch. It’s how he charmed and moved his audience song by song.
During “ID”, he had released a video for the previous day, he climbed the stage on the side. During “Flags” he didn’t just look for all the country flags among the concert visitors, but had his big nations/peace flag with him again. He told stories, experiences and made jokes and fun.
“Are you my friends?”, he asked during “Friends R Family”. And added warningly: “You won’t let friends fall!”, before he let himself fall onto the hands of the crowd and was transported across the audience and back again. Yes, Paddy was very close to the audience.
He topped it, when he was reading the banner of a fan, who was standing some rows behind me. Paddy let illuminate the audience to better read and said then, that he won’t get out of this anymore. The young woman wished to have a selfie with Paddy. So the musician immediately jumped off stage and started to take selfies with the fans in front row then. Just unfortunate was: The girl with the selfie poster, who provoked it, didn’t get one. She was just too far in the back.
As the last season of “Sing meinen Song” just ended, where Paddy was part of, he also sang some songs from the show. Among them were his own song “Mama”, that was beautifully covered by Lena Meyer-Landrut. Before he started it, he ordered from stage six beers at the bar though. These were indeed brought to the stage shortly after. The Silbermond cover “Krieger des Lichts” followed. This song really suits him perfectly and sounded great. Also Mark Forsters “Flüsterton” was on Paddy’s setlist.
Like I’ve seen during all his concerts before, also on this evening the “peace minute” followed. This minute of silence he does out of various reasons: Is it out of actual happenings and in favour of world peace, to think about the problems of friends and relatives or out own, personal reasons. That’s left to one’s own device. Even Paddy’s very religious, it appears, if at all, more spiritual. Sure unusual for a pop/rock concert and not everyone always manages to be quite for this one minute, but indeed there’s something connecting.
I was looking forward to the ballade “One More Song”, Paddy sat down at the piano for and guitarist was standing on it. It immediately reminded me of his brother Joey, how he used to stand up there in his glittering suit and the plateau shoes. “No Fuzz No Buzz” followed, that The BossHoss have covered during “Sing meinen Song”.
With “Ares Qui” Paddy started a small Spanish party that included a wild congas solo by him. And of course “An Angel” couldn’t be missed. His actual version is not the same as back in the 90s. Slightly different I still like it a lot and with the additional sea of lights anyway.
With “Shake Away” it became quite wild again. It seemed like each single person was singing along. Especially in the front rows many were jumping along. It was a total goosebumps moment to hear everyone in a choir. Also because only recently we got to know how important the song is for Paddy and was a new start to him. A very successful new start. One can understand well, that he’s now concentrating on this and not touring with his family. Even you of course wish for as a big fan.
With the power ballade “Here To Stay” they said goodbye then. At the end of the Song Paddy left the stage before one musician after the other put down his instrument, said goodbye and left the stage. At the end only the drummer was left. But without an encore they of course wouldn’t end the evening. Paddy and one of his guitarists came back, sat down on stools and took children on stage. – “But Mamas stay down”. They sat there on stage then during the first encore, Bob Dylan’s “Jokerman”. Only with “Hope” the concert ended for good.
Slowly the audience left, or well everyone got thrown out of the tent quite quickly ;-). Long after the concert was still resonating whilst one was visiting the merchandise stand, getting some food and drink again or immediately left to go home.
I can’t wait to see Paddy again in Zurich in 2018. You can get tickets at Ticketcorner.
Info about the festival you can get here: Honberg-Sommer
Info about Michael Patrick Kelly you can find on his website www.michael-patrick-kelly.com
Info about the support Jona Bird you can find on www.jonabird.de
Videos you can find in my Youtube playlist: Michael Patrick Kelly live in concert
