Hamburg - February 2004

Next was the trip to Hamburg in February. I flew to Hamburg Ryanair from Stanstead, it was my first time flying Ryan. I arrived in Hamburg on Saturday afternoon and met Dave and Daniel at Lubeck airport - it was nice to finally meet them after exchanging messages about the trip.

My hotel was a bit out of the way, and a fair walk from the nearest station (which seemed to fill up with people drinking, and I suspect taking drugs, after dark) - I had chosen it to be close to the original 10th Anniversary Concert that was originally due to have taken place in December.

I went for a walk on Saturday afternoon to find out where the concert venue was, and got lost going back to the hotel in the dark, which was rather frightening, so I decided after that to be back in my hotel before it got dark, or to be somewhere where I could easily get a taxi back.

Sunday was a day for sight seeing - I visited the Fish Market, and had a tour around Hamburg - it is a very beautiful city .

My tourist book said you should visit the Fish Market if you are in Hamburg on a Sunday morning, so I got up early to go there - I am glad I did - it was great - early on a cold February morning - and when you go into the Hall it is filled with music, and happy people eating and drinking - it seems more like the evening than early on a cold winter morning - I would recommend it to anyone in Hamburg for a weekend - well worth getting up early.

On Sunday afternoon I decided to visit Bramfeld - I could not go to Hamburg without going there - I went to look for the bakery - I found it after a very long walk, and had coffee there.

Monday morning was shopping then at 14:00 off to the Docks. I soon met Christiane, Liquid, Notimetochill and Tony and Rudy from France - it was great to meet you all. - I think I also met Bjarke here - but just didn’t know it at the time.
At about 17:00 we went in for the autograph session - it was great, but over very quickly - I got my 2 track Jigga Jigga signed. Jay and Rick remembered me from Berlin, which was a good surprise for me, and it was good to see H.P. close up and talk to him for the first time.

Then back outside to queue for the concert for another hour. I got to the front row again - close to Liquid and Notimetochill. Starsplash were very good - Scooter were brilliant, really good. It was a great concert - after the concert Scooter were presented with awards from Norway and Sweden.
Afterwards we went round to the back of The Docks - H.P. came out first and stopped to talk to us, and sign autographs - he signed the T-shirt I was wearing . Then came Rick and Jay - they were so nice and friendly. It was a great night, and I met some great people.
Tuesday I ached all over, from the cold and the concert I think. In the morning shopping and more looking around.

Back to the Docks at about 16:00 - Christiane and Tony were also there. It was very cold, and raining.

After a couple of hours my fingers were frozen - when Pete (I think that's his name), a Scooter truck driver from England made me a cup of tea - the best I've ever had, except that my hands were shaking so much with the cold I spilt some on my clothes - a kind person next to me in the queue gave me a tissue to clean it up - at the time I did not know it - but this was my first meeting with Kultkeks, who has become a very good friend during the year.

The waiting paid off - we got to the middle of the front row this time.

This concert was the best I have seen - H.P. Rick and Jay were great - and the atmosphere in the hall was magic.

In fact Jay was fantastic. Afterwards Scooter were presented with gold discs for the Encore DVD and TSTE.

The tracklist at the Hamburg Concerts was the same as Berlin I think, the only difference was in Waiting For Spring, in Berlin and at the first concert it was like the version on the limited edition Back to The Heavyweight Jam, on the final concert it was the version on the concert CD, from the download shop, or CD 2 of Mind The Gap.
I had a wonderful few days in Hamburg, and - met some great people.

I also fell in love with Hamburg - it is a beautiful city that I hope to visit again soon.