Nothings''s like it seems - TTT in Halle

So I did it again - last Friday I went to another Ten Tenors concert. But, to be honest, I didn't even want to go there, I actually thought about selling my tickets. Now here's my review of an absolutely surprising evening.

From all the reviews I had read and heard in the run-up to the concert, I concluded that this year's show would be the most unamusing one I had ever seen. The set list - on first sight - appeared to be an awful bore. Half of the repertoire again was the same as in last year's summer shows. This for me was quite disappointing, since the complete change of the tour's title from 'Larger Than Life' to 'World Cup Tour' in my opinion promised a fully revised repertoire.

What also added a lot to the first impression of a 'don't-forget-your-pillow' show (note: this was still BEFORE I saw a concert) was the fact that the few new songs (namely 'Here's to the heroes', 'Buon giorno principessa', 'There'll come a day', 'We have all the time in the world', 'Vois sur ton chemin', 'Vesti la giubba' and 'Who wants to live forever') are, without exception, very calm pieces. In fact, there are only three real up-tempo songs in the whole show, which makes this repertoire the most sedate one since their turn to peppier music in 2001 (before the release of their album 'Untied'/'One is not enough' they'd been very classical).

So I went there expecting pure boredom. Gosh, how wrong I was! I don't know whether it was because of the intimacy of the venue (the Steintor is such a small and cute theatre), because of that awesome audience (the atmosphere was amazing; there were 'We-will-rock-you-clapping-and-stamping' choruses from the balconies at the end) or just because I thought it was going to be nothing but tiring - but I really thought it was a marvellous show.

In spite of what I had feared I didn't feel bored for one single minute. Each new song was a great addition to the show and beautiful in its own way. I've always loved 'Boun goirno principessa', and TTT's rendition is the most expressive and soulful one I've ever heard. Also a wonderful song but not that special to me was 'Here's to the heroes'. Even though beautifully arranged and sung, I do not adore this song as much as other people do.

What really amazed me was the Tenors' version of Queen's 'Who wants to live forever'. When I'd first heard about them performing this song, I'd been a bit worried. It's a great song, in fact I think it's one of the best songs ever, and I honestly did not expect them to be able to arrange it in a way that measures up to the greatness of the original. But (again) I was wrong. The combination of the song with Italian, opera-like parts was just brilliant, and made the song so much different and totally incomparable to Queen's version. On my personal TTT hit list, this classic now ranks number 2 - just behind 'The Boxer', which still is my favourite.

'We have all the time in the world', a song that was sung by Shannon only, is a class of it's own. It's an ingenious piece of music, originally performed by the great Louis Armstrong, and Shannon can live up to this musical legend with no problem. It just sent shivers down your spine when he was standing there in the spotlight, all by himself, literally singing his heart out. I really hope this song will be on their next album coming out within the next few months.

But not only the new songs were great, even the old ones were interesting to listen to. Some lead vocals were shared differently, which gave those songs a totally new appearance. Furthermore, most of the songs sounded slightly different than usual, due to the two new voices of Jeff and Adrian, who fill up for Jason and Tod now. Both of them have really nice and powerful voices (in fact, I liked Jeff's rendition of 'The Boxer' even better than Jason's).

Speaking of powerful voices: For the first time in the last few years you could REALLY feel the power in those ten voices again. I have complained about TTT'S decreasing energy and vocal power for some years now, and it's great to see them getting back to their primary form.

There is no review without at least a little bit of criticism. Even though all songs of the show were excellent, I definitely missed the 'Australian Medley'. In my opinion they really could have replaced the 'Bee Gees Medley' instead. Besides, Stewart in my opinion had too few solo parts, I missed his deep and kind of mystical voice. But all in all the show was fantastic and I had a wonderful evening there. Now I'm even looking forward to all the other concerts of this season.





Set list


01 Here's to the heroes - Dances with wolves
02 Buon giorno principessa - La vita e bella/Life is beautiful
03 Temptation
04 Without a song
05 Largo al factotum - Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
06 There'll come a day
07 We have all the time in the world - James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
08 Vois sur ton chemin - Les Choristes/The Choir
09 Vesti la giubba - Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)
10 Die Fledermaus - Die Fledermaus/The Bat (Strauss)
11 Bohemian Rhapsody

interval

12 Di quella pira - Il Trovatore (Verdi)
13 Blame it on the boogie
14 The Boxer
15 Stonde
16 Water/Va pensiero
17 Beach Boys Medley
18 Who wants to live forever
19 Au fond du temple saint - Les Pêcheurs de Perles (Bizet)

encores

20 In my life
21 Nessun Dorma - Turandot (Puccini)
22 Bee Gees Medley

Added: May 29th 2006
Reviewer: nkruemel
Score: