02-Dec-1996 - Dortmund, Live-Station

Bobo presenting glow (opening for John Cale's German tour)

Klaus Kluge, Germany, 05-Dec-1996 (from a posting to the White-House mailing list)

On very short notice Bobo received the invitation to open for John Cale on his German tour (consisting of 8 concerts) as a showcase for her new release glow which has been recorded with The London Session Orchestra. Due to the short time frame it was not possible to rehearse and perform with an orchestra, and I assume that this would have made it too expensive as well. So it was Bobo alone to half playback; singing to music from tape.

The concert in Dortmund was the first of the set. Bobo's appearance did not get a lot of promotion, as is the case with most opening acts. The short advance notice didn't help either. When arriving at the venue, the concert poster had an additional sticker informing about Bobo and glow, which had not been there 3 days earlier. So we can safely assume that the audience was there nearly exclusively for John Cale and hadn't even heard of Bobo before.

I arrived only a couple of minutes before the scheduled start time to find quite a queue in front of the door, where tickets were still available. I had managed to cross half of the distance to the stage when the room was filled with familiar sounding strings. In my surprise I stopped where I was and yes, she was already on stage. Standing in the dark, all dressed in black.

The sound of the strings turned into Cosmic Ceiling, Bobo walked to the microphone at the front of the stage, switched on a lamp, a light... a plain lightbulb hanging from its chord (the cover of the Black Hole Sun promo/single) and started to sing, one of my all time favourites among her songs. At the end of the song she turned the lightbulb off and accepted the remarkable applause in the dark again.

The lighting changed for all of the songs. Sometimes coloured light, once the cold light of a fluorescent tube standing beside her. When there was more light, I noticed a tape deck beside her, its two wheels slowly turning, making me wonder if it actually played back the songs or was just there for the visual effect.

For How Insensitive she faced one side of the stage, often turning her head to the audience, with movements which reminded me of an automaton. Coming to the end of that song I noticed that there was much more space right in front of the stage, so I moved closer. Thus I could see that her belt was a genuine airplane safety belt with the bulky lock at the front. I can't really tell you more about her outfit since unfortunately my fashion advisor couldn't be with me that night. :)

The next song was Forbidden Colours, my favourite track on the new album, followed by Yellow Moon which is one of the few songs which I like better with the new arrangement.

The show ended with the cover of Soundgardens Black Hole Sun, probably the only song most of the audience recognized. I was still captured by the show so that its end caught me by surprise. Only five songs! A much too short set! ...but a fate every support act has to live with.

I had the impression that many people in the audience enjoyed Bobo's performance and hope some will remember her name.

Unfortunately the quality of the orchestra recording wasn't too good, but at least that showed that Bobo was singing live.

The hardest part was returning to the back of the room since the John Cale fans where now closing in for the stage. I stayed for four of his songs... conventional rock music, well played but in my opinion without anything special to it.

Short as it was, I did enjoy Bobo's performance very much. It would be perfect to hear her with a live orchestra, but I'm not sure how good our chances are to see this happen.

When leaving the venue I did check its bar, but she wasn't sitting there... I guess reality stepped in. :)