Almost a year late, the singer-songwriter was celebrated by his audience of around 5,000 at the Chemnitz exhibition center on Tuesday evening. He proved to be an ambassador of continuity.
It’s a goosebump moment that’s rare these days: around two and a half hours after Reinhard Mey started his live concert for the album “Das Haus an der Ampel”, which was released in 2020, in the sold-out Chemnitz trade fair, the audience is already on again Hall lighting closed in his rows of seats and sings the refrain to “Good night, friends” from more than 5000 throats together with the 79-year-old. The all-time classic from 1972, which in local latitudes has always been more than a friendly bouncer. The song was officially undesirable in GDR times because of the line about “freedom that lives with you as a silent guest”. Just like “Above the Clouds”, which the artists and listeners had already tuned into together directly beforehand.
No light show, no showgirls, not even video projection for the back rows. A standing microphone, a guitar, just a black curtain as a background, moderate sound reinforcement – the native of Berlin hasn’t needed more to inspire his audience for decades. Chemnitz is no exception. It has been five years since he last appeared in the city; the live tour already planned for October 2021 had to be postponed by one year due to the corona; The concert had been sold out for a year and a half anyway. Recently there were some cards again.
Now “Das Haus an der Ampel” is not Mey’s strongest album. But he still shows many guildmates who could be his grandchildren what a rake is. And with many of its pieces it fits into the strongly autobiographical program of the evening. As a prelude, an early self-testimony is certainly a good starting point – “I wanted to sing like Orpheus”. Another classic that is almost 60 years old and deals with his perspective at the time on a precarious life as an artist, which is more nourished by love than by success. As you know, things turned out differently.
Mey doesn’t really surprise his listeners with his new songs anymore. You know your themes, and basically you could make something like a small encyclopedia of all human sensitivities and everyday adversities from the around 600 titles that have been created over the past decades. He now fills the gaps on their pages, if you want to put it harshly, with platitudes like “Happiness is when you have friends” or “I love being among people”. In turn, he does this in such a lovable, original, and in the latter case even so ironic way that you think, look here, he still gains a new perspective from every dated calendar saying. The same applies to his own vita, for example when he tells the lesser-known story of an episode of his breakthrough in the early 1970s with “In Vienna”. The fact that he once again approaches the topic of love between men with “Gerhard and Frank” after “Dr. Brand” is just as praiseworthy. If you ignore the fact that it’s been over 40 years since his friend and colleague Klaus Hoffmann did something like this – in a far more drastic way.
But, to be honest, Mey’s never really been a hot topic. You were more likely to find what you were looking for at Udo Jürgens. It was always enough for Mey if they were still warm. That didn’t hurt his popularity with the audience, quite the opposite. You feel comfortable in his concerts. Not unimportant at a time when so many certainties are up for grabs that many people are wondering if they still live in their country. Reinhard Mey offers a piece of continuity. Not just in terms of content, but also musically. His voice has hardly changed in the last few years, perhaps with a slightly noble patina. But for a man who will be 80 years old in ten weeks, she is a small miracle in her articulation and her fine vibrato. His guitar playing, of course, which at live concerts was among the most elaborate and virtuoso that his guild had to offer, has become simpler, simpler. Arpeggios, broken chords, like those of countless musicians who cover his songs all over the world. But please, he plays!
With his music and his charisma, which has not faded to this day, Mey turns every concert with him into a party. The audience in Chemnitz celebrated with thunderous applause, from the moment they entered to the moment they left. And Mey promised to come back. One likes to believe him.