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Gregor McEwan (6th December 2023, Cologne)

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Afrer his very interesting album release Going Solo, I was really curious about how Gergor McEwan would be alike live on stage. Luckily he has been touring late in the year – and despite feeling not that fit (which explains the late concert report), I made it to the Die Wohngemeinschaft in the heart of my home town Cologne. Here are my thoughts about the concert held on 6th December 2023.

This posting comes with 148 major size pictures as part of the concert gallery.

 

Die Wohngemeinschaft – About The Venue

Die Wohngemeinschaft (which translates to “The Living Community” is somehow an all-in-one venue: you can have concerts, stage plays and meetings. It is a cafe and a bar – and it is even a hostel. Around the Die Wohngemeinschaft, there are multiple hotels and restaurants.

The capacity is not too large, but the location is really great, as Die Wohngemeinschaft is right at the Rudolfplatz in Cologne and thus in the heart of the city center. The closest public transport stop is Moltkestraße, which is served by Underground/tram lines 1 and 7 only, as well as the buses 136 and 146. However, the Rudolfplatz stop adds the lines 12 and 15 to that selection – and is not that much more far away. If you arrive by car, there are also multiple parking options available.

Gregor McEwan – About The Artists

Gregor McEwan is the artist name of Hagen Siems. The German singer-songwriter was born on 14th November 1982 in Haltern (today: Haltern am See). He lived in Berlin for quite a while but recently moved to East Frisia. His alter ego has been formed by his initial band named Helter Skelter. Since his 2010 solo debut album Houses and Homes, McEwan is releasing solo music. The 2023 Going Solo has been his fifth solo studio album overall.

 

Gregor McEwan – The Show

The show was scheduled to kick off at 20:00, McEwan started some 15 minutes later at his two set show, no supporting act. Even though there was also quite a lot of good feedback from the audience (which was some 50 people only…) about it, he stated that playing his Covid-19-inspired album Going Solo too strongly reminds him of the painful times and that he just goes for one song from the album, the show opener The End. However, while the concert did thus feature a very limited number of very recently released tracks, he presented a couple of new, not yet published one. One of them, for example, was the second song of the set, Here We Go.

The set before the break featured also some rather classic tracks like Galaxy or the closing track, You and I, which nicely ran into Running Up That Hill. However, there were also some new tracks like 50 Years and Counting, which was one of the highlights of the first part of the show, which closed after some forty minutes already.

 

2nd part of the set

The pee, drink and smoke break was rather short and took less than fifteen minutes, during which – by the way – some Going Solo songs were played in the background, maybe to push the sales after the show a bit. The opener of the second half, Bye Bye Berlin, featured the recent move of the artist from the German capital to the North Sea coast. McEwan spontaneously replaced Home on his list by the Christmas-inspired Home For Christmas. Another highlight was definitely a cover of Natalia Imbruglia’s Torn (coming with the confession that he was deeply in love with that lady during that time). Here and there some anecdotes or music trivia lead to nice interaction with the audience.

Later, there was also some more interaction. For example, the audience was asked to put the light of their cell phones up (Like at an Annenmaykantereit show, as Gregor stated). Right before the encore, McEwan swore the not yet released track Oh Come Back is the best one he ever wrote – maybe also as he made the audience sing Come Back, when he left the stage. The set, which closed at about 22:10, finished with the Lousy Lullaby from his 2022 Four Seasons album. By the way, whoever wanted to go for a picture with the artist thereafter, had to hold one of the prepared signs. I give you a few of the hilarious ones in the gallery.

 

 

Gregor McEwan – The Gallery

Here are 148 major size pictures of the show. They are located in the concert gallery:

 

Gregor McEwan – My View

Gregor McEwan showed a truly magical show (in front of a too small audience) on Saint Nicholas Day in Cologne. His precise, sometimes a bit of ironic lyrics, are simply on point and he knew how to connect with the audience. I really had a great time at a relaxed atmosphere. I definitely recommend to give Gregor (or Hagen) a try when he is around on stage.

 

Concerts in 2023

Here are all my Concert postings published in 2023:

 

Flyctory.com in East Frisia

Here are all my postings related to East Frisia in Germany:

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