Hi folks,
I was there, too, as the Stuttgart gig was cancelled.
I had heard one track on the DPRP podcast before, which sounded very promising, so I went there with high hopes. The guys were in a good mood, chatting around alot and speaking French to the audience, especially Clive, who was more talkative than ever before

Actually, I had a bit of a hard time that evening. It started when I arrived there. I had bought my ticket online and printed it out at home. The lady at the entrance wanted to see my photo ID card, which I never carry around when I go visiting gigs, cause I don't want my stuff to get lost or stolen. I had a short discussion with her about whether it mattered if I was the person on the ticket or not, but finally she let me in.
The opening band, Clover Seeds, were pretty interesting, albeit the new percussionist would have better not been invited, if you ask me. ARENA came on stage at about 21.30. The sound was absolutely lowest drawer, and it was compensated with loudness. "La laiterie" is a rather smallish place, which can take about 200 people or so, at max. I didn't have my earplugs with me, so I had to get used to it.
I really like to sing along tracks I know, and I know most of the ARENA stuff by heart. Paul sang his own interpretations of the tracks, which made it quite an adventure for me to recognize the tracks or even sing along. Don't misunderstand me. Paul has a great voice and I really enjoyed his performance, but this is one of the reasons why I stopped attending Simple Minds concerts: Jim Kerr always makes it a whole different song.
When Ascension was over we were basically kicked out of the concert hall by security, the portal to the hallway with Smeagol's sales stand was wide open and it was literally freezing, so I left without getting a chance to have a chat with the guys.
Maybe I'm getting too old :/