Neckarsülm, Germany

It is a gorgeous morning here in Neckarsülm, Germany. The sun broke clear and beautiful over the streetcar tracks. I’ll always love the sun reflecting off of the tree leaves. Bright and silvery on one side and almost black on the other side.

Just about 35 minutes from Stuttgart is an Audi factory. We played at their beautiful modern showroom called the Audi Forum. It’s like a museum. This is a new venue for the world… I’ve written about this many times… it’s so fantastic when someone takes a space that is normally committed to other activities, and brings in some chairs and a stage, to let people have a good time. Carnegie Hall is wonderful. And so is the Berlin Symphony Hall.  I say, find a parking lot, throw up a scaffold stage, and let the people come in and stand there with their chests pressed against the edge of the stage.  I guarantee you a good time.

So they took a showroom space, that’s ordinarily displaying all the newest Audis and the older museum piece Audis, and cleared a space for the stage. They brought in six or seven hundred chairs, and invited me and the band to come perform in this wonderful unusual kind of venue. Anyone who has seen me in places other than this, and there are lots of them, has never felt or seen the kind of performance that we had last night. It’s just simply a new and different atmosphere. Akin to that, I had a wonderful chat with our promoter Gaby about doing a performance in a churchyard, or maybe right in a church. Different!

So the band really responded to this venue, and the closeness of the people, and the new kind of intimacy of the performance.

One of the wonderful luxuries that this kind of situation allows for is to plan in an intermission, and give the audience a little pause after an hour. They can go and have a glass of wine or a beer, and mingle and chat with each other… And, you can be 90% sure they’ll be chatting about this novel situation among other times “Seeing Al” since 1977. Wow! The set has lots of new music, including the Jarreau/Deodato duet “Double Face” and an a cappella version of “Puddit (Where You Want It),” a Crusaders tune. It was a great night in the new
environment.

Thanks, Neckarsülm!
Al