As part of his First Final Farewell Tour, Phil Collins created a firey atmosphere last night in Romaero Baneasa. An amazing live concert, the first one in Bucharest. As the singer said for Europa FM, this was on of the goals of the tour, to reach places he had never been to or that he had sang in only once.

And I almost missed it. I have to say, I am not a big fan of Phil Collins. And when K first said he wanted us to go, I wasn’t that enthusiastic. We first talked about it a month ago, but we eventually decided to drop the idea, as he had lots of work and a quite crazy schedule. Then on Saturday night, the plans changed…So we bought tickets on Sunday (this meaning they were really bad tickets :)) and at 7 o’clock C. and a friend of his came to pick us up.

Because of some external tension, we completely forgot the camera, fact that I still regret…When we finally got there, we found out that only those with VIP tickets were allowed to park near the concert hall (an enormous hall belonging to the Baneasa Airport). I couldn’t understand why, as there was plenty of room for all those coming with cars. But that would have actually required some good organizing skills…Not yet in Bucharest!

We found a spot with better visibility, but it was quite cold there…Yet somehow, that didn’t seem to matter that much at the time. Lots of people had came, of all ages, 10 year olds and people in their 40s and 50s. The only think that I really hated was that they were only selling Pepsi…You all now what a great tragedy such a thing is to me! So we drank beer.

The actual concert was amazing. In the beginning, the ex-drummer of Genesis showed us all his skills with an amazing drum mini-concert. First him alone, then accompanied by two other drummers. The music, also amazing, K was actually right to tell me I would love him after that night. Some of the songs played: Against all Odds, Sussudio, One More Night (before this song, Phil Collins stated some of us might have been conceived on this song, which was probably very true!), Don’t Lose My Number, Another Day in Paradise, We Wait and We Wonder, Dance into the Light, True Colours, Can’t Stop Loving You and many more in over two hours of great music. The backing vocals group was also amazing. Two of them actually had some amazing solos in what quality and duration is concerned, fact that surprised me. I never imagined a start would ever want to have the audience focus on the others! Another thing to like about Phil Collins I guess.

Another thing we all appreciated was him trying to say a few words in Romanian. It was actually a few sentences and we all appreciated the effort. For my Romanian readers, he actually did great, but he had a minor problem with the word “piese”(songs) which for a moment sounded like “piiizz”, then he said it correctly. Yet his little mistake made everyone laugh. As far as I am concerned, this effort won his forgiveness for mixing up Romania and Bulgaria a while ago.
The lights deserve their own paragraph. An amazing show, combining videotaped images and light effect, such as falling start, some Highlander-like lightning and all the phases of the moon.

The atmosphere was also a lot better than I expected. An amazing crowd, everybody dancing, screaming, applauding and whistling, all of them smiling. They all had a special glow in their eyes.

I don’t know which part of this I liked best. I think it was all of it combined and a little help from the fact it was our 3 months anniversary. But this will be a night that I will always remember as my first concert in Bucharest, the most amazing one of my life.