Melissa Etheridge (USA)

There was absolutely nothing to complain about the Melissa Etheridge concert last night at the Palladium, Cologne. Everything was perfect, the sound quality, the lights quality and of course the music itself. The touring band no less than professional, never missing a beat. The voice of Melissa still very powerful, hitting every note. No shortage of singalongs by the crowd, a bit of feminism encouraging lines, but not overdone. Her guitar playing skills falls no short at all, she made all her guitars sound perfect, not a shredder which would not match her music anyways, her solos were all on point. BTW those Ovation guitars sound awesome live. Helping out with the drum solo brought few minutes of entertainment and showing off the skills of Melissa other than her guitars. The high quality and entertaining show was exactly 2 hours, in front of a very supportive crowd. As a final note, Melissa Etheridge knows exactly what is needed to pull off a great show and she is in control of it from beginning to the end. Jokingly she announced there’s no encore, “I can go over there and wait for two minutes of clapping then we do two more songs, or we just continue and get it done in one shot”.  And she did it. I really like the Palladium for medium size concerts, the sound quality is nice and with its 4000 capacity still small enough to be fairly close to the stage. The show didn’t sell out completely, the balconies were closed to viewers, only main floor standing was available.

We had most of the hits: Bring Me Some Water, I’m The Only One, Like The Way I Do, Come To My Window, I Want To Come Over, but she made all her songs sound like hits. While I knew her music very well, I was not a ‘fan’ so to say of Melissa before this show, but the quality of the concert turned me into one.

(iPhone Pro photos)