Friday 6 November 2009

Just Another Brick in the...

Twenty years ago, channeling the power of rock through his mighty anthem Looking For Freedom (Number One in Austria, Switzerland and West Germany), David Hasselhoff brought the Berlin Wall crashing down in ruins. (Okay, there may have been other factors - that's for historians to argue.) To mark the ocassion and seal his place in history, the Hoff performed Looking For Freedom atop what was left of the Berlin Wall, where he was greeted with delirious applause from a crowd numbering hundreds of thousands. Fast forward twenty years and the Irish midget who calls himself 'Bono' takes a break from his duties as international statesman and universal sage to blatantly steal Hasselhoff's thunder by fronting his side project U2 (World's Most Boring Band?) in a free concert at the Berlin Wall - a free concert tactfully hidden from the view of non-ticket holders by a socking great metal wall! That's the spirit, Bono! If only the Hoff had been there to scale that metal wall, guitar in hand, and belt out Walking To Freedom - that would have shown them... As Plato almost said, 'When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake.'

7 comments:

  1. nobody can steal the Hoff's thunder

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  2. Indeed - and I forgot to mention that when performing Looking for Freedom on stage, he used to share the platform with Knight Rider. Pity he couldn't have got his faithful old talking car up there on the Wall with him...

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  3. I'll bet Bono swallowed the old East German line that the the wall was to keep people out.

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  4. LOL Peter! The perfect bon mot.

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  5. Some ponderings from the land of schnitzel and strudel.
    Berlin today is possibly what Paris was like after Haussmann finished plastering it. Substitute classical for classical modern, the view at night from the steps in front of the Reichstag across to the Hauptbahnhof are amazing.
    Berlin of course, the place to miss when U2 bash out their dirges.

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  6. I must admit that I've probably been a little dismissive of Mr Hofnaflash (sp?) in the past. However the reviews of his "Greatest Hits" on Amazon are, if anything, even more enthusiastic than Nige's (apart from the one from KITT, which I found rather negative - not to say disloyal).

    You should read the reviews here . No, you should. Really.

    Pete

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  7. World's Most Boring Band? Indeed it is.

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