When we arrived at the venue we were both lucky and unlucky at the same time. Lucky, because just when we were parking our car we saw Mark passing on the sidewalk. Unlucky, because when I finally got to him he had just hailed a cab which was waiting, so there was only time for a quick handshake and "hi, great you're here" (from me) and "nice to meet ya" and"sorry" with a motion to the cab (from him). Although this was an awkward situation he seemed very polite and nice. Well, I'd like to have said more of course, but it was great nevertheless, I got to shake the hand of a legend, heheh. But honestly, he didn't seem all that tall to me. I have a friend who's 2 meter tall, and there's no way Mark is that tall, unless he was stooping a lot then.

Well, that was at about 8 pm, and the gig was supposed to start at 9. When we arrived at the venue later, we passed someone of the crew who looked just slightly flustered, and he was talking into his cell, going "Well, it's 10 to 9 and you've got, like, 14 minutes to be on stage!" Since we could see some members of his touring band hanging around outside, Mark was obviously still AWOL, and so it came that the gig started half an hour late.

But it was a great gig, he played almost entirely songs from his last three CDs, but since almost all of my favourites were among them, I didn't mind a bit. Although some of his band looked rather like Nu Metallers they played Mark's music very well, the songs sounded great. I was almost in the front, and I was surrounded by other die-hard fans, many around the age of Mark, all happy to have him here finally (Mind that the last time he played solo in Germany was six years ago!), knowing all the lyrics and songs. The audience was very appreciative throughout; seemingly knowing what Mark's solo work is about. There were no rude remarks or shouts for QOTSA songs, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. Mark appeared to be in good spirits himself, at least he looked more relaxed and said "thank you" more often than when I saw him in London in 2001. :-) What struck me was that when he left his mike he limped worse than usual from standing too long in that typical position of his. But he looked a lot healthier than on the QOTSA tour.

At the end of the set he simply said "good-bye" and left, but after some stamping and cheering Mark came back on for an encore with a cigarette in his hand and introduced his band. I didn't quite get the name of the singer, it sounded like Shelly or Sally Brown. (I couldn't hear her sing very well from where I was, but my sister, who was standing further back and had better acoustics there, said she had sung out of tune. :-) ) Anyway, they played an encore of three songs, the last of which being a nice long version of "Fix". When Mark was through with singing he held up his hand and said "good-bye" and left the band to jam. But, we weren't satisfied yet, and so after a lot more clapping and cheering they came back on for another song, at the end of which Mark again held up his hand, said "thank you, see you next time" and left the band alone for good. To be fair, he looked quite exhausted during the last song, I'm sure he gave us all he got, although I found it was all over too soon.

Here are the songs I remember (sorry, couldn't nick a setlist) in their approximate order, at least the beginning and encores are right.

Hit the City
Wedding Dress
No Easy Action
Miracle
One Way Street
Creeping Coastline of Lights
Driving Death Valley Blues
Message To Mine
I'll Take Care of You
On Jesus' Program
Come To Me
Skeletal History
Sideways in Reverse
Methamphetamine Blues
Like Little Willie John
Low
1st encore: Pendulum
Sleep With Me
Fix
2nd encore: Resurrection Song

All in all I think they played around 1 hour and 15-20 mins., a long gig for Mark, and I loved every minute of it. And he said "next time", so we can hope he'll be back on his next tour.
Dag