Well this is a longer issue than usual as I attempt to catch up…..

As I rounded the corner near the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, I drove past the back of the stage while Berlin was doing their sound check. I knew it was going to be another special show as I caught a glimpse of Terri singing with an exuberant Charlotte (back with the band for this performance).

After Ron and I met up, we were the first ones standing at the gate. Berlin was continuing their sound check as we were waiting, when all of the sudden the sound pressure level went up about 15 or 20 dB. I was stunned at the clean and quite loud sound coming from about 1000 feet away with all kinds of vendor booths, etc., in between us and the stage to soak it up (we couldn’t see the stage), especially since this was an open-air venue. I was even more stunned by the content of what I was hearing. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up as Terri was singing the ending of Masquerade. (During our interview with Terri earlier this year, she asked what my favorite Berlin "classic" was, and although it was a difficult choice, I told her Masquerade mainly because of the way she just wails on the layered vocals near the end with that silky, velvet-hammer vocal power.) I stood there listening in total awe as the passion and vocal quality in her delivery totally blew away the recorded version! I would speculate that if Grace Slick were there, she would have once again told Terri, "S!#%, you can sing!" Then I commented to Ron that after about a dozen shows and almost a year later, her talent still continues to amaze me.

I also told Terri during the interview that no other female performer has had the kind of impact on me that she does, including Ann Wilson, Stevie Nicks, Chrissy Hynde, Sarah McLaughlin, etc., especially with ballad material. These days, I am even more impressed that this reaction has been consistently reinforced by each of the live performances that I have attended. Well, I’ve probably said too much in this vein already, since most of the readers of this already know how talented Terri and this band are, especially live. Back to the show….

While we were waiting for the gates to open, Tazz and Geri came up and joined us. We found it somewhat interesting that Ron and I had tickets 7 and 8, and Tazz and Geri had tickets 9 and 10. The consensus was that this event was noteworthy enough for Ron to break out the digital camera and warm it up with the following shot.

A very talented local cover band, The M-80s, warmed up the crowd on the "Best Buy Music Stage". Many of the Rocky Horror fans (in costume) were dancing to their music. I must say that some of the older covers they were doing really transported us back in time, like Tommy Tutone’s 867-5309.

The Retrofest, itself, had about 75 indoor and outdoor exhibits to keep everyone busy between the live music sets. The Barris Hollywood Cars exhibit featured the Batmobile, the Munsters Coach, the red Torino from Starsky and Hutch, and the General Lee. They even had their own currency printed up, as shown in the next scan.

Missing Persons was the first band on the VH1 Music Stage. I know that there are quite a few Berlin fans out there who like Missing Persons, myself included, so I’ll say just a few words here. (I’m sure Terri won’t mind… I think I know her well enough by now to say that she has a "heart of gold"). I saw them almost 5 years earlier to the day (8/12/94) when they played The Strand (now Club Caprice). In that show, Dale had announced that she had reformed the band and this was their first show on the current tour. They were nothing short of excellent! I remember Ron commenting on how tight the band was and how impressed he was, not being that big a Missing Persons fan.

This performance didn’t have quite that same effect on me, although I did enjoy Mental Hopscotch and just about everything from Spring Session M, which made up the bulk of their performance. ( Tazz and I were talking about how we both played our vinyl copies of Spring Session M, incessantly). More of the playlist is contained in my 8/14 "Comments" post. Ron snapped the next shot which almost has all members of the band except the keyboardist.

Since it was still light during the Missing Persons performance, this shot also gives a little more info about the stage (as I recall, someone was asking about the stage in the comments and Ron responded). From an engineering point of view, the stage was rather impressive. To the right of Dale is one of four hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders that supported the top canopy. It looked like the whole thing (stage, canopy, etc.) was mounted on a truck trailer and was collapsible for transport. Slightly to the left of Dale is one of the support towers that was used for light racks, backdrop, etc. One of these is conspicuously evident in a picture of Terri, later on.

After Missing Persons, the M-80s played again on another stage, and then the Rocky Horror Tribute started, which featured a very talented Richard O’Brien performing solo, with his acoustic guitar. The festival had filled up a little more by this time, and the dance floor in front of the stage was almost full.

Berlin was then introduced by "STAR 98.7" DJ Greg Simms, who also hosts an "80’s at Noon" show. Terri was a guest DJ on his show the same day. (I only heard about half of the show, but Terri was a natural. They were also taking calls during the show and many fans called in expressing their adoration of Terri, her talents, and their favorite songs.)

Berlin opened the set with Masquerade. As Ron commented in his "Comments" post, it looked like the whole Retrofest had come over to the VH1 stage!

Terri and the rest of the band were really fired up. I relished the experience of hearing Terri belt out the ending of Masquerade in the same way that she just nailed the sound check! I think this next shot of Ron’s gives the general idea….

Charlotte was back with the band for this performance and I got the impression that she was really glad to be back. Like I said in my "Comments" post, there is a certain synergy between her and Terri. She was also teasing Dallan, big time!

Next came the driving Steps, which Terri wrote about her divorce. This is another one that’s just loaded with emotion and performed the same way. (Ouch!!) Scott was also jamming on this one. During her performance of this song, she climbed high up on top of the stacks of reinforcement speakers…and those were high stacks!

I am now standing there after You Don’t Know and The Metro thinking, "This just can’t get any better", when in starts Dallan, Scott, and Rodger on Turn You On. Dallan had so much funk going on his Gibson, it was like a preview of The Ohio Players who were scheduled to perform the next day! Although we were fairly close to the low frequency reinforcement gear, I was still amazed at how powerful Scott’s synth bass and Rodger’s kick drum were for an open-air concert. This had to have rocked most of Santa Monica! Then Terri started singing and I would have to say that, overall, I enjoyed this performance of Turn You On the most, so far.

During the performance, Terri made comments to the effect that this was her old stomping grounds, pointing to Santa Monica High behind the stage where she had attended high school. She said she remembered dreaming of becoming a singer someday.

The usual killer performance of Take My Breath Away was next. This is always such a crowd pleaser (more under the "…Berlin/GoGos…" below). This time Terri rode out into the audience on the shoulders of her Tour Manager, Tony. It happened to be his birthday as well, so we all joined in with Terri to sing Happy Birthday to him.

This was followed by a killer cover of INXS’ Need You Tonight. This is a relatively new addition to the show. (I have "Kick" and I like the Berlin version better, as you might have guessed!!)

Sex, I’m a… was next. I have commented in past Chronicles that one never knows where Terri will end up during this song, and this show was no exception, as shown in the next two shots. It’ may be a little hard to make out in the second shot, but she eventually wound up on her back on the stage with her foot somewhere in the vicinity of the body of Dallan’s guitar.

The show concluded with Never Let Me Down in which Dallan sings the lead. In my 8/14 "Comments" post I said that Terri must have been a gymnast. In addition to climbing around on the stacks of reinforcement speakers, she also scaled one of the light rack support towers I pointed out earlier in the Missing Persons shot. As you can see in the foreground of the next shot, VH1 was apparently taping the performance. In the background you can see that she climbed up the tower high enough that at about shoulder level on Terri and to her right is the rear row of stage lights.

At various times during the evening, Ron and I got the pleasure of meeting a few more fans that we see from time to time at the "local" shows. These included Tina L., who has posted several times in the "Comments", and Ken L., who was standing just to my right at the Harry O’s show.

We also got a chance to see Terri’s Paul again after the show. Like Tazz was saying in her "Comments" post, he has done a lot for the "Rabid Fans" (as well as the Unofficial Knights). He managed to get Ken’s import "Pleasure Victim" cover to Terri for autograph and back to Ken again, which was no small feat since security was really tight. In addition to being tight, the security people were relatively brainless, which I am happy to say is not usually the case. Only one of the four of us could get backstage and I suggested it be Tazz since she was injured. (Ah, the sacrifices of being a knight!!!) What was really frustrating is that security wouldn’t let at least Geri lag behind to make sure that Tazz got back to the gate OK, which was quite a distance from the backstage area. Instead, they just herded everyone out like a bunch of cattle. I later heard that they were even rousting the performers!

It was also a pleasure to talk to Diane, Tanya, and Terry. Thanks for thinking of us after the Berlin/GoGos show, and thanks for showing me the poster, Tanya! As you could tell by my reaction, it really resonated with the October 98 Rocktoberfest Vegas performance.

I had intended to write something up a little earlier and then got swamped. I also noticed a number of other fans writing some reviews, which is terrific. It’s nice to get a few other perspectives posted as well.

Anyway, Ron and I made it to the 7/9 and 7/10 performances at the Santa Barbara Bowl and Vegas’ new House of Blues.

We stopped at COCO’s, or something like that, to get a snack after the show. A number of other patrons in the restaurant that were GoGos fans and had also attended the show noticed my Berlin T-shirt and the wristbands that were still attached to us. They started commenting about how great Berlin was and how cool it was that Terri cruised into the audience during her performance.

The next day, we drove to Vegas for the HoB show. The House of Blues restaurant was excellent, but we probably would have skipped dinner had we known that the line for the show started forming more than an hour before the show opened. We didn’t get as choice a standing room location as we would have liked, but second row was still very good.

While we were waiting in line, some other fans from the Santa Barbara show recognized us. One group was from Kansas and was doing a three date road trip (San Diego was next). While we were waiting inside the venue, we also met some more, mostly GoGos fans. Some were from Vegas; some were from Chicago. I was amazed that their fan base seemed as dedicated as Berlin’s. (I remember one Santa Barbara fan that had the five pennants from the "Vacation" disk tattooed on his upper arm in what I recall as exactly the right colors.)

The Berlin set was great…you can judge for yourself from the web broadcast (at this point, I don’t think there is any other kind). This audience was a lot wilder though than the Santa Barbara audience and the overall attitude was looser. I was off to the side a little so I didn’t see everything, but one guy in the center apparently was so hot for Terri that he took his shorts off and flung them at Terri. Terri, being the good sport that she is, wore them around her neck for a song or two. (I wonder if this made it into the upcoming HOB broadcast?)

Terri rode out into the audience making two passes into the audience while she was singing. She was close enough to me that I couldn’t resist briefly holding hands with her again and caressing her back (and a very nice back it is…sorry, Paul…couldn’t help myself). This totally blew away the adjacent, die-hard GoGos fans and at the break after Berlin had finished, I was approached by several of them who made numerous comments regarding how impressed they were by the contact Terri made with the audience while singing. Another remarked at what a good singer she is to be able to sing like that as she comes out into the audience. They also asked whether this was routine, etc., and commented further that there is very limited contact by the GoGos during there performances, even up front where they are closest to the audience. Additional remarks were made after the GoGos set regarding how tight Berlin was in general, that Terri is an unbelievably talented performer, that they were much tighter than the GoGos, etc., and this was all from GoGos fans!

Also after Take My Breath Away, Terri and the band got a standing ovation from the crowd seated above.

The GoGos performance that followed was again quite enjoyable. One GoGos fan from Chicago enlisted our help and a number of other members of the audience to make enough noise to get Gina Shock to come over which she finally did at the close of their set. I was also close enough to Charlotte Caffey to let her know that I appreciated her guitar and keyboard work. She seems like the shy one in band. After an encore in which I was screaming, "All right, Charlotte!!" after one of her solos, she just kind of looked down first, then acknowledged me, and threw me a guitar pick (which I failed to have Ron scan).

A few other unusual events occurred. Like the shorts that someone flung at Terri, Belinda was bending forward and someone nailed her right in the head with a T-shirt. After being a little stunned because she was looking down and didn’t see it coming, Belinda said something to the effect of alright, but where’s my shorts? How come I don’t get any shorts?

During the introductions, Jane introduced Belinda as the hostess with the most-ess. Belinda then brought out this tray of brownies and said she would like to eat them but she couldn’t otherwise she would get fat so she was going to give them away to us. At this point, I was about in the third row which had formed into somewhat of a circular arc pattern. We had also been kept back from the stage several feet for the cameraman to move around. When Belinda came forward with the tray, there was a rush forward that transported me about six feet in a split second and I don’t recall even picking up my feet! Sort of like instamosh!

(I haven’t seen such "wild" crowds at the Berlin shows… it seems there is a little more respect or maybe its just that spell or aura Terri casts when she performs, like she did when I was sitting outside the Showcase Amphitheater at Magic Mountain in 82 and noted that the rest of the park in the vicinity just paused like they were hearing something from Utopia as she sang Pleasure Victim.)

At another point in the show, Gina let loose of a drum stick and it came flying off the edge of the stage and popped this guy with a shaved head right along side his head. The girl behind him picked up the stick and shoved it in her pants while he was still standing there trying to figure out what happened.

The sound for the GoGos was again lacking Jane’s guitar, not as bad as the Santa Barbara show, but Jane herself commented something to the effect of "…how ‘bout the sound? Are we playing in the mud or what?" I would also have to say that it’s my opinion that the HoB could use a few more low bass drivers. I think the low frequency sound reinforcement at the open-air Santa Barbara Bowl and Retrofest was better, especially for a band like Berlin with a lot of detailed low frequency content.

I knew the GoGos set was quite long but I didn’t keep track of a playlist to indicate exactly how long. After the show, I spoke with a fan who had gotten a stage copy of the playlist. I counted 22 songs and thought to myself, "Wow, they should have allowed Berlin at least 2 or 3 more, especially after the audience reaction to Berlin."

Overall though, I really enjoyed the whole show…I have to say it was especially rewarding to see how many die-hard GoGos fans enjoyed Berlin.

Until the next edition, The Unofficial Knights….

(As usual, write-up by Paul K., <paulk@ieee.org>,

scans and digital photos by Ron B., <rwburch@home.com>)