Date: 9 March 2007
Originally published in: Die Tageszeitung (Germany)
Written by: Christiane Rösinger
Not a Kid in America anymore, but still a good voice: Kim Wilde sang in the Kesselhaus.
Her duet with Nena got up high in the charts in 2003. Despite that: in this country one has almost forgotten Kim Wilde. While she wasn’t ever really gone from our view. In the nineties she released two albums, that more or less flopped, then got married and had two children. In British TV the horticulturalist now gives gardening tips.
Last year the official comeback album came out, with the apt title ‘Never say never’. The producer was Nena-musician and ex-‘Popstars’-juror Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen. As expected, he didn’t do a good job on the production and turned the synthpopsongs to a dancefloor bent with a crowbar.
In the Kesselhaus of the Kulturbrauerei Kim Wilde stands on stage this Wednesday night as a real 80’s-quotation: wilde mane, asymmetrically cut t-shirt, welding volume, jeans, rivet belt. Her voice is very good, the new songs are rocking and still commits to the classical property moody pop of the eighties. Kim Wilde takes complete care of the audience, and asks if it’s allright if she plays both old and new pieces: “It’s so much fun to be blond again!”
Even at 46 she is still suited for the rolemodel: No longer young, in addition, not old, pleasantly like the patented neighbour woman. She strains the fist again and again when singing – not with stretched arm, but as with an aerobic exercise, several times one behind the other from the elbow. The boiler house is breaking fully. The public applauds gladly with and against the rhythm also. It is the last concert of Kim Wilde’s Germany tour, and it was naturally completely great in Germany. On the canvas behind the stage its Popheftchen headlines from the eighties are projected, and one remembers: these up-piled up hairs, this sex appeal in the spirit of the new Romantics!