‘We’re the kids of Zofingen’

A festival week can hardly start more ideal. Under the best weather circumstances the british pop icon Kim Wilde took to the stage and made it clear from the start, that her presence in the music scene doesn’t just come from history, but she can also impress with new songs.

One change: Kim Wilde who became famous as the ‘woman who doesn’t laugh’ has learned to laugh. And that this laugh can fill the whole stage is made clear very quickly. The singer wearing charm, generosity and a pink dress started with ‘Chequered love’ and may have rocked more than the audience expected. The first highpoint was the fourth song ‘Cambodia’,

Eines vorweg: Die als «Frau, die nie lacht» bekannt gewordene Kim Wilde hat das Lächeln gelernt. Und dass dieses Lächeln die ganze Bühne ausfüllen kann, wurde bereits nach wenigen Takten bewusst. Die mit Charme, Grossherzigkeit und einem rosa Kleid ausgestattete Sängerin begann gleich fulminant mit «Chequered Love» und rockte wohl mehr, als es das Publikum erwartet hätte. Erster Höhepunkt war der vierte Song «Cambodia», during which it turned out that her band of many years comes along a bit diagonally optically, but is accurately co-ordinated and gave the performance an important harmonious note.

Classics from the eighties

The performance itself was full of hits from the eighties. Next to the two songs mentioned, there was also the originally performed by the Pretenders ‘Stand by you’, ‘You came’ and to the surprise of many the originally performed by Nena ‘Anyplace, anywhere anytime’, during which the audience sang along in German. For many, like usually during concerts, the last song was the most impressive one – ‘Kids in America’!

Still Kim Wilde seemed a bit tired after the many performances of the song, so uninspired was the performance of the song. It may have been that she had just returned from a holiday and enjoyed it, like she said herself, a bit too much. Despite this the sympathetic singer proved that she doesn’t belong with the old iron. With ‘Stand by you’ she revealed directly that not only her appearance, but also her singing can convince completely.

40 minutes of sitting

For the only deficiency of the performance which cannot be ignored the band nor the singer can be blamed: the reserved audience! Only after forty minutes this pointed itself fit and raised to standing up, which surprises a lot during this performance. Apparently most visitors waited for Chris de Burgh and preferred it to follow Kim Wilde in sitting situation which inspired an American hard core fan to the question whether it was at all allowed in Switzerland to enjoy concerts while standing up.