Hello...

...is it me you're looking for?

Tonight, right at this very moment, the one and only LIONEL RICHIE is playing a gig here in Weil am Rhein!!!

As many as 6,000 people from far and wide have flocked to the "Dreiländergarten" (i.e. the old Grün 99 garden show grounds) to witness this true veteran of soul and R&B trip the light fantastic again. (May I just mention to you that he is still in the early part of his set and is currently singing a cover of "Lazy on a Sunday morning". I can hear it loud and fairly clear from my balcony.)

Thanks in no small part to the amazing capacity of the German public to embrace past greats of the 1980s with open arms as they embark on their twentieth "world tour", our Lionel has enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in popularity on the European continent. Germany, the country that spawned The Scorpions - who sang about the winds of change, going down to Gorki Park and following the Moskva, etc. - is the last bastion of the aging rock/pop star. For example, Phil Collins is still HUGE here, and even Phil Collins tribute bands pull in the mulleted, denim-jacket-clad crowds, as I witnessed a few years ago at the Spargelfest in Walldorf.

Anyway, as you can probably gather, I'm not attending tonight's concert. However, given a choice between watching James Blunt - who played the same venue last year - and our Lionel, I think I would be dancing all night long instead of crooning about someone being beautiful.