Hit Radio Niedersachen


The great Klaus Meine Radio Show for his 60th birthday


Olivia: Hello, my name is Olivia Powell and usually I´m playing more music for you, but today I´m very proud to spend a full hour together with Klaus Meine and give him a little help here in the studio and here´s for you….. Klaus Meine, Hello!!

Klaus: Hello Olivia!!

Olivia: Please explain what exactly you´re doing here today.

Klaus: First, thank you very much for the invitation. I´m very happy to be here in the studio. We redeem 60 minutes airtime and it was a fantastic idea of Hit Radio Antenne, to present to me for my centenary birthday, a one hour show. The year passed by faster than we thought and we said it would be great if we can do this show this year. We want to look back to 2008. For us so many things happened the last months. I remember my birthday, the 25^th of May, very very well. Here in the “Capitol” in Hanover it was a home game for me with family and friends.

Olivia: Who was there?

Klaus: It´s a so long list to name everybody. A lot of friends, longtime companions and friendships which goes back to ages and also the band were there, musicians and companions and so we rocked this night away. We played a little gig here at home in the Capitol, it was a home game, and it was so much fun. Wolfgang Besemer, the boss of “Hannover-Concerts”, helped to create this night and gave us this venue. It´s the hottest rock club in Hanover. Talking about Hanover-Concerts there are great news.

Olivia: Right you´ll tell us about a sensation.

Klaus: Next year there will be one, hopefully more, stadium concert and I´m very happy to bring this news now: On August, 25^th in the AWD-Arena will play “Coldplay”…YES

Olivia:Amazing live band.

Klaus: The only show in North Germany. I´m a big fan of this band since a longer time. I´ve listened to all their albums and the songs on my I-Pod. So in the planes, when we´re on tour, I don´t listen only to the hard sound also to the great songs of Coldplay and the new album is amazing. So I´m happy and I hope I´ll be at the show on August, 25^th in the AWD-Arena. It´s a wonderful moment to start the show with a song from their new album. Let´s go, let´s rock, here´s the song “Viva La Vida”

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE

Olivia: I´m Olivia Powell and we´re in the great Klaus Meine Show. Do you have fun yet?

Klaus: Absolute. We´ve just started.

Olivia: And it´ll get better. Please tell us again from the idea of this show. What are your plans?

Klaus: It´s great when you get the chance to be the program director and to create your own program. I looked at the shows we´ve played this year and there were round about 65 shows…

Olivia: Amazing!

Klaus: …which brought us 2008 all around the world. We had a lot of great moments together with our fans all over the world. When you look at this list, I thought, it would be great if you allocate different section to the songs or the artists. I first made a list with my favorite songs.

Olivia: Is it great rocking?

Klaus: Yes it´s great rocking. I also thought about the Hit Radio audience and I didn´t want to shock them. So I wanted something great rocking, which is up to date and for sure some classics. What I liked very much, that I could bring a special guest. That was very cool and I must not think very long who I´ll bring and I thought, how about my good friend and companion who was standing with me on stage during all the 65 shows this year and here´s Rudolph Schenker from the Scorpions!

Rudi: Hello! Let us start.

Klaus: Yes, let us start. We still have started. I said I was very happy to bring a special guest and I said this can be only the man who likes to rock on stage next to me on all the 65 shows…. Mr. Schenker, and here he is...

Rudi:Thank you very much. I´m very happy to be here and to go along with you through the show.

Klaus laughing

Klaus: Like I said we started our tour in April 2008…not, cause we also played round about 70-80 shows worldwide and all of this, also what we played this year, was a part of the Humanity World Tour. This year we started in Russia, in St. Petersburg. We´ve done this last time in 2002, a big tour across this real big country. Not only to play in Moscow and St. Petersburg, also east of the….ummm….. (to Rudi) give me a help….

Rudi: East of the Ural…

Klaus:... THE URAL!! Playing concerts east of the Ural to Vladivostok and back. There were a lot of special moments which are still in our memories. Russia is so exciting every time and if you have the chance to play concerts also in Siberia than it´s not only very cold, also very emotional. As chance would have it, we´ve played in Novosibirsk and not far away was a city with the name Kemerovo, which we still don´t know, but we never will forget it, cause it was the first time we´ve stand on stage in a snow storm and -10°C (14°F) and played in front of 20,000 fans. It was so special and I was thinking what matches with it and after Rudolph gave me a tip and said “Have you still listened to this band? A new young German band, they´re amazing.” I also have listened to them now and I would say…Rudolph announce the next song.

Rudi: Yeah, Polarkreis 18 with “Allein, Allein”

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=444L2Kc4zIg

Klaus: That was Polarkreis 18 with “Allein, Allein”. Amazing song, young German band and I thought this would match to the Siberian infinity. We were “all the way” to Vladivostok and back and a lot of cities like Komsomolsk-on-Amur, near China, where we never played before. So we made a lot of new experiences and it´s impressive to come out of the plane and to see how many fans we´ve in the outlying parts of this world, who sing our songs at the top of their voice and like them so much. There are a lot of time zones…

Rudi: actually 6

Klaus: We were lucky to travel with a private plane, otherwise you can´t be in time cause of the great distances.

Rudi: It was the plane from the mayor of Moscow.

Klaus: Right.

Rudi: And it was a plane…it was Hollywood… in full styling.

Olivia: What was the most impressive in the plane?

Rudi: The launch…

Klaus: The stewardesses!!!!

All laughing

Olivia: I understand. And there was much more in Russia…

Klaus: We traveled back west to Kazan and Moscow. We played a lot of times in Moscow, inside of the Kremlin, before the Kremlin, in the Lenin-Stadium Rudolph…

Rudi: Under the Olympic fire…

Klaus: The legendary Moscow Music Festival…

Rudi: Yeah, that was amazing!

Klaus: Yes, this time it was the finishing of the tour in the sold out Kremlin Palace and it was great to see that the Russian fans like our new album very much. So here´s the song which went down well with the fans… Humanity!

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=tjb0mld4SpM

Rudi: Hello, this is Rudolph Schenker and you´ve listened to “Humanity” from the Scorpions. We´re here on the “Klaus One Hour Birthday Show”. It was a gift to his birthday, right Klaus?

Klaus: That´s right.

Rudi: While we´re heading for your 60^th birthday here on the tour calendar, I must say that…. This was a heavy story when I rethink that we´ve played before in Dubai, it was a real big show and when you go see Dubai all 2 years and see how it grows up, it´s amazing. The next day we flew with a private plane to Kiev, we´ve played there on “The Big Place” in front of 60,000 people, it was amazing! Shortly after…. The Klitschkows came around…

Klaus: Right the Klitschkows were there…

Rudi: Right after the show we flew to Hanover, cause we didn´t want to be late for Klaus´ birthday. This was most important for us, we needed to prepare many things and we all were so excited if everything will go well, cause we needed to improvise. At least that was just about the limit! With Carsten´s big party it was the best party here in the last 10 years.

Klaus: Yes it was so much fun. From Carsten Maschmeyer to Gerhard Schroeder, lots of friends and musicians were there – Mousse T., HP from Scooter – so a lot of friends from the scene, comedians, Siggi & Raner and so much friends…for sure my friend Madjid Samii, I can´t list everyone here but it was a so special moment and we were so happy that our long time friend Udo Lindenberg came to Hanover. We rocked together and Udo has had a very successful year and we´re happy about his success and we
want to play a song from his new album. Here´s “(Ich mach) mein Ding”…

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ5ZxiIulic

Olivia: I´m Olivia Powell and I´m allowed to join this special hour and to give Klaus Meine a little help in his own show. Special guest is Rudolph Schenker and here´s for you your host Klaus Meine.

Klaus: We just talked about the centenary birthday in May and I must say, Rudolph that was amazing. You´ve made me so happy, I didn´t know anything. I just wondered, gosh where´re Rudolph and Matthias, where´re all the guys. Rudolph´s brother Michael was also there, Uli Jon Roth and Hermann Rarebell, our old band members from glory times and we had so much fun this night, but the companions I haven´t seen for ages….

Rudi´s laughing

Klaus: ….and then turn out they were backstage.

Rudi: Yes, we prepared something which we had to do fast, or not so fast but in the time we had, cause we also had many guest which were not involved and so we involved this guests and made a little presentation…

Klaus: Dariusz Michalczewski was also a part of it…

Rudi: Yes, like I said we came up with an idea also if it´ll be more
theatrically or more musically and we´ve surprised Klaus. He doesn´t knew about it…

Klaus: We wanted to play together and we went to the stage, but they
brought me to the front of the stage and there were standing the Scorpions with guests. It was a mix of black mass and child´s birthday.

All laughing…

Klaus: Rudolph was the lead singer of this performance…

Rudolph: I was a preacher.

Klaus:
He was the preacher who pulled off the performance. This was a great
idea and you´ve made me so happy. I had so much fun and my guests too.
It was amazing.

Olivia: We thought flowers present everybody. We wanted to present you
something special and this was an own show. How much you like it by now?

Klaus: It´s a cool idea. It´s very funny and not what you do every day
to
recall the year, to go to all this special moments and to have the
chance to share it with the audience of Hit Radio Antenne.

Olivia: And you brought along a special guest.

Klaus: Right, Rudolph Schenker.

Olivia: You both recall the last year also musically and you´ve to share a lot.

Klaus: Yes, at the beginning of August we went to USA and we´ve started
at
the West Coast, San Francisco and went to L.A. . Then we went to
Istanbul, after a long time we´ve played in the Turkey and it was
soooooooo amazing. Then there was a show in Wolpertshausen, sounds
unspectacularly, but it wasn´t. It was a big festival about the gene
technology and a protest against the genetically manipulated food and
plants and so on. It was a 3 days festival and on the 3nd day, when we
played, there were 30,000 people. It´s near Schwaebisch Hall. Then we
went straight to Brazil for a long tour across Brazil and Mexico and we
had 7 Brazilian guest musicians, backing vocals, percussion.

Olivia: So we have to conceive the Scorpions with Brazilian rhythm?

Rudi: The idea was that we make a rock show and add the acoustic part to
the
middle of it. We´ve played 8-9 songs acoustic, before we started
rocking and ended rocking too. In the middle the guests were a part of
the show and they´ve arranged their rhythms that the songs got a lot of
power with 2 percussionists, keyboarder and the singer; they looked
amazing. They sang amazing and the atmosphere was brilliant and at the
end when we played Rock You Like A Hurricane they came back on stage
and we´ve played the song together. It was so great!

Klaus: We were not only in the big cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,
where
we´ve celebrated Rudolph´s centenary birthday in Rio de Janeiro with a
fantastic party, it was unbelievable and who was a part of it will
never forget about it. It was a so special moment. Yes we didn´t toured
only the big cities, we also have played in Belem at the outlet of
Amazon. Rudolph and I made a fly together over the rainforest with
Greenpeace, 3 ½ hours and we could see how the decay progresses and
what the worldwide business is doing to the rainforest. Then we went to
Manaus, ascended the Rio Negro and Rudolph, we´ve visited a village…

Rudi:… of aborigine, it was unbelievable. We´ve eaten crocodile together.

Olivia: Really? How does it taste? Like chicken?

Klaus: Yes a little bit like chicken.

Rudi:
It was fantastic. They sang for us their ur-songs, they asked if we
also can sing something for them and we did it. It was so familiar; it
was a
village of 32 people.

Olivia: What you´ve sang?

Rudi: Wind Of Chance for sure…

Klaus: They didn´t know where we are, from where we came. It wasn´t a
village where tourists came across all day, it was far away from the civilization. And when you went the same day….

Rudi: And we swam with the dolphins, the water was so warm and
enjoyable, it was a great adventure.

Klaus: And then when you have the chance to be with 32 people at noon;
it was the Santere Maue Trip I´ve noticed…

http://indian-cultures.com/Cultures/satere.html

…and then at the same day you arrived at Sao Paulo, where more than 30
millions of people live that was crazy.

Olivia: What do you liked in music?

Klaus: A bit later we were in Mexico and there´s a band names “Mana”. I
would
say it´s the most popular band in Mexico, also very successful in USA
and the drummer came to us on the first show in Guadalajara and he
said, if you like I would play with you tonight and he played 2 songs
together with us and in the night there was an amazing after-show-party
in his own restaurant.

Rudi: Yes his own club, restaurant. It was great.

Klaus: Amazing band and now we hear a song of Mana.

Olivia: Ok, here is Santana together with Mana “Corazon espinado”

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=hFO0Nrr5z-U

Klaus: The last minutes are going by so fast…
We
talked about Brazil and it was an amazing tour. On the way back we went
from Trinidad home. It was the first time we played in the Caribbean.
It was a bit strange and you ask “Rock in the Caribbean, is this
possible?” But this worked very well and it was a fantastic and
enthusiastic audience. We´ll go back there for sure, or Rudolph?

Rudi: For sure. It was so great. There was a starting band that covered Scorpions songs.

Klaus:
Yes, then we went to UK. We made a tour in UK and between Newcastle and
London the Hammersmith was sold out and AGAIN it was a very successful
tour in UK. And the first gig in Newcastle I must think about who grow
up there, our friends from AC/DC!!!

Olivia: Who are the harder rockers? AC/DC or the Scorpions?

Klaus: AC/DC!

Rudi:
Yes AC/DC. They consequently refused to play ballads. (Laughing) Yes
they really did it! And I must say in all fairness they are an amazing
band.

Klaus: They are a terrific band and we toured in the 80´
or at the end of the 70´, that time together with Bon Scott in the USA
and played a lot of shows together. We know each other from that time,
we´ve played Rock in Rio together 85´. Here and there we meet each
other. We were in London and Brian Johnson invites Rudolph, Matthias
and me into his studio the next day and he said “We´re in the studio
and working on the next album, but when you come around we only want to
play for you.” And so it happened. We sat with the producer Rick Rubin
in the production room and Brian said “Now AC/DC only play for
Scorpions!!” and it was mega cool like the story in Florida…

Rudi:
In Florida when Brian Johnson, the singer, said “Hey, I´ll sing with
you Rock You Like A Hurricane! I´ll come with you on stage” Ok, he came
on stage, we started playing, they both were singing and then came the
solo, what Brian was doing? He took Klaus like Angus on his shoulders,
not only that he walked around on stage. No, he left the stage, across
the audience and so Rock You Like A Hurricane was the longest version
we´ve ever played!! Round about 12 – 14 minutes, cause Brian walked
around in the hall and Matthias was playing his solo as long as
possible till both came back and Klaus started singing again. Brian is
a great guy and he likes to joke and he´s a great comedian. It´s
unbelievable.

Klaus: The great new album released, everybody know that and they also come to Hanover, or?

Olivia: No, at March, 11^th they are in Bremen, sadly they don´t play in
Hanover. But in summer they also want to come to Hamburg.

Klaus:
For sure they want to come to Germany on tour and that soon and I heard
from USA that it´s a total amazing show. And so here is AC/DC with
Rock´n´Roll Train.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=bX2xbqWtyJU

Olivia:
We make a review of the year´s events in the birthday show of Klaus
Meine and his special guest Rudolph Schenker. You were on tour with the
band SO MUCH this year and we heard a lot of great stories. Before you
talked about UK, what was next?

Klaus: We were in Romania, in
France; in Strasbourg was a great family reunion like we name it. To
play a concert leaned on the great success of the Wacken DVD. WE´ve
played this great festival 2006 here in North Germany, it´s named
Scorpions with guests… We´ve played together, not only 2 ½ hours or
longer, but also with a lot of songs from the time we´ve played with
these musicians. This was for fans which came all their way to
Strasbourg something very special. It´s something, we´ll do time by
time for sure. Then we went to the Baltic States and we´ve played at
the end of the year some shows with a big symphonic orchestra and we
were in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius and we´ve played this extended Moment
Of Glory Program. We like to play it; we don´t play it very often,
maybe one or two times a year but when we do it there´s a lot of
enthusiasm also from us cause it´s every time a big event with 70 -80
musicians on stage. Time was going by so fast and before we play a
track from Moment Of Glory I want to thank everyone here on Radio
Antenne Niedersachsen and also the real program
director, I´m just a guest here today and for sure thanks to the charming
Olivia.

Olivia: Ohh… It was my pleasure.

Klaus:
It was so much fun for me and again thank you so much for the wonderful
gift. I hope we´ll see us again in good health and hopefully live here
in at home in Hanover or Niedersachsen. Greetings to everyone out there
and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Let´s rock,
see you. Here´s Hurricane 2000…

Rudi: BYYYYYE!!!

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=ij4h0S7nNHg

thank you for the translat claudia ^^

Thankyou sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much for the translation Claud.

The AC/DC link says the video is not available in Australia.

The interview was very funny, especially the part where Brian took Klaus on his shoulders. It was really interesting to read.