Move to the rhythm! She said move! The first and only concert of the german outfit Scooter in the United States was all success. HP Baxxter and Co. have a huge base here in US, and I have no idea why their CDs are not released here. HP definitely could keep silence and the crowd would sing all the songs by itself. Except maybe the brand new one - Hello Good To Be Back. Actually, there was a bunch of video cameras and photographers between the stage and the front row because on this Chicago event they were shooting a video for this new single and recording a crowd singing along. “It’s entirely new song and we need your motherf*cking support”, as HP said.

The band played for 1.5 hours and performed a lot of their hits, it was a typical Scooter concert, visually the same as the Koln’s one that I saw. Including “The Surfing Bird” with Ramp! The Logical Song after it. Including Jigga Jigga, so long asked for by the crowd. Rick and Jay helped to sing Call Me Manana and in the end they crashed a synth. New song is a typical Scooter song, HP intones and chorus is made of a crowd singing “Hello, good to be back, good to be back”. As always, positive and energetic. Unfortunately, quality of sound in the Arena was not very high, so I’d better wait for a release.
All-State Arena is a gigantic concert hall, could compare it to Luzhniki in Moscow. And all that venue went totally mad. At some instant between the songs HP got onto the huge speaker and shouted “I think you all are mentally insane!”. People happily agreed.

There was a warming band prior to Scooter - Benassi Brothers, completely pointless and pathetic band (right, it’s not even a band). Everyone got so boring looking at how two men in their 40s talantlessly dancing to the music. I even didn’t understand - are these two men Benassi Brothers as such? Why don’t they play then but dance? Antenna said he was considering to purchase an expensive ticket for their concert. I’m glad he didn’t after all. Also there was a fat host of the event, wacky MC. He was teasing the crowd before Scooter appeared on stage, the way Santa Claus teases kids to ask to light a Christmas tree. “Are you ready for Scooter? Which part of the floor wants Scooter more?” Then, after the show he was going to teach people how to start your own band. Lecture was like this: “You need to gather in a garage and start to play. And not to think about sex. Well, you can think of it, it depends on how successful you are. Everybody thinks of it... If you play really good, all girls are yours anyway! Wait, don’t all go away, I’ll come down and meet you ...” But the hall was almost empty by then. Oh how stupid he was!

I’m pretty sure Scooter will be back to the USA soon, he repeated twice “see you”, that’s more than a hint. In fact, his concert was a part of the project called “Dance Invasion”, sponsored by Lufthansa and RTVi (russian television channel in the USA). 40% of all people in Arena were poles and russians. More poles than russians.

Anyway, it was definitely a very good evening and to be remembered for a long time.

Photos from the concert are here: Scooter 2005 Live in Chicago