Michael Patrick Kelly in Munich: An evening among friends

Created: 09/25/2022, 14:13

By: Ulrike Frick

From street musician to world star: Michael Patrick Kelly at his performance in Munich.

© Martin Hangen

Michael Patrick Kelly played in the Munich Olympic Hall.

Finally.

The musician and singer celebrated an "evening among friends" with his fans.

Our criticism:

It took a while: Michael Patrick Kelly was on tour for the last time with his "ID" album in autumn 2019.

Then, as is well known, our existence darkened due to the pandemic.

Now the 44-year-old is back, with a big band and peace bell and a highly appealing stage show.

Video clips, photo collages as well as graphics and silhouettes accompany the artist harmoniously from the fast moments of the evening, held in hard black and white or black and yellow, to the gentle phases in which huge nature shots reinforce the mood of the ballads.

Michael Patrick Kelly is currently on the BOATS tour

He was happy to be able to spend "an evening among friends" who would rather listen to him than visit the Oktoberfest, the Munich native confesses right after the more rocking numbers like "Diamonds and Metals", "Earthquake" or "Throwback".

From now on he moderates all songs in detail in the well-filled (even if not sold out) Olympiahalle.

"BOATS" is the name of the current album and tour - which can be explained on the one hand by the little yellow boat that will set off from the safe haven in front of the stage into the middle of the sea of ​​spectators in the arena over the course of the evening.

Above all, the abbreviation stands for "Based on a true story".

Kelly wrote his songs based on real events: about people who were struck by fate, whose suffering and purification also changed him.

Sounds extremely cheesy.

The fans still hang on his every word.

And somehow you actually believe him, this one who rose from street musician to world star with his family as Paddy Kelly in the nineties.

This one, torn apart by fame and the world, who only found himself and music again after years in the silent monastery.

Michael Patrick Kelly said he was happy to be able to spend “an evening among friends” – and the people in the Olympic Hall felt the same way.

© Martin Hangen

He is extremely approachable and permeable.

Not only when he talks about the blind Paralympics runner in Sydney or the icon-painting criminal who crossed his path in life and inspired touching texts.

When he talks about his crisis of meaning and his time with the monks or about his first concert ever.

He was nine years old at the time, with Bruce Springsteen, in whose honor he then intoned a heartfelt version of "I'm on Fire".

Michael Patrick Kelly seeks contact with the audience

As always in his concerts, Kelly effortlessly seeks contact with the audience.

In any case, this has long since reached the point of enthusiastic devotion when he greets his youngest concert-goers, and there are quite a few, quite directly.

Not only they should be counting the days until the next Kelly concert after this evening, in which Kelly with his three and a half octave voice carried away at least as many generations in the Olympic Hall.

(More music? Read our review of Max Raabe's concert in the Isarphilharmonie here.)