Comedian: “Get Back To Audimax!” – Otto celebrates its anniversary with star guests

An evening with Otto Waalkes means overtaxing the senses.

With a speed of speech that is likely to overwhelm not a few listeners, and a firework of gags that leaves no time to breathe, the experienced comedy master transforms every stage into a musical witch’s cauldron – including “Hänsel and Gretel” interpretations. The fact that the East Frisian bundle of energy suddenly stood at the edge of the stage clapping himself at his anniversary show in the University of Hamburg’s main auditorium on Thursday evening is mainly due to the fact that he brought brilliant guests with him.

Audimax in Hamburg a special place for Otto

For Otto, the evening in front of a sold-out audience in the Audimax has almost historical significance: he played a concert here on September 15, 1972, which was to lay the foundation for his career. “That was my first big public appearance,” he says at the beginning of the evening, which he organized together with Hamburg’s Beatles expert Stefanie Hempel. “I even heard a class in this auditorium when I was a student. Later we covered the city with posters for my concert, and so many came!” he says, before firing off a medley of his most well-known pieces.

In fact, there are some die-hard Otto fans in the audience that evening who followed the “call of the posters” exactly 50 years ago. “My friends and I already liked Otto back then and had already seen him on smaller stages. When we read that Otto was coming to the Audimax, we knew we had to go there,” remembers Thomas Taschenl (69). who was studying at the university at the time. “Even then it was super full in the hall, and even then he had this very close contact with the audience. That hasn’t changed to this day,” he says enthusiastically.

Musical companions are also there

In view of the historic evening, it is not surprising that Otto has engaged numerous of his musical companions and friends to sing various Beatles classics and rock’n’roll hits with and for him. The fact that the comedian then chose songs by the Beatles as the musical leitmotif of the evening fits in perfectly with his own career, remarks Stefanie Hempel on stage – because the career of the “Fab Four” only really took off on the Hamburg stages picked up speed.

And so, over the course of the evening, Annett Louisan plays the Beatles classic “Blackbird”, blues icon Inga Rumpf rocks the stage with “Get Back”, the unofficial anthem of the evening, and newcomer Michèl von Wussow inspires with his interpretations of ” Come Together” and “Don’t let me down” not only the audience, but also the host Otto, who enthusiastically danced and clapped to the beat from the side of the stage to the sound of the 27-year-old’s sandy, rough voice.

Jan Delay sings with Udo Lindenberg

When the hip-hop veteran Jan Delay then performed the song “He wanted to London” by Udo Lindenberg, the panic rocker himself joined in the last few lines, followed by their joint Hamburg anthem “Reeperbahn” with his friend. to perform. At this point at the latest, no one can sit in the stuffy lecture hall, people dance, celebrate and sing along at the top of their lungs.

In view of the high density of stars of the evening, nobody really expected the guest that followed: Helge Schneider entered the stage with a drum under his arm, and then, with jerky dance movements and hysterical drumbeats, sang about his love for peanut flips. Even if the work is undoubtedly not a Beatles classic, the audience cheers him wildly when, after two songs, he stows his melodica in a briefcase and hurries off the stage.

At the end of the concert, Udo Lindenberg enters the stage again to perform his mate Otto’s song “Erst auf dem Weg wird’s hell”. It is a moment of two cultural legends who are united by decades of friendship. “You are now an honorary citizen of our city,” says Otto. “And you are the godfather of German comedy,” mumbles the other stage legend. Then Lindenberg turns to the audience: “Here’s to the next 50 years! We’ll be there again in 2072!”