Smokie performed at Cluj Arena on October 9

The famous British rock band Smokie performed at Cluj Arena on October 9, right after the Scorpions' concert, on October 8.

On this second night of the inauguration concert series, Smokie delighted over 20,000 people, about the half of the overall capacity of the new Cluj Arena stadium.
The rain and cold kept people at home. This time they didn't flock to the stadium like they did a night before, for the Scorpions' concert.

The band appeared on the stage half an hour late. At this time the frustrated audience was already whistling but it was all forgotten instantly as the band began to play.

Smokie began their performance with a new song, after greeting the audience with "Good to be home, in Cluj-Napoca":

The closing song: Who the f... is Alice?

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Scorpions and Smokie-mega concerts at Cluj Arena

Scorpions delighted their fans with a fantastic concert on October 8 at the inauguration of the Cluj Arena stadium.

Over 40,000 fans invaded the new Cluj Arena on Saturday evening, to admire their idols, the legendary German rockers.
The concert was part of the mega farewell world tour, the "Get Your Sting And Blackout World Tour", including worldwide concerts.

The 90 min. long show opened with the song "Sting in the tail" from the band's recent album, followed by other new and older, famous songs like "Rock Me Like a Hurricane", "The best is yet to come", "Wind of Change", "Still Loving You" or "Big City Nights".

Here are the Scorpions live at Cluj Arena:

Rock You Like A Hurricane - Live



When The Smoke Is Going Down - live

Today, on October 9, Smokie, the English rock band is on stage in the series of mega concerts marking the inauguration of the new Cluj Arena.

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Cluj Arena Stadium-opening

The new Cluj Arena Stadium was officially opened on Saturday 1, free to visit and photograph for everyone.
The stadium is ranked as an UEFA Elite stadium and is able to hold 30,201 people (Wikipedia).
The City and the Government paid for it 45 million euros plus another 800,000 for exterior equipment. For that money, the new stadium is fairly mentioned as the jewel on the Somesul Mic river banks.
The name comes from the city name, Cluj-Napoca, for those new o this blog.

Though it was late in the afternoon, there were so many people visiting the new investment that it was hart to get a picture of the stadium alone. It was dusk when I took this first shots, a north view of the stadium.

Here is an interior detail with the new, light colored seats.

And the playground with beautiful green turf (for now).
We hope it will last longer than the 230 million euro worth, new National Arena in Bucharest, opened last month, where the turf was completely ruined on the first held football match, in less than 10 minutes.

In the next days the Arena will be the home of several concerts; the Scorpions will delight their fans on the 8th of October and Smokie performs the next day, on 9 October.

In the meantime it is pitch dark outside and black clouds are gathering on the sky.
Traffic is blocked by the crowd and by cars parked everywhere, so I decided to walk home. It was a good opportunity to try out my Nikon's night shot capabilities.

So, this is my way home, along the river. It was a beautiful, sunny, autumn day, still chilly because of the strong wind blowing all day long. The moon is up for the moment but those black clouds will cover it soon.

I took this picture from a bridge, the lights going till the next bridge, where I'm almost home.

I reached the second bridge here and take a look back; there is the Arena in the middle of the distant background and the lights in the right are from the autumn fair held also Saturday and Sunday.

On a closer look you can see in the next photo, the barbeque smoke over the lights at the fair. I missed the fireworks last night but I'll visit the fair right now. It is still open today and I'm hoping for some nice photos.

These last photos were taken from a metallic bridge, shaking constantly under the passing crowd, with no tripod and at a very high ISO. These are low quality pictures for web use, there is visible camera shake too but still I'm satisfied with Nikon D3100 night shots on a pitch black night.

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