Latest news with #Weidenfeller
Boston Globe
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Does live music at Logan baggage claim actually make us feel better about the wait? Our critic went to find out.
'I wrote this song on my way here,' the man joked and launched into a reggae beat, cheerfully belting out one of the most famous choruses in the English language. 'Don't worry/about a thing/'Cause every little thing/gonna be alright...' Advertisement You may have heard about this -- live music at two Logan baggage claim areas this summer. It's Massport's idea to 'reduce travel stress,' according to an official announcement. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The experimental program, which runs through August, when officials will decide whether to make it an ongoing thing, has already been met with skeptical grumbles, including from The Globe's Full disclosure: This isn't my usual beat. I usually review classical music, where performances are generally staged in quieter venues with refined acoustics – hardly the case here. But I also play in two bands, I've busked with my accordion, and I do travel from time to time. I appreciate both a good bar act and the hell that can be a bad day of travel. And I wondered if those experiences might actually mesh. Advertisement On this muggy July evening at Terminal C, I have to say that it kind of worked. The musician, a guitarist named Mike Weidenfeller, strummed his way through mild uptempo covers; familiar songs seemingly meant to soothe. And he easily worked the frazzled crowd. 'Are you from Boston?' he asked a group of women passing before him with large rolling suitcases. 'Yes,' one of them replied. 'Welcome back,' he said. And then, when they said they had just come from Aruba: 'In that case, I'll say I'm sorry!' Weidenfeller jammed his way through another reggae standard, Beres Hammond's 'I Feel Good,' and a woman skipped across the terminal, her henna-red hair flying. 'It's a party now,' he said with a smile. Then something else caught his eye: 'Oh, that's a nice reunion over there.' cq A goldendoodle had spotted his 'granddad' sitting on a bench, and gone into a tail-wagging frenzy. As Weidenfeller strummed the Beatles' 'The Long and Winding Road,' the dog leaped into the man's lap and licked his face. cq It was a Kodak moment, and for the people I talked to, at least, the music added a friendly feel and helped to uncoil a little tension. 'It kind of adds a nice charm now that we're all stuck here waiting on our luggage,' said Jennifer Stacey, cq who was returning to her southern New Hampshire home after a vacation in Aruba. 'I hope it takes off.' Still, I have to wonder if the same would be true in truly trying travel circumstances – like the time I was stranded overnight in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport terminal after being forced to gate-check my carry-on between Los Angeles and Boston. The amenities included nonfunctional power outlets and arctic-blast air conditioning in rainy October. Over the PA, a soft-pop playlist including Paula Cole's 'I Don't Want to Wait,' Daniel Powter's 'Bad Day,' and Fergie's 'Big Girls Don't Cry' mocked me as I roamed the long concourse, unable to sleep through the sensory barrage. Sometimes big girls do cry. If I'd heard ' Don't worry/about a thing…' the next morning when my suitcase failed to appear on the Logan baggage carousel, I probably would have spontaneously combusted. Advertisement For musicians, playing Logan is a unique experience. The logistics of booking and scheduling performers this summer are being handled through Gigs4U, a Seattle-based agency that already books musicians at SeaTac International And Fall River-based singer-songwriter Brandon Furtado, 29, who played on the pilot program's launch day, said his set went well. 'I'm always trying to find new places to play, so that was a cool experience for me,' he Furtado is accustomed to playing in neighborhood hangouts, and at baggage claim, he found that 'people are kind of trying to get their stuff and go. Maybe you don't get as much engagement, so you have to work a little harder to acknowledge people and get their attention.' From a financial perspective, it mattered less whether people stopped to listen; the Live at Logan musicians cannot collect tips, but they receive $200 for each performance, with parking covered. cq The only tough part was playing to a largely-vacant room much of the time, Furtado said. 'There was one group of people that arrived, and it was kind of empty afterwards.' cq Advertisement One important point: not everyone in this captive audience is necessarily a traveler. As Weidenfeller played on that recent night, Security guard Pax Brown Johnson, cq of Milton, sat on a bench as she waited for her overnight shift to begin, enthusiastically greeting her co-workers as they passed by and clapping after every song Weidenfeller played. The music helped her feel more relaxed, she said, even when 'you feel so discouraged.' cq She hoped they'd bring the music to the departure level, so more people might appreciate it. Maybe she'd even be able to hear it from her station at the secure area's exit door. She'd like that, she said. In the meantime, she knew what she wanted to hear. 'Play 'Don't Worry About a Thing!'' she urged Weidenfeller. cq An hour had passed since he last played 'Three Little Birds.' No one who had heard it earlier was still around. He played it. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
Hindustan Times
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
‘It's more important to be the wall behind your team-mates'
Mumbai: With a smile, Roman Weidenfeller recalled his early days in football – long before he was a part of the German team that won the 2014 FIFA World Cup. He was the goalkeeper for the youth team in his village in Rhineland-Palatinate in the west of the country. But for all his skill and talent, he rarely got a chance to show off. 'Our team had some good players so I didn't get to make too many saves,' he said. 'At the end of the match, the strikers or the midfielders who scored would be given gifts like ice cream or candy. It sometimes made me want to play as a striker as well.' Over the years, he would become one of the most decorated and capped players for Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund, with whom he would win the league title twice and DFB-Pokal just as many times. But as he remembered the tale from his past, it reflected in the way goalkeepers, and perhaps even defenders, are treated today compared to attacking players. 'The way football works is always that the strikers and midfielders get more importance from the public and officials, than the goalkeepers,' said Weidenfeller, in an interview organized by the Sony Sports Network. 'In the last 20 years, goalkeepers have started to become more famous. Before that, goalkeepers were not as popular and not paid well. But of course, (as Liverpool won the Premier League) tomorrow you will see photos of Mo Salah and other goal scorers everywhere.' In the history of the Ballon D'or that started in 1956 – the annual award for best player – Lev Yashin is the only goalkeeper to have won it, in 1963. Weidenfeller plied his trade at a time when the role of a goalkeeper had started to change. From being shot-stoppers and the last line of defence, goalkeepers had become the first line of attack. They were required to be more adapt with the ball at their feet, not just charging out of their box to make interceptions, but also make penetrative passes, both short and long. The 44-year-old too had to work on upgrading himself to the changing style. 'We had this machine we used that would shoot out footballs at different speeds and we had to stop it with our feet and pass it back. It was a different thing because in my youth we used to learn only how to catch and save the ball,' he said. 'But at the end of the day, the goalkeeper has to stop the ball. It's more important to be the wall behind your team-mates.' Along with the changing roles for players in this new generation, there has also been a change in fortunes of the German team, and even Borussia Dortmund, since when Weidenfeller played. Over a decade ago, both teams were forces to be reckoned with. Last year, it was considered a surprise that Dortmund reached the Champions League final – losing out to Real Madrid. And since Germany won the World Cup in 2014, the four-time champions lost out in the group stage in the next two consecutive tournaments. 'In 2014, we had big players, they were tough, they were characters, and they came onto the pitch with confidence,' Weidenfeller recalled about the German team from his playing days. 'The mentality of my generation was that they all wanted to work hard. We had the talent and grew up with the tools, but we were hard workers. They wanted to win every match/ 'The new generation is very talented, they are growing and everything is there for them. But the way they go is a bit more (taking it) easier than our way. They feel that if they don't win today, they'll win tomorrow, it's an easier life. They don't have the real confidence that we had. Football for (today's players) is a job. We made our hobby our job.' Weidenfeller, though critical, was optimistic in the current German team. Despite the disappointments of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, the team did reach the quarter-final of the 2024 European Championships, losing narrowly to eventual winner Spain in extra time. 'The team is growing. They have a fine coach in Julian Nagelsmann,' he added. 'But more important is that the people work hard on themselves and work on the team spirit. 'And next year is the World Cup. Maybe we win it.'
Express Tribune
08-02-2025
- Sport
- Express Tribune
Dortmund's Kovac eyes salvage job
BERLIN: Fresh from appointing Niko Kovac as coach, Borussia Dortmund can take a major first step towards salvaging their season with a top-four finish when they host Stuttgart on Saturday. Stuttgart thrashed Dortmund 5-1 in September, the first loss of Nuri Sahin's tenure. In hindsight, it was a clear sign all was not well in the yellow and black corner of northwestern Germany. Despite Dortmund buying striker Serhou Guirassy and captain Waldemar Anton from Stuttgart in the summer, Saturday's visitors are putting together another impressive campaign. Last season's runners-up Stuttgart sit fifth, ahead of 11th-placed strugglers Dortmund, who fired Sahin in January. But a mid-table traffic jam means Dortmund could draw level with Stuttgart with a win on Saturday. Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeness has turned around the side's fortunes since taking over in April 2023, lifting Stuttgart from a relegation mire to the Champions League. His success had him marked by some as Sahin's best replacement -- but Dortmund opted for former Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt and Monaco coach Kovac. Kovac will make his debut in the dugout on Saturday, with top-four qualification the clear objective. Former Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller, who won two Bundesliga titles with the club under Jurgen Klopp, told AFP on Thursday that his old team have found the right man for the job. "He's a great manager for Borussia Dortmund. He's coming with discipline and hard work to push them to be a top team in the Bundesliga again," said Weidenfeller. "He's the best manager for this situation, to push the team and organise them. They are four points off the Champions League spots -- this is what they have to organise. "Every player will have to push and will need to work harder -- to prove themselves, that they deserve to be in the starting XI." Weidenfeller was Dortmund's goalkeeper when Jurgen Klopp took over in 2008. While stopping short of comparing the two coaches, who have clear differences in their style of play, Weidenfeller said the pair share a relentless work ethic. "We worked so hard on our own discipline, on our power -- it was tough, tough, tough," the 44-year-old recalled. "We ran all over the place." "Each year we felt fitter, stronger and more like a team as every player worked on his own level of performance." League leaders Bayern Munich host a resurgent Werder Bremen on Friday -- the match when their season began to come unstuck last campaign. Bayer Leverkusen, who sit six points behind in second and play on Saturday, face a tricky away trip to Wolfsburg. Named in UEFA's Champions League team of the year last season, Gregor Kobel has struggled this term -- but his woes have mirrored those of his team.
