ARTICLES - ROBBIE WILLIAMS Minneapolis Star Tribune , 22 July 1995

Berlin sets up hot line for teens mourning band's split 

Minneapolis Star Tribune , 22 July 1995

Berlin officials have set up a special crisis hot line to deal with distraught teenagers who can't accept the fact that Robbie Williams has left the British pop group Take That.

Swept up in hysteria, about 50 teenage girls continued a day-and-night vigil at the Hilton Hotel in Berlin, vowing to remain outside the hotel until Williams returns to Europe's top recording group. Williams announced Tuesday that he was leaving the band, the most successful British group since the Beatles.

Officials in other German cities reported similar displays of public mourning, but the situation was worse in Berlin, they said, because Take That performed there during its European concert tour this spring.

The vigil participants, sitting on the curb outside the Hilton, where Williams and the other four Take That members had stayed in Berlin, said they had chosen this sacred site to draw him back.

Fans focus on hope

"We're focusing power to bring Robbie back," said one 14-year-old girl in the group. They're camped out under a 100-foot banner emblazoned "Robbie Come Back, We Need You."

"We're also collecting signatures for a petition which we'll send to MTV-Europe veejay Ray Cokes," said Susanne Reeder, 20. Cokes is host of the top-rated prime-time show "MTV's Most Wanted" and has had Take That on his show many times. "How can we accept the fact that Robbie's leaving?" sobbed Carola Berger, 20. "He's got to reconsider. He doesn't know what he's doing to us, " said Petra, 13. "The group's management is to blame," growled Ineke Kleinschmidt, 14. "I can't believe he'd go voluntarily."

The Berlin Take That crisis hot line reported hundreds of calls. "The phone's been ringing off the hook," said hot line worker Claudius Ohder. "We've received calls from all over Germany from primarily teenage girls saying they don't know how they can go on living if Robbie leaves Take That."

Group won't disband

Williams' decision to leave Take That stunned his fans, but the remaining four members of Britain's leading group vowed to stick together.

Band member Mark Owen said the group had been "devastated" by Williams' move and considered splitting up completely. "But we love what we do so much and have so much to look forward to that we thought we couldn't possibly call it a day," he said.

Frontman and songwriter Gary Barlow added: "The four of us are still 100 percent committed to this band. We feel we owe it to the fans to carry on for as long as they want us here."

Williams, at 21 the band's youngest member, told his mates last weekend about his decision.

"Everything is entirely amicable. I just feel the time is right to go solo," Williams told the mass-circulation Sun newspaper. "It was an incredibly hard decision to make."

Williams took the lead for Take That's fourth No. 1 hit, "Everything Changes," and fronted their first Top Five hit, a cover of Barry Manilow's "Could It Be Magic?"

His departure came only days before the release of the group's new single, "Never Forget" and a month before the start of a 20-date tour of Britain.

Wildly successful

Take That, founded in Manchester in 1990, is one of the favorite bands of the Princess of Wales, who last December invited them to tea in Kensington Palace. The group's earnings at the end of last year included $22.4 million from tours, $3.8 million from videos and $8 million from merchandise. Their catalog of successes worldwide is reported to have left each member with $3.2 million.

Take That became the first band since the Beatles to notch six consecutive No. 1 hits, including "Pray," "Relight My Fire," "Back For Good," "Babe" and "Could It Be Magic?"