Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Zenith Halle / Munich / Germany
Concert date: 27.11.2007
Attendance: 4500
Ticket price: 37,00€
Hanging around obscure little clubs for a good while, at venues averaging 100 to 150 people per show, is bound to leave mental scars in the long run. They say you fight fire with fire, so when you’re in a funk like that, it always pays to hit a gig you know will deliver a demolishing blow that rattles your bones and scrubs out your ear canals. A Motorhead show – you’d be hard-pressed to find a better remedy for that kind of original sin.
OVERKILL: 20.10 – 20.50
We stormed into Zenith Halle, which always brings back fond memories whenever I think of seeing Black Sabbath there in 1999, well past 8 p.m., running hugely late. Of course we missed the support acts Valiant Thorr and Skew Siskin, and by the time we walked in, New Yorkers Overkill were already bullying the crowd with their thrash metal sermon. The legendary troublemakers weren’t exactly our target that night. I’d have happily skipped them and sat it out if I could. The sound was giving them proper grief, and from a good 20 m from the stage it was very “sluggish” or “smeared”; everything coming off the stage was an indistinct rumble with totally inaudible guitar solos woven in now and then. Singer Bobby Blitz did once again manage to convince us he’s the irreplaceable ultimate frontman of the band, with incredible charisma and a strong, egotistical performance full of his trademark stage antics, packed with masturbation gestures, middle fingers of his right hand thrust in the air and constant egging-on of both his bandmates and the crowd. The guys plowed on as only they know how, but good sound wasn’t in the cards that night, so the show was far from optimal. That’s a constant with Overkill, but it bothers me personally a lot. See, thrash metal isn’t about posing, and Overkill with their topless frontman Bobby Blitz come across as downright annoying, with rhythm guitarist Derek “The Skull” Tailer joining in just as much, and of course both of them used the time to show off their tattoos. As a non-expert on Overkill, I managed to catch the announcement (and subsequently the performance) of a new song, Skull and Bones, and the men wrapped up the evening’s drudgery with the obligatory Fuck You. Overkill’s ear-flogging ended 20 minutes before nine in the evening. Hallelujah.
MOTORHEAD: 21.30 – 23.15
A Motorhead show can’t be bad under any circumstances. Not in 2007, anyway, not anymore. These are legends, a precisely calibrated capitalist machine that’s well provided for existentially, with the clearly highlighted component of an unforgettable rock n’ roll offering that’s one of a kind on planet Earth. Whenever you want to sketch the figure of a rocker but don’t know exactly what that would look like, just call to mind Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister. It doesn’t get more honest than that.
What the RockLine crew’s visit to Motorhead’s Zagreb show last year hinted at was confirmed by watching them at Zenith Halle. Despite everything, the weight of the years on Lemmy’s shoulders shows more and more. First of all, it was confirmed by a fairly average set list that absolutely favored the band’s latest album “Kiss Of Death” (2006), from which the trio played as many as 5 tracks; then by the drum-solo machinery wedged into the stretched-out “Kiss Of Death” take on Orgasmatron called In The Name Of Tragedy, during which the chancellor could catch plenty of fresh air, light up a smoke and wash it all down with sips of Jack and Coke; and even more by the least country-blues rock n’ roll orgy of the night, Whorehouse Blues, with Lemmy on harmonica and both companions on acoustic backing, which has no business in a Motorhead encore. Maybe at that point Brian Robertson could have appeared as a special guest, and ballet slippers would suit him too. On top of that, Lemmy wanted to dedicate this one to Phil Lynott, so Motorhead had to bring the softer-born Thin Lizzy song Rosalie back into the set list. The Chase is Better Than The Catch from the North American leg of the tour was replaced in the set by Born To Raise Hell, so that singer Nina C. Alice of Skew Siskin, who are accompanying Motorhead around Germany, could join Lemmy on the chorus vocals, which successfully spiced up a moment of the evening. Of course the noble rock n’ roll filly didn’t get away without a goodbye kiss from the good chancellor. Lemmy once again leaned on overdubbed vocals in Killed By Death, where you could feel the legend can no longer keep up with the highest notes in the melody of the chorus. All this proves that Lemmy is pretty well sick of playing the classic Motorhead material and is trying to liven up the atmosphere he’s forced to chew over on stages, given his otherwise monstrous concert mileage, well into the new millennium. He chose to pad the set list with new songs and covers, and what’s especially interesting is that, particularly in the middle and closing parts, the repertoire followed a fast song, slow/mid-tempo song order. Above all, Motorhead lost the famous relentless charm of their unstoppable rock n’ roll rolling, which they ignite and build up so famously that every rat in the underground could go deaf and which can knock even the highest-flying eagle out of the sky, in the sequence of In The Name Of Tragedy with the drum solo wedged in, Sword Of Glory, which as the fifth song (out of five in total) from “Kiss Of Death” was absolute overkill, and the cover Rosalie. This energy deficit was brought back to the stage by Born To Raise Hell, and before the end of the regular set the men finally pulled a hidden joker out of their sleeve and redeemed themselves with a demolishing finish of Killed By Death and Iron Fist. Now, a Motorhead encore has to consist of three classics. Ace Of Spades and the closing Overkill are always mandatory. So there’s always room for exactly one more song. They steered well clear of Bomber again, maybe out of fear that it would mean hauling a “No Sleep Till Hammersmith” He-111 steel construction around the tour and “wasting” time setting it up. We’ve slowly come to terms with the fact that bands keep raising ticket prices and play less and less anyway. Even if a show runs an hour and three quarters, that doesn’t mean they’re actually playing for that whole stretch, playing in the physical sense (drum solo, the soft moments of Whorehouse Blues, Rosalie…). Put banally, in the encore you’d kill with joy for We Are The Road Crew, or any Motorhead classic from the eighties!!!!
Motorhead’s standard of cranking the knobs up to deafening volume was met during the show. As expected, which always makes for tremendously interesting viewing of the communication between Lemmy’s Rickenbacker and the techs in the breaks between songs. The sound up front was completely indistinct, about 10 m from the stage, eye to eye with the chancellor! So after some passionate squeezing in with the youngsters in the front rows, once Metropolis was done (the band, of course, don’t fret over the set list and the delivery of the repertoire half as much as an (occasional) grouch of my trade like me), I headed for the area closer to the mixing desk, the bar and the official merch, where Lemmy’s wheeze/rasp was finally perfectly audible. The peak of the Motorhead show this time was the inclusion and performance of Over The Top! Oh, if only there had been more such relic blooms that evening…
Oh well. Despite my grumbling, the massive flood of the band’s fans conjured up exceptional energy in the hall, with wild “banging” and a “mosh pit” in the front rows; once again people rolled over one another and did somersaults below the stage. The view of the pit the moment Motorhead stormed the stage with Dr. Rock turned into a proper battlefield, very much like the ones at Iron Maiden gigs. Lemmy, by the way, still hasn’t kicked Campbell into dropping the tracksuit and the stocking on his head from his stage outfit! Maybe Lemmy has half forgiven Phil because Phil’s guitar strap carries the printed inscription “Welsh Wanker”, but still, a bit more work on the charisma wouldn’t hurt after more than 20 years of Campbell in the Motorhead lineup, definitely not. Mikkey Dee remains a fascinating animal, and it’s hard to picture Motorhead on stage today without him. So a Motorhead show can’t be bad, but as we all agreed after the gig, it can only be more or less impressive. This time it was less impressive, for the reasons laid out above. As long as the iconoclastic Lemmy holds the reins in his hands, catching every Motorhead tour is, by all post-gig calculations based on impressions, still an absolute must, which I recommend to every Earthling who puts any stake in their general education. At least once in your life it’s worth losing your innocence! So why shouldn’t that happen at a Motorhead show? Smooth and sweet.
Setlist
1. Dr. Rock
2. Stay Clean
3. Be My Baby
4. Killers
5. Metropolis
6. Over The Top
7. One Night Stand
8. I Got Mine
9. In The Name Of Tragedy
10. Drum solo
11. Sword Of Glory
12. Rosalie
13. Born To Raise Hell
14. Just ‘Cause You Got The Power
15. Going To Brazil
16. Killed By Death
17. Iron Fist
—encore—
18. Whorehouse Blues
19. Ace of Spades
20. Overkill
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