Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Szene / Vienna / Austria
Concert date: 11.11.2010
Attendance: 100
The upside of the long drives to Vienna gigs is that music nuts like us can stock up on all kinds of music media on the way through Austria, thanks to the well-stocked shops in the malls there. The Rockline crew did exactly that, grabbing almost the entire Lizzy Borden discography for next to nothing and riding those nostalgic rhythms all the way to Szene in Vienna, where Lynch mob were playing that night. From Lizzy Borden to Lynch mob is only a small hop. Both bands are pretty much textbook products of the eighties, except that the latter can also boast one of the most respected guitar names of our time, on top of that heritage.
George Lynch comes from the old school of guitar, inspired by Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, but his lightning-fast technique ties him to the younger generation of virtuosos too. Lynch mob is one of his side projects, born after the breakup of the legendary Dokken in the late eighties, and over the last two decades it has operated on and off in various lineups. The latest album, Smoke and mirrors (Rockline review here), was recorded by Lynch along with vocalist Oni Logan (a member of the band’s first incarnation), bassist Marco Mendoza and drummer Scott Coogan. On the current tour, though, those last two have been replaced by Robbie Crane (of Ratt, who are currently on hold) and the excellent Brian Tichy, who has drummed for Foreigner and Billy Idol.
Vienna’s Szene is a charming little club just a stone’s throw from the strict city center, run on the same principle as Ljubljana’s Orto (a daytime bar with drinks, plus a somewhat bigger concert room), and it holds about 500 heads. The owners are often the promoters too, and this show was no exception. They surely had a hard time keeping their cool when Lynch and company rolled in almost two hours late from Luxembourg, where they’d played the day before, and after a lukewarm set from the support acts (Sonic tension and Silverdirt) bolted from the van straight onto the stage.
Oni Logan, who won over the crowd right away, is an excellent counterweight to the stoic Lynch. George doesn’t talk to the audience at all, and even through the applause and ovations he rarely lifts his eyes from his guitars. We saw quite a few of them, and the one that stood out most was surely the original prototype of the ESP Tiger, which saved his life during the 1992 Los Angeles riots by stopping a bullet from one of the rioters. Since then, as he puts it, the guitar is closer to his heart than any of his ex-wives or current ones. The show was solid and relaxed, maybe even too relaxed, since a slightly tipsy Logan forgot the lyrics to Wicked sensation and they had to stop the song and play it again from the top. But the fact that the gig felt like a public rehearsal didn’t spoil the vibe one bit. Also because we got to hear three songs from Dokken’s golden era: the instrumental Mr. Scary, Tooth and nail, and, in the encore, Into the fire. Despite the circumstances, Oni sang these classics without a doubt far better than Don Dokken could, who has been plagued in recent years by the so-called Halford syndrome. Don has lost all his high vocal registers, which the latest Greatest hits album, with his newly recorded hits, shows pretty plainly.
So, Lynch mob didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t a precisely planned show like the one we caught the day before at Satrijani, but the intimate atmosphere, much like the one at Carinthia’s Bluesiana, plus the spontaneity and the chemistry of four seasoned stage cats, conjured up some really special feelings. The only downside of the gig was probably that the band left the stage after a good hour and just one encore. The trend of short sets, kicked off by Blackie Lawless, is clearly catching on with other representatives of the once-prominent Sunset Strip scene, whose trademark was mostly the first two ingredients of the famous slogan “sex, drugs and rock n’roll”. And since it’s also well known that George prefers to sign autographs for the female part of the audience after shows, we didn’t join the line of long-haired youngsters (probably waiting in vain) outside the backstage door. Instead we lingered a moment at the “official merchandise” table and then headed back onto the Austrian motorway, by then wrapped in pitch darkness.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. She’s Evil But She’s Mine 2. River Of Love 3. Hell Child 4. Revolution Hero 5. Let The Music be Your Master 6. 21st Century Man 7. All I Want 8. We Will Remain 9. Mr. Scary 10. Wicked Sensation 11. Tooth n’ Nail —encore— 12. Into the Fire
Photo gallery
