Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Garage Deluxe / Munich / Germany
Concert date: 24.10.2011
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: 25€
Every year since 2003, American heavy rock veterans Y&T (also known as Yesterday & Today) have come back for yet another round of club tours across Europe. After mostly playing back home in the early 2000s, it wasn’t long before they found their way to the Old Continent, where they’ve become regulars. But their tours all share one cosmetic flaw: they never stop anywhere near us, or, God forbid, right in the middle of us. This time, catching up with Y&T meant heading to the Bavarian capital.
Dave Meniketti and company played the tiny club Garage Deluxe, in the south of Munich, in the same zone as Metropolis, Tonhalle and a few other popular spots for small and mid-sized club shows. It’s an extremely small place, only a notch bigger than Ljubljana’s Orto Bar. My initial grumpiness about the pint-sized venue started turning into delight as the set went on, because the packed crowd whipped up a great atmosphere. The intimate vibe, trapped in the cramped space between four walls, was far more intense than in the half-empty Exit Chmelnice in Prague exactly one year earlier.
Life writes incredible stories. In just over a year I’ve seen Y&T three times, and by coincidence it was in three completely different stages of the band. Last June in Sweden, bassist Phil Kennemore was still laughing his head off on the right side of the stage, before the news hit like a bolt from the blue two months later that Phil had lung cancer. So the fall “Facemelter” tour of Europe, when Aleš and I caught them in Prague, went ahead with temporary bassist Brad Lang. Despite encouraging news from the hospital, the original bassist passed away in the first days of this calendar year and Lang became a full member. And so the band thundered into its third stage, with the lovable Kennemore, after almost 40 years in the lineup, becoming (far too soon) part of history. There’s one more parallel to draw. If last year in Sweden we mourned Dio’s farewell to this world with Y&T’s cover of Rainbow in The Dark, this time Meniketti’s dedication, the ballad If You Want Me, went out to Phil Kennemore, his best friend of the last 37 years, as he put it himself. The fact that Kennemore co-wrote this beautiful ballad makes the emotional punch hit even harder.
After a canned intro, Y&T kicked things off with one of the backbone tracks of the still-current album “Facemelter”, On With The Show. The stage was incredibly small, and Mike Vanderhule’s basic drum kit alone took up almost half the space meant for the musicians. As a result, the guitar trio up front was handicapped when it came to swapping positions and burning off excess energy, which goes especially for the mischievous Brad Lang, who usually spices up the show in Jeff Pilson (Foreigner) style with somersaults and general craziness. Already in the early part of the set, Y&T served up a few classics, like Black Tiger, the phenomenal Dirty Girl and the metallic Mean Streak.
Dave Meniketti remains an exceptional musician and the undisputed leader of the outfit, with a charisma and power that the other three follow wherever it leads. His wide-ranging vocals stay incredibly youthful and strong despite the years, and the intensity doesn’t fade even after two hours of sweating it out on stage. Watching Meniketti perform, the message of Y&T’s music comes alive in magnificent form. The wit and complexity of his solos merge live into the simple rhetoric of his fingers, which are constantly flying up and down the neck of his guitar. Meniketti’s facial expressions while soloing radiated the sincerity and authenticity that are essential to the long survival of such an overlooked band as Y&T. Wrapped in a cellophane of hard metal riffs is a constant presence of bluesy charm, the band’s recognizable trademark, which Meniketti lavished especially lots of attention on in some of the slower solos, like the stretched-out version of I Believe In You. The temperature in the club was just under boiling, so Vanderhule’s drum solo was a welcome moment to cool off.
The tour is dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of the classic album “Earthshaker” (1981), so it’s no surprise it was heavily represented in the set. They conjured up Hurricane, Rescue Me and Squeeze, during which rhythm guitarist John Nymann stepped into the spotlight, slipped into the boss’s boots and sang the whole song. Since Y&T only serve their small but loyal fan base the very best, they regularly shuffle the setlist, keeping every show unique. Among the more rarely played tracks, they delivered the melodic perfection of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (“Ten”, 1990) and, for example, two songs from “In Rock We Trust” (1984), Lipstick & Leather and Don’t Stop Runnin’.
The quartet on stage was in great, playful form, which led to some jokey ribbing between songs and no fewer than three tracks in the encore. During Hell Or Highwater, Meniketti won over the crowd with his vocal acrobatics and dropped a hint in passing that they’re already starting to prepare a new Y&T studio adventure. I never dared to think that this new meeting with one of my favorite bands could measure up to last year’s in Prague, but every single condition was met: sound that was crystal clear, an exchange of energy between band and crowd, and, above all, a seriously intense two hours and 20 minutes of live experience, which is unbelievable by today’s standards. Y&T are worth every minute and every kilometer of the trip, today as ever!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1.Prelude 2.On With The Show 3.Black Tiger 4.Dirty Girl 5.Meanstreak 6.Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark 7.Lipstick & Leather 8.Don’t Stop Runnin’ 9.Midnight in Tokyo 10.Shine On 11.If You Want Me 12.Blind Patriot 13.Don’t Wanna Lose 14.Winds of Change 15.Hungry for Rock 16.Don’t Bring Me Down 17.I Believe In You 18.Hurricane 19.Drum Solo 20.Summertime Girls 21.Rescue Me 22.Squeeze 23.I’m Coming Home —encore— 24.Open Fire 25.Hell Or Highwater 26.Forever
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