Blind Rage Meets a Renaissance Spring: German Metal Legends in Fresh Bloom (2014)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Munich / Tonhalle / Germany
Concert date: 18.10.2014
Attendance: 2000
Ticket price: €38.40

That the long-lived veterans and one of the most important pillars of the Teutonic school of metal, Germany’s Accept, are enjoying a second spring is no longer anything new. After restarting activity with new vocalist Marco Tornillo in the lineup, Accept have put out three new studio albums, the latest of them, titled »Blind Rage«, just this August (RockLine review of the album HERE). And this one doesn’t suggest that the ancient metal beast has dulled its fangs one bit in all its years of service.

This time around, Accept invited Australian metallers Damnations Day on their new European tour as the opening act. The band released their studio debut »Invisible, The Dead« on Nightmare Records last September, and they presented it thoroughly in the 40 minutes they were given. The quartet made the most of every minute and delivered a top-notch performance of their original material, which stylistically drifts away from, and also leans toward, the more progressively minded metallers Teramaze. Damnations Day are brothers Mark (vocals, guitar) and Dean Kennedy (drums), rounded out by guitarist Jon King, who handles the soloing, and bassist Luke Vinken. A white-hot version of post-thrash aggression, shaking out hellish guitar riffs, stuffed with melodic catchiness even in the transitional passages, plus a brilliant vocal performance from Mark Kennedy, whose venomous screams punched holes in the walls of the Tonhalle, proudly announced that the metal universe has gained another act worth paying real attention to in the future. So: Damnations Day are required homework for anyone looking for a proper mix of aggression and melody, backed by breakneck speed bursts and crowned with an explosive vocal performance!

The German schedule is “merciless” in its consistency. Damnations Day hit the stage at exactly eight in the evening. The crew needed just 15 minutes after their set to get the stage ready for the arrival of the German metal old-timers! Accept jumped onto it ten minutes before nine and, after the intro, shot straight into the new anthem from the latest album »Blind Rage«, called Stampede. When the first beams of white light flooded the hall, the view of its interior revealed a place jam-packed with devoted fans of the legendary German heavy metallers. Beer in hand. This rock-solid crowd brought along all of its metal rage, its bite, and plenty of good spirits! A proper metal celebration was in the cards, the kind you only get at this sort of concert spectacle in Germany! Accept are a band that knows how to deliver the kind of phrasing that conjures, in the most authentic way, the primal German philosophy of what heavy metal means, and in that they are, frankly, pioneers. Even in their mature years the band keeps all of its stage fire and defiance. And with the new albums, it only ramps up those feelings. Older, crazier, more uncompromising. The quintet is so damn experienced that it uses the vast stage with its eyes closed. We’re in the middle of a European tour devoted to promoting »Blind Rage«, and by this day Accept had reached an optimal stage chemistry and awareness over the course of the tour. So the band delivered a top-notch execution of the entire concert repertoire, including as many as seven songs from the new album. Besides the superb working chemistry the band establishes on stage in an instant, you can feel strong bonds of mutual trust and brotherhood among the guys, even though it’s clear that, at bottom, everything we saw and experienced is created behind the scenes by the music business and strict musical professionalism. Accept enjoy playing new original music in these new times. The set list was thoroughly infused with new material. Besides seven songs from the new album, they fired off three songs from the album Stalingrad and two from Blood of the Nations (2010).

The concert rolled along dynamically thanks to the cunning construction of the set list, which strung together clusters of newer songs played back to back with clusters of older classics. The first time the band blasted us back to their classic years came in the first half of the show, where the surprises London Leatherboys (»Balls to the Wall«, 1983) rang out, followed right after by Starlight from »Breaker« (1981). The second surprise came in the second half, when after the title track of the album »Restless And Wild« the band stayed on that album and hit us with Ahead of the Pack. No Shelter after it made sure bassist Peter Baltes got to properly limber up his fingers too, since it included an extended instrumental middle section. The three highlighted surprises on the set list were a very welcome compensation for the shortage of older songs in the repertoire.

Wolf Hoffmann still plays the bulk of the solos, while Herman Frank mainly handles beefing up the phrases as rhythm guitarist. Anyone who has seen Frank in his solo outfit or with Victory knows he’s no worse a guitarist than Hoffmann, but the politics in today’s Accept are set by the only two original members, Baltes and Hoffmann, and you just have to adapt to that. Especially in the world of musical professionalism, Tornillo held up! Toward the end he did show milder signs of vocal fatigue (in the highest range), but the utterly immersed and devoted German crowd (spanning almost three different generations), with intense feedback and a roaring sing-along on the choruses in the closing stretch, gratefully patched up those moments. The anthem Metal Heart remains one of the absolute peaks of every Accept set list, and in Munich the night, as expected, was closed by the obligatory, folk-anthem-status marching tune Balls to the Wall.

The new Accept show flew by in just under two hours, like the blink of an eye. Great sound, great execution! The primal face of metal, forged on the old European continent at the turn of the seventies into the eighties, still works as if it had been created yesterday. Accept, a quintet of exceptional charisma and a band of unique stature in the metal universe, keeps its youthful drive and uncompromising edge on stage. Udo Dirkschneider is a figure of the past for them, one they stopped missing long ago. Tornillo does absolutely everything he has to and everything the essence of the Accept recipe demands. A show full of superlatives. The old guard of metal remains a stage attraction worthy of admiration and all respect, and going to their shows is an experience worth every sin. Let’s hope the renaissance spring lasts for Accept for many years to come, because we’ll gladly keep coming back to their shows in Germany.

Setlist

ACCEPT:
1. Intro
2. Stampede
3. Stalingrad
4. Hellfire
5. 200 Years
6. Losers and Winners
7. London Leatherboys
8. Starlight
9. Dying Breed
10. Final Journey
11. Shadow Soldiers
12. From the Ashes We Rise
13. Restless and Wild
14. Ahead of the Pack
15. No Shelter
16. Princess of the Dawn
17. Dark Side of My Heart
18. Pandemic
19. Fast as a Shark
—dodatek—
20. Metal Heart
21. Teutonic Terror
22. Balls to the Wall
23. Bound to Fail (taped outro)