Location: Faak Am See (Faaker See) / Harley Davidson Biker’s Week / Austria
Date: Friday, 08.09.2012
And it has rolled into our neck of the woods for the fifteenth year running! The new European Bike Week, with the Harley Davidson factory as its main sponsor, is the biggest gathering of its kind on European soil, bringing together lovers of steel horses. As always, the organizer put together a packed concert program for the whole week, as the famous spot in Austrian Carinthia near the village of Faak Am See, on Lake Faak (Faaker See) close to Villach, once again turned into a proper biker village.
Like every year, what pulled us to Lake Faak was the peak of the festival’s concert offering, scheduled for the second-to-last day of the event, when the lineup squeezed in the band of the late “Bonzo” John Bonham’s (Led Zeppelin) daughter Sarah Bonham, the legendary British art rockers 10CC and, closing out the bill, Snakecharmer, a lineup of rock history superstars gathered from all corners to give Whitesnake fans a true revelation, since the leading figures of this outfit are Micky Moody and Neil Murray, both ex-Whitesnake men.
10CC:
The first band to delight us in the middle of this peculiar event, where bikers from all over Europe were having their beer party while us music enthusiasts waited impatiently for the two main attractions of the night, were the legendary British art rock greats 10cc, who these days only rarely make it this far south, or anywhere outside their British home turf. The sound of the utterly unique 10cc is easiest to describe as extremely intelligent, melodic, variable, socially astute and witty rock music right on the border between art rock and pop rock, closest to everyone who swears by the legacy of the Beatles, McCartney’s Wings, Supertramp and Electric Light Orchestra.
Of the original 10cc lineup, only bassist/vocalist Graham Gouldman is still around, still excellent on both bass and vocals, along with drummer Paul Burgess (over his career he’s been a member of bands like Jethro Tull, Camel, Magna Carta and The Icicle Works). Keeping them company on stage were longtime guitarist/vocalist Rick Finn, the hugely charismatic multi-instrumentalist and singer Mick Wilson, whom we last saw in July in Trieste as the vocalist of Three Friends, and keyboardist/vocalist Mike Stevens. The latter two have been in the band since 1999, which means they’ve long since become ‘old cats’ themselves.
They opened the show with the unforgettable “Sheet Music” (1974) evergreen “The Wall Street Shuffle” and had us completely won over within the first few minutes with their magic combination of hypermelodic vocal harmonies, led by Mick Wilson’s falsettos, layered guitar passages and mighty symphonic arrangements, the hallmark of most of their best work. Wilson’s insanely high falsettos stood out especially on the doo-wop burlesque “Donna”, while a great rendition of “The Things We Do For Love” put the virtuoso skills of the individual multi-instrumentalists in the spotlight. The gorgeous ballad “I’m Not in Love”, on the other hand, showed off their subtler side.
The “The Original Soundtrack” (1975) classic “Life Is a Minestrone” ‘blew our heads off’ down in front of the stage with its playful tempo and sardonic lyrics, where British humor with a strong Beatles stamp once again hit a peak through gorgeous multi-part vocal harmonies. The highlight of the gig, as expected, was the evergreen reggae hybrid “Dreadlock Holiday”, with its legendary, ultra-sarcastic lyrics about a ‘holiday gone wrong’ in Jamaica through the eyes of the average (spoiled) English tourist. The atmosphere was extremely intense and almost magical the whole time. Even the proverbially laid-back ‘biker’ crowd, made up mostly of locals, eventually started breathing as one with the band. For the encore they played “Rubber Bullets”, which comes from 10cc’s 1973 debut, and amid thunderous ovations that just wouldn’t die down, they slowly said their goodbyes and left the stage to make room for Snakecharmer, the evening’s next attraction.
Thanks to their incredibly tight performance, backed by ideal sound, 10cc were the real stars of the night in every respect, and they proved that while celebrating their fortieth anniversary (a special box set is in the works to mark the round milestone in style), they are still in superb form and, despite the mostly graying heads of some members, are pulling their train toward new challenges at full steam. Who knows, maybe a new 10cc studio album will finally drop in the 21st century, the one we’ve been waiting for since 1995.
SNAKECHARMER:
After 10CC, the stage cleared up for Snakecharmer. Off it went Mick Wilson’s (10CC) percussion and Paul Burgess’s (10CC) drums! Snakecharmer is a band made up of grand masters of their craft. They did, however, arrive at Faak Am See in a slightly modified lineup. On keys, the regular Snakecharmer member Adam Wakeman, otherwise Ozzy Osbourne’s keyboardist and the son of the notorious “Yes man” Rick Wakeman, was replaced for this gig by the seasoned master John Young, who has worked with a whole host of well-known names on the world rock map, such as Scorpions, Bonnie Tyler, Greenslade, Asia, John Wetton, Fish, The Law, Paul Rodgers, Qango, Uli Jon Roth, Roy Wood, Lucio Battisti and Jon Anderson, and since 2002 has led his own band, The John Young Band. The second swap Snakecharmer had to find was behind the drums, where Jimmy Copley (The Bad Apples, ex-Manfred Mann’s Earth Band) jumped in to replace regular member Harry James (Thunder, Magnum). The rest of the band, of course, is made up of the out-of-the-ordinary blues master Micky Moody (ex-Whitesnake), bassist Neil Murray (Colosseum II, Giglamesh, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Peter Green Splinter Group,….) and yet another guitarist from the classic annals of rock, Laurie Wisefield (Wishbone Ash, Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Roger Chapman), while on vocals the lineup was joined by the excellent frontman of British AOR rockers Heartland, Chris Ousey! A combination, in other words, that can’t hide and can’t fail to deliver, judging by the names alone. A real treat was on the cards.
True to the band’s name, Snakecharmer hit the crowd with nothing but Whitesnake repertoire! But the band was in for an unpleasant experience. Sure, the biker crowd doesn’t come to these get-togethers primarily for rock concerts, but what awaited Snakecharmer in front of the stage looked like the misery of all miseries of humankind as we know it. People had come to the front of the stage only to wait for the raffle results. The prizes were three Harley Davidson motorcycles. Once the raffle was over, they started marching out, even before 10CC took the stage. Already during 10 CC the place had visibly thinned out, and by the time Snakecharmer stepped up, all that was left was a dozen rock fans, and quite visibly drunk and staggering ones at that. So a good 100 people. At a gathering that draws over 10,000 visitors. Funny, isn’t it.
Snakecharmer kicked off the show with Walking in the Shadow Of The Blues. Over the good hour that followed, the performance gradually lost intensity, which is not the band’s fault but the audience’s unresponsiveness and apathy. You could feel it, and you could see it especially in Chris Ousey’s performance, that the man wasn’t using all his power. He sang quite a few lines very sloppily, or didn’t sing them at all, as in Fool For Your Loving, for instance. A bit more enthusiasm from the crowd could be felt during Here I Go Again, which was included in the set purely to get the audience on its feet, since Micky Moody would definitely never play it live otherwise. Still, Snakecharmer got nothing more than the uncontrolled howling of two sozzled coyotes leaning on the barrier during Here I Go Again. Sadly.
Anyway! These old cats have too much experience to show weakness. The main man who dragged the listlessness of the vibes, as triggered by Snakecharmer’s reach, up from the bottom was undoubtedly Micky Moody that night. This extremely charismatic stage statue has that soft, groaning blues touch you could search for with a lit lantern in broad daylight and never find. Control, focus! Micky is a man of elegance and wisdom who knows how to chisel golden notes of blues! That was pointed out above all by the solo, which flowed from the opening “ragtime” ditty into a proper “slide show” escalation of “delta blues” rhetoric, where Micky made it clear he’s still one of the most refined “white bluesmen” ever to sprout on the planet in the annals of rock.
Besides the Whitesnake classics, the guys also played two originals, Smoking Gun and, to close, the sprawling Turn Of The Screw, into which they also wove a short drum solo. A studio debut is evidently on the horizon. Sound-wise things worked nicely, only Young’s keyboards were set too quiet, which spoiled the impression especially in the verse of the ultra Whitesnake hit Here I Go Again. A confident and compact performance, but with quite a bit still in reserve.
The handful of people who found themselves in front of the stage that night solely for the 10CC and Snakecharmer gigs didn’t need any special consultation with the most illustrious Albert Einstein to reach the closing conclusion on their own: that night, 10CC stole the show from Snakecharmer with the pinky of their left hand!
author: Peter Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Snakecharmer setlist:
1. Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues
2. Ready an’ Willing
3. Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
4. Smoking Gun!
5. Micky Moody guitar solo
6. Slow N’ Easy
7. Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City
8. Here I Go Again
9. Fool for Your Loving
10. Turn Of The Screw
