Location: Roncade (Treviso) / New Age / Italy
Date: 11/23/2007
Unbelievable! With how much I zip around Europe by every means possible, it still happens that I end up at a gig completely alone, with no company whatsoever. This time none of the big talkers had the guts, in the end, to put their faith in a Bonfire show, or, to put it bluntly, in themselves. So it was hard to resist the 20th anniversary celebration of Bonfire, with an invitation to play that came from the New Age club in the Italian suburbs of Treviso, close to Slovenia. Sure, the Germans left their best years behind in the eighties, but with the excellent “Double X” album released last year and its confirmation this year with the live recording “Double Vision” (2007), captured at the notorious “Firefest III.” festival (Nottingham, Great Britain), they signaled that they’re coming back to the scene in a big way and that they’ve far from forgotten how to kick some serious ass with their rock n’ roll heritage. So the old bastards are still plowing through stages in the new millennium too, with the undiminished intensity of their hard rock presence, classic German school.
Claus Lessmann (vocals), Hans Ziller (guitar), Jürgen “Bam Bam” Wiehler (drums), Uwe Köhler (bass) and, joining last year, second guitarist Chris “Yps” Limburg! So, as always, two full hours of driving and? I got there a little before 8 p.m. Mistake. The club opening cost me another hour and a half of waiting. The first impression was dreadful. Had I come all the way to Treviso for nothing? There wasn’t a living soul in front of the club, and the front door was locked. Not even the poster that usually hangs on the entrance door was there. The only hope came from a van with German plates from Ingolstadt parked in front of the club, and the occasional crash of drums echoing through the walls. Then, just before nine, the space in front of the club started filling up. Doors opened at 9:30 p.m. Bonfire CDs, including the latest releases, were going for €10.00 each, which was very promising and unusual. Well, let’s go straight to the heart of the action.
BURNING BLACK: 10:00 p.m. – 10:35 p.m.
The young Italians made no secret of their influences and their obsession with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. That showed not only in the sounds detonating from the stage, but also in the stage outfits the boys go for. The bass player looked like a literal copy of Steve Harris (Iron Maiden). Technique is the least you can bring to the table these days if you want to work in the music business. Finding your own voice and expressing it boldly, that’s another story. Luckily they sounded a bit like Judas Priest and a bit like Iron Maiden, for just 35 minutes. The singer didn’t hide his weak spot either, since he never managed to carry the power of his vocal delivery from the middle register up into the high or highest ones. Of course he tried to cover up this lack of skill with the occasional “scream” (the way Halford does it, only noticeably better), but where he should have held on to melody and power while climbing, he simply crashed and burned. Thanks to the raspy singing style and a somewhat dull timbre, Burning Black carry a nice dose of obscure darkness in their music, which even pulls toward the sound of New Wave Of British Metal bands. The guitars were nicely matched in the harmonies, with a few slips in the transitions, and the drummer dozed off a couple of times too, while the solos sounded like a heap of scales slapped together in a hurry. The tonality of those scales somehow doesn’t fit the classic copied eighties riffs, which strive for a strict magnification of the melody. Young and promising, may time bring them an enviable upgrade in every department. Both in expression and in the stuff that knocks on the door of commercial success. Among others, the songs Burning Black played in Treviso were: Fight The Dream, Prisoner Of Steel, Life Passangers, Heavy Metal Is My Law.
BONFIRE: 11:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m.
And here are the legendary German hard rockers. The guys sank into total obscurity, but they’re waking up again. Last year they released their “Double X” comeback album, a proper band-aid after the mediocre “Free” (2003), and of course that’s how the show kicked off too. With Day 911 and But We Still Rock from that album. The quintet attacked in a typical “all or nothing” onslaught on the stage. You could see right away that, as far as stage performances go, Bonfire outgrew small stages like the one at New Age long ago. But today’s reality is different, and if a melodic hard rock band wants to sweat it out live, it simply has to fight its way through the club scene too. Bonfire really are frugal guys. Before their show, a single person took care of the sound, the instrument setup and the stage lighting. He was the tech for all the instruments, the tour manager, everything in one. Before the show Bonfire were selling their merch. Besides the gentleman manning the till, Limburg and Wiehler were sitting in an armchair in the lobby of the little hall. Of course neither of them hid their curiosity about how many Bonfire discs would sell. In short, the band took things into its own hands! And it looks after its own survival. And does so very strictly.
Let’s go back down in front of the stage. There were a modest 150 people, ten fewer rather than more. But the crowd made no secret of knowing the repertoire inside out, and the female part of the audience was especially loud. Claus proved to be an exceptional frontman during the show. Between songs, with longer speeches, he constantly took care of the good mood and an atmosphere charged with positive rock n’ roll energy.
Bonfire couldn’t have put together a better setlist, since out of the 19 songs played in total (not counting the drum solo, which was a completely unnecessary filler), a full 13 came from their most successful period, that is, from their first three albums in a row, “Don’t Touch The Light” (1986), “Ready 4 Reaction” (1987) and “Point Black” (1989). The guys staged a compact, supremely tight performance steeped in adrenaline catharsis, full of bombast thanks to the delivery of their biggest hits, which rolled out one after another all evening. The biggest surprise came toward the end of the night, when the guys tackled an ancient song by Loverboy singer/guitarist Paul Dean called Sword And Stone, which originally appeared on Paul’s solo debut “Hardcore” (1988). This song, which was originally written and composed by members of Kiss, was dressed up by Bonfire in their own version and released on the EP “Shocker Soundtrack” (1989). That release is a real rarity, and the song came out again on the Bonfire “best of” album “Golden Years” in 2002.
The guys also treated themselves to a few devilish skits, the standout being the water spitting between Claus and Hans, the original members of Bonfire. Claus started the prank, moving up to Hans from barely half a meter away and spitting water in his face. Hans looked totally surprised (though it’s really a well-rehearsed trick). Claus tenderly wiped his buddy off with a towel, since Hans was right in the middle of a solo. Of course Hans didn’t stay indebted for this slimy deed, but after his execution he theatrically fled the stage so that nothing worse would happen to him, and then, when Claus introduced the band to the congregation, he once again theatrically crawled back onto the stage on his knees.
People enjoyed the closing stretch most, especially the sequence of Bonfire’s obligatory crowd-igniters, Bang Down The Door and Ready 4 Reaction. The evergreen ballad Who’s Foolin’ Who also went down a treat. The evening of explosions of Bonfire’s famous melodic hard rock obscenities came fully back to life when the guys returned to play both encores. It’s the habit of “loverboy” bands to start the encore with a ballad. We could see that for ourselves this October at the Gotthard show in Graz. A bold move, though not a fatal one in this case, since you can allow yourself such a trick when you’re sure it always earns high approval from the female part of the audience. And yet there’s another reason behind it. Before the encores the guys had played only two songs from the studio debut (the obligatory Don’t Touch The Light and Hot To Rock). And the first encore was completely devoted to the debut. The sweet You Make Me Feel was followed by the toxic little projectile SDI, then the guys disappeared backstage for a short while and came back to go wild at New Age once more, this time with the perverse rock n’ roll orgy Hard On Me (“Point Black”, 1989).
The whole show lasted a few minutes over two hours. For just €20.00. Excellent sound, excellent performance. No brakes. A show packed with positive energy the whole way through, with genuine tomfoolery and the authoritative command of Claus, who, to be honest, no longer has such a distinctive and fresh voice as in his best years, but damn it! Every one of us has an expiration date.
The Bonfire gig, which paid off richly by any measure, was marred only by the small turnout. You got a ton of fun and above all excellent music (which of course all the die-hard fans, as many of them as are still alive, would say first, and they wouldn’t be wrong in the slightest)! With ever louder rumors that Bonfire might visit Slovenia in February 2008, this experience in the little town of Roncade was an overture of sorts and a priceless one. Above all it served as proof that melodic hard rock today is still kicking like crazy. Even in 2007, when it’s been pushed into the total anti-trend underground, while the people’s money gets sucked up mainly by bands who not only can’t play, they can’t even “play” rock! Eh, my eternal frustrations! Away with them, so we don’t spoil the excellent taste of the authentic rock n’ roll striptease of Bonfire!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Day 991
2. But We Still Rock
3. Never Mind
4. Under Blue Skies
5. Hot To Rock
6. Don’t Touch The Light
7. Tony’s Roulette
8. Proud Of My Country
9. Sleeping All Alone
10. Who’s Foolin’ Who
11. Blink Of An Eye
12. American Nights
13. Sword And Stone
14. Sweet Obsession
15. Bang Down The Door
16. Ready 4 Reaction
—encore 1—
17. You Make Me Feel
18. SDI
—encore 2—
19. Hard On Me
