Author: Primož Novak, Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Salzburg / Rockhouse / Austria
Concert date: January 10, 2018
Attendance: 140
Ticket price: €30.00
As a rule, concert calendars in January are empty. This year, though, started a little differently. So there was no concert hibernation even in the first month of the new calendar year. The first interesting thing to happen relatively close to Slovenia, and one that breathed classic metal, was a stop by the long-running Hamburg heavy metallers Rage, who rolled into the Rockhouse club in Salzburg. The whole thing got even more interesting because Rage brought Greek power metallers Firewind along on this European tour, with the famous Gus G on guitar, known as a former member of the backing band of the »Prince of Darkness« (and good burlesque, editor’s note) Ozzy Osbourne. So it was time for a hop over to Salzburg.
The clock struck eight in the evening, and Australian heavy metal revivalists Darker Half hit the stage. The Sydney quartet, represented by Vo Simpson (vocals, guitar), Simon Hamilton (bass), Dom Simpson (drums) and Jimmy Lardner-Brown (guitar), are anything but a flash in the pan. This is a band with serious experience, even if in Europe they’re still a lesser-known name on the metal scene. In the past they’ve shared stages with Queensryche, Edguy, Sonata Arctica, Dark Funeral, Children of Bodom, Nightwish, Accept, Helloween, Stratovarius and a few others, and they’ve also served as a backing band for Tim »Ripper« Owens, the temporary replacement for Rob Halford in Judas Priest, and for two former Maiden vocalists, Blaze Bayley and of course »the spicy horned legend with issues« Paul »Puta Madre Softić« Di’Anno. The band has three studio albums behind them, but only the current one, »Never Surrender«, is the first to come out on the European market too. Last year the guys also released the EP »Classified«, and their hard work and persistence have finally put them in front of the European concert crowds close to home. The band is very tight. Vo Simmons’s vocal character was also hugely likable. A tall, clean, polished, dominant voice. Add his excellent soloing. The band was seriously into it, and Vo kept chatting away to the Salzburg crowd. Nice power metal with a decisive musical edge and a pile of old-school finesse, pleasantly in sync and confident in everything they took on. If anything, the vocals sat a bit too low in the mix, but otherwise Darker Half delivered a pleasant surprise to kick off the evening.
After a more than solid warm-up from Australian power metallers Darker Half, the stage was reserved for Firewind, who come from Greece, though these days they feature a German-born singer and a Belgian-born drummer. Despite the tiny stage of Rockhaus’s small hall, the quintet took command of it without any trouble. The one who stands out most in Firewind is of course the renowned guitarist Gus G., an experienced and extremely skilled player who, among other things, worked with Ozzy Osbourne for a few years. Gus G. showed with the opening track Ode to Leonidas from the current album Immortals that his form isn’t slipping. True, Gus G. got the most attention, but it would be unfair to overlook the other members, who ran through the set with confidence. The other standout here is Bob Katsionis, who played keyboards and guitar. Not only did he back the music up brilliantly with his keyboards and solo spots, he also helped out on rhythm guitar, and he even played the odd melody together with Gus. The rhythm section was solid; for power metal it could have shown a bit more, but as a whole it worked well. Current vocalist Henning Basse sang the band’s material solidly; his vocal tone isn’t the best, but his charisma and energy add value. Firewind roughly walked through their whole career. Besides the obligatory new stuff, they played a recognizable track from every album, so the band delivered a sensible best-of. As the cherry on top, during the last song Gus G. strolled out into the crowd, where he served up one last virtuoso solo. Firewind don’t bring anything new to power metal, which doesn’t mean they don’t deserve attention. The band has a great sense of melody and catchiness. On top of that, they have a polished stage show, and there’s nothing to complain about in how tight they are either.
After Firewind’s set, the packed crowd of red-hot heads who’d gone wild during their show thinned out noticeably. They didn’t leave the front rows just for a smoke. After the smoke they settled somewhere further back in the room, or even left altogether. That showed that this time, for the people at the Salzburg show, Friewind were the main attraction, or the main reason they came. And yet. We’re still hovering around a hundred people in the middle of the »tunnel-like« dive in Salzburg, which in many ways reminds me of Vienna’s Viper Room, where, interestingly, we saw Rage in December 2015, when they played the whole classic album »Black In Mind« live, in the same lineup.
The years show a little on Peter »Peavy« Wagner, the undisputed chief of the band, but only in his voice. Over the years it has thickened and dropped considerably. Peavy keeps up the drive and the enthusiasm, and hats off to the Hamburg heavy metal legend for still bothering with the revamped Rage in these new times. This is a band that has truly experienced absolutely everything in the metal business, and Peavy really has nothing left to prove. Quite the opposite. The man enjoys the new situation and his own skin. He enjoys playing, the new crew, the new music for new times that Rage present on stage. »Seasons of the Black« is the band’s current new studio album, and it got the most attention in the legendary band’s live set. The two new members, Marcos Rodriguez (guitar) and Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos (drums), proved during the show that they’ve grown even more together with Peavy, and the whole performance delivered an even more convincing experience than the band’s show in Vienna in December 2015. Lucky and Marcos came across as even more confident, more refined, more precise, more decisive and more focused in everything they did. The show was thus even tighter and played on a higher level compared to the Vienna experience. No need to waste words on Peavy. The living legend still has that charisma that has fans eating out of his hand. Of course, he didn’t forget to entertain the crowd with a generous helping of humor, either. The man radiated cheerfulness and was in a great mood and high spirits the whole night.
As expected, the band focused mostly on the new material, almost entirely skipping the Smolski era. The only exception was the super catchy and grabby (more simply structured) Straight to Hell. This time, the evening was spiced up with three tracks: the title track of the album »End of All Days, then Nevermore from the album »The Missing Link« and a surprise from »XII« called Turn the Page. The band also kept the »Black in Mind« track Price of War in the setlist, and Sent By the Devil still counts as one of their strongest compositions (also from the album »Black in Mind«). The new material ties in superbly with the first nineties era as well as the eighties, and on their time-travel through the discography Rage went back as far as 1989, when in the closing part of the show they pretty much had to play Don’t Fear the Winter.
The fact that times haven’t been rosy for Rage for ages, and that the band lost quite a bit of live and compositional appeal after the split with Wagner and Smolski, is confirmed by the fact that Rage had to work two covers into their set at the end, Heaven And Hell (Black Sabbath) and Holy Diver (DIO). That somehow kept the crowd with them right to the end of the show. That said, both new albums by the trio in its revamped lineup hold all the quality and the appealing link to the first half of Rage’s nineties career.
Review of Firewind: Primož Nolvak
Review of Darker Half, Rage: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
FIREWIND:
1. Leonidas
2. We Defy
3. Head Up High
4. Few Against Many
5. Between Heaven And Hell
6. World On Fire
7. Fire And the Fury
8. Wars of Ages
9. Lady of A Thousands Sorrows
10. Mercenary Man
11. Tyranny
12. Falling To Pieces
RAGE:
1. Justify
2. Sent BY The Devil
3. From the Cradle to the Grave
4. My Way
5. Nevermore
6. Seasons of the Black
7. End of All Days
8. Turn the Page
9. Straight To Hell
10. Price Of War
11. Blackened Karma
12. Don’t Fear the Winter
—encore—
13. Higher Than The Sky
Photo Gallery
