Performing: Motörhead, Anthrax, Diaries Of A Hero
Location: Munich / Zenith Halle / Germany
Date: December 1, 2012
The year has come full circle, the frost has set in, and as usual it brought a new Motörhead tour of Great Britain and Germany, two countries that have long been loyal to heavy metal. Autumn after autumn, Motörhead sail through the usual stops across both countries and, like clockwork, leave sold-out halls and hordes of happy devotees in their wake.
But this year there’s something new! At the end of the German tour, right before Lemmy and company pack their bags and spend the holidays on vacation, they’ll also stop in Ljubljana, at the same “scene of the crime” where the famous 1989 show went down, the one Lemmy still remembers today for a bloody incident. The announced Ljubljana show cut down the number of regular travelers from the sunny side of the Alps to their traditionally closest date for us, Munich, but of course that didn’t stop Rockline from catching Motörhead once more.
Aleš and I made it to the hall just before the end of the Bundesliga derby, where hometown Bayern and Borussia Dortmund were going at it at the Allianz Arena, right next door to Zenith Halle. So we narrowly dodged the traffic jams and caught the opening act Diaries Of A Hero, who, judging by the length of the frontman’s beard, have some miles behind them. Sadly (or luckily?), though, their modern style didn’t spark much interest in a crowd loyal to traditional metal. Into a varied song structure that ranged somewhere between thrash metal and metalcore, the Brits mixed in a pile of tired breakdowns and so fell even deeper into the trap of not exactly shaking up the metal world. Far from it – the moment they left the stage after a good half hour, they were already forgotten.
The curtain with the name of the first support act dropped and fully revealed the cover of Anthrax’s new record “Worship Music”, the album that handed the Americans back their long-lost credibility and put them back on the current metal map! Yes, this time Motörhead took a really strong support act on tour! It was time for a steel-plated mosh pit workout called Anthrax!
After the lukewarm reviews of their shows on the “Big Four” tours over the past two years, I was skeptical about their form myself, but the New Yorkers kicked me straight in the crotch with a bombastic show! They opened the gig with the classic Caught in a Mosh and followed it with the new single Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t, which showed why people are saying Anthrax are the real deal again! The angry riffing and the trademark punchy multi-part vocals before the melodic section of the chorus let Anthrax redefine themselves and embody that in the new material, so the three new songs found their place among the eighties classics with total credibility. They managed to find the old recipe again! Anthrax dedicated the song In The End to the late brothers Ronnie James Dio and Dimebag Darrell, while the last new tune played, The Devil You Know, only showed up toward the end of the set.
Ian Scott and Rob Caggiano kept swapping places and, together with bassist Frank Bello, shot the spirit of a genuine eighties thrash metal party into the hall, the kind where nobody knows who’s drinking and who’s paying! Joey Belladonna is fantastic! The frontman, back in the classic lineup, rampaged around the stage with his hot-blooded Native American blood and kept stirring up the beginnings of a “war dance”. One of the best moments came right during the hit Indians, when a fan with a lavish feather headdress flew into the front rows of the crowd, and of course Belladonna didn’t stay in his debt and gave it right back! With the song Deathrider from the debut “Fistful of Metal” (1984), Ian Scott thanked Motörhead for the creative inspiration at the start of their career, and Anthrax went on to line up Madhouse, with Belladonna’s intro of the first verse of the Judas Priest classic Ripper, a cover of Joe Jackson’s Got The Time and, for the farewell, the unforgettable I Am the Law. An hour-long trip through the wickedly punchy Anthrax school, powered by the drum hits of stand-in drummer Jon Dette, firmly threw out the theory that Anthrax’s time had run out. They offered the best they’ve got and delivered!
After a break came the final act of the night, time for the immortal promoters of the rawest version of rock’n’roll, time for Motörhead! Out of a cloud of thick fog, Mikkey Dee, Phil Campbell and Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister stepped before the sold-out Zenith Halle. Lemmy, as is his old habit, walked up to the mic and growled the iron words: “Good evening, we are Motörhead”. Ice-cold words that nonetheless sped up heartbeats, brought the blood to a boil and set everyone feverish! Now it’s getting real!
Motörhead kicked off the show with I Know How to Die, which, as it turned out later, was the only song from their newer material in the setlist. Two years have passed since the release of the latest album “The Wörld Is Yours”, so working its key moments into the live shows is already a thing of the past for this British heavy rock institution – which is of course grist to the mill for those who prefer Motörhead’s creative peak of the first half of the eighties! Damage Case, Stay Clean and Metropolis recalled the golden days of Eddie Clarke, and after the triple dose from “Overkill” (1979) even Lemmy took a few moments this evening to catch his breath and address the in-high-spirits crowd.
From what we saw, Lemmy Kilmister remains a creature who is treated almost like a deity! The man, with his grim look and statically cold-blooded stage presence, his forehead covered by the familiar Yankee hat with a sheriff’s badge in the middle, rode his endless charisma to easily command a crowd that was practically eating out of his hand. Guitarist Campbell and Lemmy himself also know how to have fun with the Lemmy cult through their back-and-forth banter. Whenever it was time to hit the gas, Phil handed the mic over to the boss on the right side of the stage, who held the audience in check with one of his well-rehearsed jokes. Behind those two, drummer of Greek roots Mikkey Dee pounded away at the kit, the liveliest of the trio, since, unlike the seemingly calm guitar duo in front of him, he beat the drums like an animal, with only a disheveled tuft of his hair bouncing up above them.
The invasion of raw rock’n’roll noise on our eardrums continued after Campbell’s solo, which Lemmy used for a quick dash to the oxygen mask backstage, with a deep focus on the classic material, though the set also featured two songs from the album “1916” (The One to Sing the Blues and Going to Brazil). The bouncy riff treat Killed by Death signaled that the show was nearing its end. Drenched in sweat but seemingly completely calm, even after a good hour on stage Lemmy managed to defy, vocally, the merciless age that is wearing him down physically more and more. Before leaving the stage, the anthemic Ace of Spades howled once more, an energetic bomb that, like a deadly march, wrung the last atoms of strength out of the crowd below the stage. You could feel genuine energy, which, at least as far as Motörhead shows go, hits its peak on German soil every single time!
As a big thank-you to classic rock, which they drew their inspiration from long ago, Motörhead returned to the stage with a Thin Lizzy cover, Are You Ready, before an hour and twenty minutes of intense togetherness came to its expected end with the ancient slap in the face that is Overkill.
What is there to say at the end? Motörhead stay true to their slogan “everything louder than everyone else”, and their shows to one single goal: rock’n’roll mayhem, even at the cost of occasional misfires in the eyes of music connoisseurs. Motörhead have simply always been messengers of primitive noise and, as such, are made more for tearing down venues live than for listening to on the couch at home! “Bastards” in the truest sense of the word! But one thing is clear. Their time is slowly running out, which, given their constant touring, is visible in Lemmy’s increasingly frail figure, and because of it Motörhead shows have started getting shorter, too. And that’s exactly one more reason why catching the Ljubljana show is a must! The fact is, we just won’t be able to watch them forever… even if Lemmy is immortal!
author: Urban Bolta
Setlist:
MOTÖRHEAD:
1. I Know How to Die
2. Damage Case
3. Stay Clean
4. Metropolis
5. Over the Top
6. Doctor Rock
7. Guitar Solo
8. The Chase Is Better Than the Catch
9. Rock It
10. You Better Run
11.The One to Sing the Blues
12. Drum Solo (plus The One To Sing The Blues outro)
13. Going to Brazil
14. Killed by Death
15. Ace of Spades
—encore—
16. Are You Ready
17. Overkill
ANTHRAX:
1. Worship (taped intro)
2. Caught in a Mosh
3. Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t
4. Antisocial
5. Indians
6. Hymn 1 (taped intro)
7. In the End
8. Deathrider
9. Madhouse
10. Got the Time
11. The Devil You Know
12. I Am the Law
13. Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll (taped outro)
