Label: AFM Records
Release date: March 26, 2021
Album length: 148.15 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 9.5/10
The legendary Udo Dirkschneider, the man who co-founded Accept, the first band in the history of German heavy metal, and whose razor-sharp, charismatic voice is known to anyone who has ever bet on old-school classic metal, set 2,500 crazed fans on fire with his U.D.O. crew in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on September 18, 2020. And he did it in the middle of a year that will go down forever as the “quietest” in the world of metal and music in general.
So U.D.O. are back with their new live album, the fifth of their career. 2020 was a brutal year full of hard trials, but on that September day last year, despite strict pandemic measures, the band still managed to pull off a live show in an ancient Roman amphitheater in the middle of Plovdiv. Their first and only one that year.
Last July the band also put out a brand new studio album, “We Are One”, which is in a way as much a U.D.O. album as it is a record by the German Armed Forces’ state orchestra – more details in the RockLine review. For “Live in Bulgaria 2020 – Pandemic Survival Show”, the band logically followed up on the last purebred U.D.O. album, “Steelfactory”, which came out in late summer 2018 (RockLine review). They kept the stage set and put plenty of tracks from that album in the setlist. The band took that record all over the world, and luckily it came out early enough for them to do some serious touring and summer festival gigs. They’ve still got a bundle of shows booked for this fall and even the start of 2022 in support of the album. Anyway, anyone who followed the band through the 2019 live season knows roughly what the setlist looked like. No Accept songs. Only U.D.O. That might bug the U.D.O. purists a little, since they don’t yet have a single U.D.O. live album in their collection made up entirely of U.D.O. material. Well, the “Steelfactory 2018/2019” tour was the perfect opportunity for exactly that.
For the Plovdiv show, though, the iconic singer and his crew aired out the setlist and brought the Accept classics back in. Right at the start we get a surprise in the excellent “Metal Heart” classic Midnight Mover, and Princess of a Down is slotted into the middle of the set – just like in the not-so-distant Dirkschneider days. The closing stretch has changed the most, peaking with the Accept classics Fast as a Shark, Metal Heart (where the witty integration of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor is fascinating) and, of course, the inevitable Accept classic of all classics, Balls To the Wall. And this show doesn’t run (just) two hours – it clocks in at a full two hours and twenty minutes. That’s something special too.
After all the Dirkschneider shows wrapped up, U.D.O. shook up the lineup once more. They brought in the Slovenian bass whiz Tilen Hudrap (who gets a solo spot in the set) and German guitarist Fabian Dammers. Alongside his son Sven on drums and the outstanding Russian guitarist Andrey Smirnov, Udo Dirkschneider has put together a crew that keeps the legendary singer flying high through roughly two hours of the new U.D.O. era. The man looks rejuvenated and renewed on stage, radiates commitment and, above all, shows incredible vocal power for his age. Mind you, he turned a not-so-modest 69 at the start of this April, and his voice holds up with amazing stamina and preservation. With the crew he has right now, Udo won’t be thinking about retirement for at least another ten years. He sings phenomenally. When you tune in to the details of U.D.O. tracks like Vendetta, Timebomb or the new Hungry And Angry, and to the fact that the Accept classics get that true-blue contour that Hoffmann’s Accept today sorely miss without Udo’s unique, one-of-a-kind vocal approach, it’s simply astounding how untouched Udo Dirkschneider’s voice has remained through his biblical musical career. Not to mention the virtuoso execution of the young guns backing this vocal legend of metal. The team effect feels like doomsday. The last day of humanity. Right before the apocalypse. Add the effect of the red-hot Bulgarian crowd, which gives the product that much more charm.
“Live in Bulgaria 2020 – Pandemic Survival Show” is a must for all U.D.O. fans. Especially for everyone who managed to catch the band at one of the shows supporting the “Steelfactory” album. Not to mention all the lucky ones who took their spot in the unique setting of the ancient Roman amphitheater on that September day in 2020. Several world-famous acts have played here and later crowned their shows with live album releases. From Asia to Sons of Apollo and Devin Townsend. A Marillion show is available too, which the band sells on its website as a “bootleg”. So it’s a one-of-a-kind ambience that generates equally one-of-a-kind performances, and that goes for this U.D.O. show too, which the band wisely took advantage of. They recorded it and released a new live document. As I said. Udo Dirkschneider and crew fascinate yet again with their uniqueness and a brilliant, incredibly tight performance, fueled by a tangle of mighty experience, mileage, superior chemistry, and perfectly honed stage execution studied down to the last detail. In short, we never run out of superlatives as “Live in Bulgaria 2020 – Pandemic Survival Show” leads the listener from the first second to the last through the legacy of the ossified, primal school of German heavy metal, and through a high-octane assault of one-of-a-kind, primal heavy metal magic, keeping you constantly on the tips of your toes with emotional tension and passion.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
CD1
01 Tongue Reaper (04:35)
02 Make The Move (04:33)
03 Midnight Mover (04:32)
04 Wrong Side Of Midnight (04:28)
05 Metal Machine (04:53)
06 Independence Day (07:22)
07 Rose In The Desert (06:16)
08 Vendetta (04:46)
09 Rising High (04:04)
10 Prologue: The Great Unknown (02:23)
11 In The Darkness (04:57)
12 I Give As Good As I Get (04:59)
13 Princess Of The Dawn (11:28)
CD2
01 Timebomb (05:13)
02 Drum Solo (04:10)
03 Bass Solo (03:41)
04 Hungry And Angry (04:21)
05 One Heart One Soul (06:22)
06 Man And Machine (06:48)
07 Animal House (04:46)
08 They Want War (05:22)
09 Metal Heart (11:01)
10 Fast As Shark (05:26)
11 Balls To The Wall (10:41)
12 Outro (Stillness Of Time) (01:09)
Line-up:
Udo Dirkschneider – vocals
Andrey Smirnov – guitar
Fabian “Dee” Dammers – guitar
Tilen Hudrap – bass
Sven Dirkschneider – drums
