Location: Seebronn (Rottenburg am Neckar) / Festplatz / Germany
Date: Saturday, July 30, 2016
Day two of the German festival of rock pioneers and “legends” that is Rock of Ages was billed as the centerpiece of this year’s edition. The program kicked off at 11:30 in the morning and ran until midnight, packing in nine bands in total.
This time, since we had to spread our forces thin, we skipped the first two acts. At 11:30 the German hard rockers Cucumber (founded in 1991) took the stage and no doubt served up a nice warm-up, followed by the much younger Blackslash, who brought forty minutes of hearty heavy metal revivalism to the stage, drawing on the legacy of the famed New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and presented their current album, their second overall, “Sinister Lightning” (2015).
The RockLine crew arrived at the grounds at half past one, just as big rock veterans Lucifer’s Friend were on stage. This is a German-British outfit formed in 1970 that put out most of its albums during the seventies. The discography was shut down for a long stretch by the album “Mean Machine” in 1981, after which Lucifer’s Friend sank into several years of creative hibernation. The awakening was announced by “The Awakening”, a sort of compilation with new songs, released last year. Three original members are in Lucifer’s Friend today: the famous vocalist John Lawton, who in the second half of the seventies also sang on three Uriah Heep records, bassist Dieter Horns, whom Lawton introduced during the show as “… and Mr. Rock’n’roll himself…”, and guitarist Peter Hesslein. The lineup is rounded out by keyboardist Jogi Weismann, who joined in 1994, and drummer Stephan Eggert, a member since 2014. The band put on an excellent one-hour show. As expected, they dug into the new songs from “The Awakening”, but they also played a nice helping of classics, led by Keep Goin’ and Ride the Sky (both from “Lucifer’s Friend”, 1970), plus Burning Ships (“Where Groupies Killed the Blues”, 1972), the excellent Moonshine Rider (“Mind Exploding”, 1976), and Fire And Rain and Hey Driver (from the album “Mean Machine”, 1981). The band nailed a superb sound right from the start, with just the right balance between Peter’s guitar and Jogi’s chunky Hammond organ tone. Classic hard rock, wonderfully weighed down with psychedelic moments, progressive rock touches and a tangible helping of musicality, crowned above all by catchy choruses. John Lawton remains an excellent frontman, still brimming with charisma well into his golden years. A grand gentleman with unsuspected vocal chops, he quickly built a bridge to the crowd, especially with his excellent command of German. Of all the “non-German” vocalists who tried to win people over with a bit of German during their sets at the festival, Lawton definitely took first place. At the same time, he dosed his banter with a heaping measure of brilliant humor, which goes hand in hand with proper English rock’n’roll culture. Thanks to Lawton’s polished and still unbelievably well-preserved velvety voice, the band delivered one of the best performances of the entire festival. At moments it did show that they haven’t played together for a long, long time: when Peter swapped to the acoustic guitar in Burning Ships, the chords didn’t always ring out entirely clean. But those are trifles next to the sonic authenticity that blasted us straight back to the golden seventies in an instant.
For the next hour, the stage was in the hands of the veterans of Swedish melodic rock, Treat, serving up a big bucket of feel-good hard rock nostalgia. They are damn hard to catch live. In April of this year, for instance, they played the Frontiers Rock festival. This past March, Treat released an excellent new studio record called “Ghost of Graceland”, and they naturally loaded their set with songs from it. A lot of young folks gathered in the front rows, girls especially, and the likable Swedes, led by the incredibly charismatic Robert Ernlund, got well and truly under their skin. Sadly, the Treat show was dogged by one big problem the whole way through. The sound. Tuning troubles plagued both original members of the band. Andreas Wickström’s guitar crackled and “scratched” throughout the entire gig, and somewhere in the middle Robert Ernlund’s mic simply died on him. So the show will be remembered as an event full of nervous tension, even anger and bad vibes, where Ernlund and Wickström, despite proverbial Swedish calm and patience, shot a fair amount of daggers and arrows from their eyes at the techs during the set. However much the crew struggled with the audio mishaps, the show went on with a still-satisfactory sound, and although the quintet’s relaxed ease got sacrificed, they delivered a thoroughly decent and confident performance. Why wouldn’t they? Experience is experience. In the situation they ran into, Treat squeezed out the best possible result. They could have thrown in the towel and stopped the show, or one of the guys could have lost his cool, and the whole performance would have fallen apart in a fit of despair. Instead the band hit hard with material from the new album “Ghost of Graceland”, opening with Ghost of Graceland, Better the Devil You Know and Nonstop Madness, joined later by Do Your Own Stunts. They didn’t overlook the equally excellent predecessor “Coup De Grace” either, from which the great Paper Tiger and Roar rang out. In the second half of the show the guys switched gears and tackled the classic material (Ready for the Taking, Get You on the Run, Conspiracy and the closing World of Promises), which of course hit plenty of hearts in the crowd with a nostalgic kick.
Next up on stage, with his backing band, was Chris Thompson, the former lead voice of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. And yes, he played the entire repertoire tied to his time with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. The exception was the big hit You’re the Voice (orig. John Farnham), which gave him the most vocal headaches. Thompson opened the show with For You (orig. Bruce Springsteen), guitar in hand. It was followed by Davy’s on the Road Again (orig. John Simon), Demolition Man (orig. The Police), Father of Day, Father of Night (orig. Bob Dylan), Don’t Kill It Carol (orig. Mike Heron), Marha’s Madman (an original Manfred Mann’s Earth Band song), Blinded By The Light (Bruce Springsteen) and, as expected, Mighty Quinn (orig. Bob Dylan) as the big finale. In short, the most recognizable songs that MMEB have always played and still play. Chris Thompson still has that unmistakable velvety, throaty shine that adorns his vocal performance. An agile vocalist who filled the whole stage, he found it harder and harder to keep up with the vocal lines toward the end of the show, and you could feel that Chris had run out of a bit of breath. But years are years. Regardless, Thompson is surrounded by a crew of top-notch musicians who delivered a top-notch show. Incredible cohesion and tightness. And perfect sound. Standing out especially at Thompson’s right was the brilliant Norwegian guitarist Mads Eriksen. He gave a real little masterclass in guitar playing and enchanted with superb solo spots in which he showed off all his softness and filigree finesse. The rest of the quintet is actually made up of musicians who otherwise form the Mads Eriksen Band: the silver-haired organist Gunnar Bjelland, bassist Frank Hovland and drummer Zsolt Meszaros. Unlike the sound of MMEB itself, in this performance of MMEB classics under Chris Thompson there’s a bigger emphasis on guitar tone, which can even push the Hammond organ into the background. Mads Eriksen’s solos filled most of the space in the middle “mid-eight” passages, often in those very parts of songs where, “according to standard MMEB custom”, you’d expect Mann’s Minimoog. Another excellent show, then.
A minor disappointment came with Ken Hensley, former Uriah Heep keyboardist and main composer of most of Uriah Heep’s unforgettable seventies material. He once again recruited cheap Italian musicians to act as his backing band. This time the band accompanying Hensley was called Our Propaganda. Hensley decided right from the start to bring the crowd to a boil immediately, kicking off with the Uriah Heep heavyweight Gypsy, followed straight away by one of the biggest Uriah Heep hits, Easy Livin’. As expected, the band did justify its role, even though the guitar doesn’t come within a mile of Mick Box’s guitar in sound or style, since the “touch” is completely different. The feel, so, and with it the technique and everything that follows. Things went along nicely through the set, right up until Hensley stepped to the front of the stage and decided to close the show by taking everything into his own hands. He took over lead vocals on the “Magician’s Birthday” classic Tales, which was followed, as expected, by the closer Lady in Black. And then, during Tales, Hensley retuned his acoustic guitar half a step lower. To make the song easier to sing, of course. The rest of the band wasn’t clued in on this, so two thirds of the song was played in “tonal conflict” before Our Propaganda finally “found the right chord combination”. Because of these unfortunate circumstances, plenty of listeners’ ears hurt badly, and from the crowd even a sharp whistle of “being ripped off” was heard. What’s more, Tales was (in my estimation) tuned too low even for Hensley’s voice. Hensley also showed a lot of vocal wear and tear when he took on lead vocals in The Wizard and shared vocal duties in July Morning. He’d have been better off leaving all the lead vocals to the young British singer Jack Denton, who conquers vocal heights with feather-light ease, and the whole show would have come across on a completely different level. The set was rounded out by the worn-out hit Stealin’ and the sweetie from the album “Demons And Wizards”, Circle of Hands. So, an out-of-tune and not exactly successful show by a legend, who failed to justify his high slot on the bill this way.
Luckily, that show was quickly forgotten, as the stage was taken over by a thoroughly well-oiled art rock machine from England! The famous Magnum. They once again have a pile of gigs behind them, having recently presented their current studio album “Sacred Blood `Divine` Lies” (2016) on their new headlining tour. That’s why they’re a supremely tight unit that simply can’t, and won’t, slip up on stage. Since Bob Catley’s vocal power has been fading over the years, Magnum have also tuned down in recent years. Catley, who given how “dried out” he’d gotten has put some badly needed pounds back on lately, got through the show quite decently. Only toward the end, when he tackled Vigilante, could you sense a bit of vocal fatigue. Otherwise, a concert full of bubbling dynamics and excellent atmosphere. Catley, dressed in white jeans for the occasion and making full use of the catwalk position, and bassist Al Barrow had the most kinetic energy by far. Tony Clarkin still carries himself like a “cold statue” during the show. Motionless. But with guitar playing and tone that you could only wish for. The band surprised right from the start with the “Chase the Dragon” classic Soldier of the Line, and the hour of revelry with Magnum began in an instant in the glow of highly atmospheric payoff. As expected. Excellent sound, excellent show. If anything, given the limited time, it was a bit of a shame that the band played as many as four new songs, leaving the crowd short a few more classics. So from one of the band’s most cherished albums, “On A Storyteller’s Night”, we got only the title track and All England’s Eyes, from the album “Vigilante” only the aforementioned title track, and as a bonus the gorgeous “Chase the Dragon” classic The Spirit and the expected Kingdom of Madness (“Kingdom Of Madness”), with which the band closed the show. The album “Sacred Blood `Divine`Lies” was represented by Your Dreams Wont Die, Princess in Rags (The Cult), the title track and the single Crazy Old Mothers. I definitely missed a track or two from the excellent album “Wings of Heaven” as well.
A special kind of attraction, not just for day two but for the entire edition of the festival, was delivered by the arrival of the famous American rockers Blue Öyster Cult. They’ve barely played Europe since 2003, when, alongside Uriah Heep, they did their last noteworthy European tour promoting the then-current album “The Curse of Hidden Mirror”. These days they show up on the old continent almost only as an exception, here and there at a summer festival. But this summer they’ve lined up quite a few appearances on European festival stages, which is commendable. Their set at Rock of Ages was an absolute highlight of the program. Today’s Blue Öyster Cult lineup has only two original members left. Luckily, they’re the very two who handle all the vocal duties. And they’re guitarists too! Eric Bloom and of course Donald Roeser, known by the stage name “Buck Dharma”. The rest of today’s Blue Öyster Cult quintet is made up of the little-known drummer Jules Radino, the seasoned bassist Kasim Sulton (known for his work with Utopia) and the excellent multi-instrumentalist Richie Castellano, who, going by tenure, is also a considerably younger musician. In anticipation of classics, then! And that’s exactly what we got. Starting with the “Agents of Fortune” opener This Ain’t the Summer of Love, followed by Golden Age of Leather. With the latter, the opening line “Raise your can of beer on high” more than perfectly fit the overall festival mood! Bloom and Dharma remain the band’s vocalists, holding on to the sheen of that special charisma and musical uniqueness of the group. Two great voices. Together with them, Blue Öyster Cult also keep all of their performing credibility into their golden years. Bloom remains venomously sharp-tongued when he takes his verses. Stern, icy expression. Black sunglasses on the whole time. Buck Dharma, unlike his colleague Bloom, smiles throughout and brings much more approachability and warmth to the stage. A special discovery is Richie Castellano. After a shy opening spell of “hiding” behind the keyboards (This Ain’t the Summer of Love), in the last third of the show he literally exploded in a solo spot within the song Then Came The Last Days of May. That song, the only one taken from the band’s debut, featured an especially “stretched-out” instrumental middle section where Castellano first dazzled with his mastery, followed of course by Buck Dharma. Buck had already warmed up properly with his solo in the famous instrumental Buck’s Boogie. The solo duel between Castellano and Buck was in itself one of the concert’s peaks. Blue Öyster Cult, the famous agents in black, conspirators and, if not outright evil uncles of rock’n’roll, still left us a bit short through all of this. They had an hour and twenty minutes at their disposal, but played a repertoire of less than an hour. The band, which apart from the folk-anthem Burning For You and the “Cultosaurus Erectus” bonbon Lips in the Hills remained a big debtor when it comes to the eighties, also cut in ODD’d on Life Itself, Me262, Harvest Moon (an unnecessary pick from the album “Heaven Forbid”, 1998), and closed the show with the classic Godzilla and the universally expected Don’t Fear the Reaper. For all the professionalism the great gentlemen of rock’n’roll served up, you couldn’t shake the feeling that the band could have delivered a longer show and, with it, at least three, if not four more songs.
To close out day two of the festival, the organizer, much like the day before, picked a German act once again. That way, for the second day in a row, he consequently “emptied out the campground” completely, as it moved en masse to the festival grounds, while also drawing in many more visitors who came only to enjoy the second day’s program. I’m talking about the project Avantasia. This is a super rock, or rather superpower metal outfit, conceived as a “rock opera”, where the music is entirely conceptualized and the interpretation is therefore split across many roles. A trademark of the project is a bunch of guest singers who rotate on the albums. “Ghostlights” is the project’s current studio album, which again offers a slew of guests. Besides the obligatory, ever-present Tobias Sammet, who is also the father of the project and its chief mastermind, the album didn’t bring all of its guest vocalists to the stage. Sammet decided not to perform it in full, so there was no need for that. Joining Tobias on stage, though, were Michael Kiske (Unisonic, ex-Helloween), Bob Catley (Magnum), Ronnie Atkins (Pretty Maids) and Eric Martin (Mr. Big). The core of the current Avantasia crew, alongside Tobias Sammet, consists of guitarists Sascha Paeth (ex-Heaven’s Gate) and Oliver Hartmann (At Vance, Hartmann), keyboardist Michael Rodenberg “Miro”, and Sammet’s Edguy colleague, drummer Felix Bohnke (I didn’t manage to catch the names of the bassist and the additional female and male backing vocalists). Avantasia performed a repertoire spanning every album they’ve released. Keeping the mood cheerful and good throughout the two-hour show was, of course, Tobias Sammet himself with his famous humor, and as already mentioned, the proceedings were spiced up by the arrival of four additional vocalists on stage, among them the indestructible Michael Kiske, who once again blew the crowd away with his performance. He’s put on a nice few pounds and will have to be damn careful in the future not to spill past the border of good taste. The duet of Martin and Atkins in Twisted Mind was also endearing, while at the end of the duet in Invoke the Machine, Atkins presented Sammet with a red rose, which Sammet tucked into his coat (a parody of the opening Mystery of a Bloody Red Rose). Atkins stayed on stage for the next song too, Ghostlights, while the legendary Bob Catley, who had warmed up the grounds in the mid-afternoon with his Magnum set, got a duet in The Great Mistery and later The Story Ain’ Over Yet. Given the spectacle, though, something was missing. Lights. Too few spotlights were sending beams of white light onto the stage. There was only one main beam. It mostly chased Tobias Sammet alone, while the guitarists stayed in the shadows during their solos, unlit. That’s a real shame, especially because the show itself featured an extremely elaborate (and surely not cheap) stage set based on the story of the album “Ghostlights”. The execution was perfect, of course. Professional. It’s a lineup of excellent, seasoned musicians who are also big perfectionists and big gurus, or masters, of their craft. Huge self-confidence, literally bulletproof delivery. An approach of great and unbridled vehemence. Rock of Ages became entirely Sammet’s, and the energy was extraordinary. The crowd got what it came for. A big closing knockout from a musical hero of the home country! Avantasia is a special kind of story and, if you’re a fan of power metal with hypersensitive musicality stuffed with a dose of symphonic bombast, a must-see. At least once in your life.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
