Location: Augsburg / Schwabenhalle / Germany
Date: 22.06.2011
Well, the time has finally come to celebrate for everyone who “lived” the hits of the eighties. Back then, in the years of innocence, big hopes and carefree growing up, you were accompanied by the sounds of splendid production and infectious melodies that crawled under your skin “from the first listen”. This was music by bands whose success was helped along by the loyal frequencies of certain loyal radio stations. Yes. Once upon a time, when there was no MTV yet, or in the early days when MTV wasn’t yet a strong enough medium, that’s what lit the fuse. But when “video killed the radio star”, if anyone still remembers The Bugggles hit “Video Killed The Radio Star”, the golden age of AOR somehow rang its last bell too. What the hell is AOR, anyway? Adult Oriented Rock: rock music that isn’t too noisy, rather very “easygoing and soft”, yet built on absolute melodic and sonic perfection. AOR is marked by big arena-anthem melodies, bombastic production with sharp contrasts between the individual building blocks of the sound, and a lead vocal seasoned with multifaceted vocal harmonies. It’s hard to say AOR grew out of the classic hard ‘n’ heavy rock of bands rooted in the blues tradition. More like out of the finest representatives of progressive rock and jazz rock fusion. Simply put, AOR demands refinement, patience, absolute perfectionism. And a big dose of studio flexibility and breadth.
The pioneering band, really the founders of the AOR genre, is Journey, from San Francisco. Not that they were the first. Simply put: individual ideas, revolutionary for their time, popped up around the planet on various releases at the turn of the seventies into the eighties (one of them being, say, Boston’s self-titled studio debut), and Journey tied them together most sensibly and optimally into a concise legacy of compact melodic and sonic polish, something nobody has topped since.
So it happened that fortune smiled on AOR fans too. A concert package of Journey, Foreigner, Kasnas and Night Ranger is a dream combination and demands your attendance on its own, provided you give absolute priority to the polished, compact melody whose prototype is the eternal musical magic of The Beatles’ punchline.
Night Ranger were the first to crack open the AOR party in Augsburg. The band is hugely successful and respected in the US, which is why even today they mostly live off the home market in the US and the Japanese market. Three original members, Kelly Keagy (vocals, drums), Jack Blades (bass, vocals) and Brad Gillis (guitar, backing vocals), aren’t giving up! Joining them are guitarist Joel Hoekstra, who came on board back in 2008, and freshly recruited keyboardist Eric Levy, who round out Night Ranger in 2011. The guys had a good half hour at their disposal and squeezed a kind of medley of the best moments from the start of their career into it. Interestingly, the band played only hits from the first two albums.
The band burst out like they hadn’t seen a stage in at least twenty years. Touch Of Madness from the album “Midnight Madness”! Before us comes to life a band that hadn’t played actively in Europe since 1985. Guess who they toured with back then? Foreigner. And it’s the same this time. Night Ranger before Foreigner. In Europe. A long wait. Huge enthusiasm was boiling on stage. Blades writhed behind the microphone like a wild teenager bursting with testosterone, and both guitarists, Brad Gillis and Joel Hoekstra, were clowning around on their guitars in every possible position, so it was a wonder they could still play all the parts of the songs accurately enough. Clearly more than an idyllic partnership, the guitar duo delivered a full measure of excellent soloing. If Touch Of Madness went to Jack Blades on lead vocals, we got the answer right after that to why Keagy’s drums stand at the far right at the front, right at the edge of the stage. Sing Me Away, a classic from the debut “Dawn Patrol” (1982), went to his vocals, and a wave of enthusiasm was set off by the hall too, nicely filled by now with some 2,500 people who hadn’t forgotten the chorus of this Night Ranger hit. Kelly Keagy has lost some punch in his voice, which showed toward the end too, when the band played the biggest hit of their career, the half-ballad, punchy anthem Sister Christian. But never mind: the guys backed his basic line superbly with backing-vocal harmonies. Keyboardist Eric Levy even deliberately took on the stage look of former Night Ranger keyboardist Alan Fitzgerald. Levy’s masquerade was so skillful that it easily fooled plenty of connoisseurs and Night Ranger fans in the hall that night.
Growing Up In California. Yep. The title says it all: Night Ranger are typical US citizens, right down to the sunburned red necks. But the song is no ranch lemonade, it plows in high gear. In it the band unfolds a guitar flourish of double harmonies and the obligatory singable, melodic AOR chorus. Considering this is a brand-new song from the album “Somewhere In California”, which came out literally the day before the band’s Augsburg show, the album could be very interesting for all fans of classic Night Ranger and their eighties catalog. In Don’t Tell Me You Love Me, the guys didn’t forget to work in the lead phrases of The Eagles classic Hotel California and Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water, which is by now the band’s standard live treatment of this classic, built up over many years. Still, it made you think that with slightly shorter speeches from Blades and without “stretching” Don’t Tell Me You Love Me, Night Ranger could have squeezed in another classic or two. That would have been especially desirable and welcome for all the true fans who didn’t hear a single song from the otherwise excellent “Seven Wishes”, “Big Life” and/or “Man In Motion”. The must-play hits Sister Chiristian and the red-hot closing cannonade (You Can Still) Rock in America were there, where Night Ranger fired off every last round. For the occasion, both guitarists picked up guitars covered in the colors of the American flag, so it would really smell of the wide-open spaces of the rowdy cowboy stables of the Wild West. Since Keagy is stationed at the right edge of the stage, the guys put most of the monitors behind their backs and so filled the apparent emptiness of the stage. An excellent show, and let’s hope it promises a speedy return of the band to European concert stages.
Next came the American prog rock pioneers Kansas. Their musical contribution is exceptional on the rock atlas, and their classic seventies albums carry great weight in the history of rock music. They influenced a whole series of younger bands, especially those that went on to help shape progressive metal later on. Led by none other than Dream Theater. Sadly, the Rockline team had to skip Kansas this time. Because of a scheduled interview with Journey, which overlapped with the Kansas set. Let’s hope the legends show up in Europe again sometime. Kansas played the following songs in Augsburg: Magnum Opus (Howling At The Moon), Point of Know Return, Hold On, Dust In The Wind, Miracles Out Of Nowhere, Portrait (He Knew), Fight Fire With Fire, Carry On Wayward Son
At nine in the evening Foreigner take the stage. The same goes for Foreigner in 2011 as for Journey. They’re reborn. Their album “Can’t Slow Down” is the very definition of songwriting brilliance, the kind few bands today can match. Foreigner have been regulars on concert stages again since 2007. They’re incredibly tight. The lineup recently changed again. Drummer Mark Schulman returned to the fold, having already played with Foreigner between 1992 and 1995 and between 2000 and 2002. Evidently Jason Sutton turned out not to be the right solution for Foreigner after Brian Tichy left, so Mick Jones apparently looked once more to drummers who had worked with Billy Idol in the past.
Foreigner are an incredible attraction on stage. Thanks above all to the unmatched singing of Kelly Hansen. Hansen, who looks something like a triplet brother of Steve Lee (ex-Gotthard, R.I.P.) and Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), is a true upgrade on Lou Gramm. Yes, it’s hard to believe a copy can be better than the original. But sometimes that happens too. If only it happened more often with bands that patch their lineups together and left their golden years behind in the eighties.
The stage grew for Foreigner. The monitors were hidden behind projection screens, and to the left and right of the drums, all the way to the keyboards, there were extra raised platforms that let the band members move around even more during the show, fanning the real concert embers that much further. There were no slip-ups during Foreigner’s set. In Milan, the day before the Augsburg show, the band played Dirty White Boy. That was cut from the set list for Augsburg and Waiting For A Girl Like You went back in, which is otherwise a fixture of all the German shows on the current tour with Journey.
Foreigner also toured with Journey in the UK and Ireland in the first half of June this year. There they had 40 minutes at their disposal. For the leg that covered the old continent, though, Journey and Foreigner agreed that both bands would play for the same length of time. So Journey cut their set by half an hour, and Foreigner gained a new half hour. A very logical move, given how much more deeply the classic Foreigner evergreens are lodged in the ears of the European part of the audience.
Starrider is a special kind of gem shining in the Foreigner catalog, and it wasn’t missing from the set list this time either. Mick Jones himself sang it. A dreamy adventure wrapped in a prog rock haze, which really gives a peek into the roots and beginnings of the band’s career, it’s tailor-made for Mick’s voice. Otherwise, please don’t wish for Mick Jones to sing anything else in Foreigner. His voice is very thin and boyish, and it sounds downright funny coming from a gentleman dressed in his Sunday best, who has been through plenty in his long career, wearing a waistcoat that even our late “musical visionary” Henrik Burkat – Henček would envy (thanks to Helena for the tip). The versatile Tom Gimbel helps out with flute in the intro, and then in the chorus pretty much the entire lineup chips in on the lead vocal duties.
The special charm and attraction of every Foreigner show is the sax solo in the song Urgent. This is a song that wakes even the iciest heart. It bursts with erotic charge, and it always brings Foreigner the absolute pedigree of a band that few can top on stage. With this classic they firmly threw down the gauntlet to Journey, and the AOR legends faced a truly tough task taking over the stage. This otherwise flawless set, full of true perfection in combining full melodicism with punchy rock power, could be taken up a notch in the future with a few new twists to the established repertoire, spicing up their already perfect stage shows even further. Foreigner remain an exceptional live attraction, worth catching at any moment and soaking up the timeless classic evergreens that ruled the top of the charts in the golden eighties.
Journey started exactly fifteen minutes to eleven in the evening. At the end of May the band released a new studio album called “Eclipse” (other sources give the official release date as 03.06.20011). The album title is tied in an interesting way to something else, too. When the band started the tour of the old continent, the date was 15.06.2011. And on that very day, there was an actual lunar eclipse. Journey’s stage was designed much like Foreigner’s before them. A wide projection screen and an intense play of flowing spotlights. You couldn’t spot a monitor anywhere on stage. Arnel Pineda is in great spirits from the first second and handles all of Perry’s vocal lines with vehemence and great confidence.
Journey concerts are known for sounding brilliant in terms of an optimal sonic picture. This time too, the Schwabenhalle delivered on everything. Pineda dominated with his vocals. Schon’s heavily accentuated “sustain” effect was perfectly blended into an equal-footing harmony with Cain’s keyboards, while the active rhythm partnership of Valory and Castronovo was bursting with detailed, well-oiled, brilliantly calibrated tightness. Castronovo is a bomber. An incredibly explosive, almost unpredictable drummer who literally machine-guns through the transitions by slapping the toms. Around the fortress of drums stand sheets of plexiglass that hold in the sound and give the drummer extra control over what’s happening on stage. Castronovo sang Keep On Runnin’. Pineda jumped backstage meanwhile to cool his overheated vocal cords, and Deen pulled off his task brilliantly while drumming. Castronovo has an innate “gently cracked” voice with a natural intonation like Mathew Gordon Sumner a.k.a. Sting, with a touch of smokiness added to the timbre. The intonated registers are tailor-made for a Journey lead vocal. Excellent work from this fantastic musician. In the first part of the German tour Castronovo sang lead on Mother Father, which was replaced in the repertoire by the aforementioned Keep On Runnin’ both in Milan and in Augsburg. After the excellent set list shake-up with Ask The Lonely, Jonathan Cain presented the band’s new album (he also threw in the band’s excitement about the new release, saying: “…and we are very excited about that…”) and announced the performance of the first single from the record, City Of Hope. The song began with a short intro solo spot from Neal Schon. The melody Schon carved out is a condensed summary of the instrumentals included on both of the latest studio albums. A venomously wound-up “sustain” effect and skillful steering through deft control of bending the melody with “pull off” string pulls. If the new song calmed the atmosphere down a bit, the hall woke up again radically when Journey carved out Stone In Love. Next came the excellent new song Edge Of Time, where Schon tears loose again in the outro in a wild solo cannonade. Schon proved once more that he’s one of those guitarists who are a musical chapter unto themselves, their own musical world, a blank sheet of paper. There are few such one-of-a-kind oddballs, as multilayered and at the same time refined, unpredictable and witty, as Neal. Steve Lukather (Toto) is right up there, of course. After Edge Of Time, Journey steer their concert toward its peak.
The first such peak was the romantic pairing of Lights and Open Arms, where the crowd got properly misty-eyed. The surprises that spiced up the set list this time were Keep On Running and Ask The Lonely, and also the song Escape. Wheel In The Sky, which had the whole hall up in the air, didn’t include the stretched-out jam we got two years ago at the band’s show in Balingen, Germany, at the Bang Your Head!!! festival there. But it sounded more wound-up again, since Jonathain Cain also emphasizes the riffing here on a Fender Telecaster. Faithfully is another indispensable ballad pick for Journey, where Cain gets a few moments for an intro solo improvisation, much like before Open Arms. The guys didn’t skip the superb album “Raised On Radio” either and chopped out Be Good To Yourself, while Don’t Stop Believin’ announced that we were nearing the end of our time with Journey.
The band soon returned for an encore with Any Way You Want It, and a blizzard of confetti flooded the hall, seeing off the end of a big celebration for all AOR nostalgics. Brilliant. No technical hitches, excellent sound where you hear every last fart, and great singing from Arnel Pineda, who proved once again that Journey stand completely confident without Steve Perry on the rock scene in 2011, and also that they’ve been born anew. After releases as excellent as “Revelation” (2008) and, after it, the far more adventurous and exploratory yet also harder-rocking “Eclipse”, something we haven’t seen since the release of “Frontiers” in 1983, it’s clear the legends have found a new life force, creative charge and existential purpose. Of course, the main engine is Arnel Pineda, who freshened up the band with his voice and inspired its stage and studio essence and presence. During the show it was fascinating to watch Ross Valory, who showed an exceptional (for him!) amount of stage activity, walking all the way left and all the way back to the drums throughout. Ross kept making fun of himself and entertaining the front rows with a colorful selection of goofy faces.
In closing, it’s worth mentioning that the Journey set, which sounded excellent and lived up to the band’s pedigree of stage-sound and performance perfection, didn’t leave as strong an impression as Foreigner’s show before Journey. What could be behind this phenomenon, which isn’t even surprising? First of all, the evergreen hits, of which Foreigner have more in Europe than Journey. In 2011 Foreigner also have far more stage kinetics than Journey. With Journey, just one person runs around the stage. That’s the “little rubber racer and unlimited gymnast” Arnel Pineda, whereas with Foreigner there are three seriously cocky stage showmen. Gimbel, Pilson and Hansen. Kelly Hansen’s communication with the audience is also simply much more likable, closer and more homey, which means that in the end Foreigner come across as a more approachable and down-to-earth stage act than Journey.
However you slice it. This combination of four bands on the tour called “Rock The Nation” is an excellent idea, which brought to the halls of Germany the true old guard of fans of classic eighties radio sounds and the legacy of bands that strove for melodic, sonically polished rock. Let me also mention that after the show, people simply wouldn’t leave the merch stands, and even during the concert itself the siege of those stands went on nonstop. Let’s hope this wasn’t a lone swallow and that in the future we’ll see more such band pairings for similar concert epics. Seeing American bands like REO Speedwageon, Styx, Kansas and Night Ranger on European stages in 2011 is about as likely as meeting extraterrestrial intelligence or hitting the jackpot in the lottery.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
JOURNEY:
1.Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
2.Ask the Lonely
3.City of Hope
4.Stone in Love Play
5.Keep on Runnin’
6.Edge of the Moment
7.Lights 8.Open Arms
9.Wheel in the Sky
10.Escape
11.Be Good to Yourself
12.Faithfully
13.Don’t Stop Believin’
—encore—
14.Any Way You Want It
FOREIGNER:
1.Double Vision
2.Head Games
3.Cold as Ice
4. Waiting For A Girl Like You
5.Can’t Slow Down
6.That Was Yesterday
7.Starrider
8.Feels Like the First Time
9.Urgent
10.I Want to Know What Love Is
11.Hot Blooded
12.Juke Box Hero
NIGHT RANGER:
1.Touch of Madness
2.Sing Me Away
3. Growing up in California
4.When You Close Your Eyes
5.Don’t Tell Me You Love Me
6.Sister Christian
7.(You Can Still) Rock in America
