Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Balingen / Messegelände / Germany
Concert date: July 11, 2014
Attendance: 15,000
Ticket price: €75.00
This year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival, the nineteenth overall, was held where it always is, in the little German town of Balingen in the middle of the Black Forest. True to tradition, it once again lined up some seriously interesting names. Above all, the first day was dedicated to celebrating the first 25 years of music-making by famous German guitar hero Axel Rudi Pell, who often gets tagged as the German Blackmore. He put together a nearly three-hour spectacle for the festival’s opening day, but more on that below. Among the other highlights of day one were Warlord, Riot V and the naughty glam rockers Vain, plus an appearance by rock classic Michael Schenker. Last but not least, the lineup got a big dose of variety from Bay Area thrash metal champions Exodus, with Steve Zetro Souza back on vocals.
By tradition, the opening slot at Bang Your Head!!! usually goes to a German band. This year the honor should have gone to Germany’s Warrant, but they canceled at the last moment, and the locals from Balingen, Traitor, stepped in. The current lineup, Gerd Hery (guitar, backing vocals), Lorenz Kandolf (bass), Andreas Mozer (drums, vocals) and Matthias Koch (guitar, backing vocals), spent a good half hour running through the ABCs of German old-school thrash metal. With their 2009 debut »Thrash Command« in their pocket, the band promises a new studio album this year. Bold, confident and fired up, this morning neighing was just the thing for a festival ground slowly waking up and getting on with the essentials, from brushing teeth to brewing coffee. Their successors on stage, Accuser, are also considered grizzled veterans of the old German thrash school. A heap of aggression inherited from the old-school racket of Germany’s great Teutonic thrash trio, with a dash of the catchy melodic rhetoric of the likes of Paradox as a sensible parallel, and some more modern Dew-Scented groove too. And of course both Traitor and Accuser are big fans of Slayer’s aggression.
After that ominous overture of pure thrash metal vistas, Warlord took the stage. This was probably no more than the fifth show of these otherwise legendary guys’ career, which the wheel of fate sent into a long hibernation after 1986, with a brief flash between 2000 and 2002. Now, with their fourth studio album »The Holy Empire«, the band returned to the scene in 2013, in a current lineup with original members Bill Tsamis on guitar and drummer Mark Zonder. On vocals is Cypriot Nicholas Leptos (Arrayan Path, Astronomikon), and for this show the spot of bassist Philip Bynoe (Steve Vai) was filled by the no less fantastic bassist Gary Wehrcamp, famed guitar wizard of progressive metallers Shadow Gallery. For live shows the quartet is rounded out by an extra guitarist of Italian descent, Paolo Viani, and keyboardist Angelo Vafeiadis. So today’s Warlord are very »Mediterranean« in flavor. People clearly came to hear the older classics, and they got almost the entire debut »Deliver Us« (1983), with the songs Lucifer’s Hammer, Child of the Damned, Winter Tears, Black Mass and Deliver Us From Evil. The band had quite a few adventures with the sound. The guitars were barely audible, like buzzing little bees, which probably reflects the fact that the band doesn’t have much live mileage and doesn’t pay much attention to stage sound quality. In contrast to the weak guitars, you could clearly make out the brilliance of Gary Wehrkamp’s bass playing, which impressed with remarkable precision and great warmth of tone. As expected, the band worked in a showcase of the new studio album, playing the songs Kill Zone and 70.000 Sorrows. They closed the set with the latter. The very short set list was spiced up with one more old track, Aliens from the second studio album »And the Canons of Destruction Have Begun…« (1984). The band promises a new studio album, which is supposedly slowly taking shape. A decent performance, decent singing, but you can feel that, apart from Mark Zonder and Gary Wehrkamp, the crew has no rich live mileage, never mind studio mileage, so they’ll need to work more on their stage dynamics in the future.
The fact that Warlord weren’t to blame for the miserable sound, and that it was the sound techs’ sloppiness, was confirmed by the next act. Vain. Who would have thought Vain could still make it to Europe? Even though the band’s best years are behind them, Davy Vain and the crew give off no such feeling on stage. The energetic singer proved to be a man born to be a stage entertainer. The barefoot frontman ran back and forth tirelessly throughout the show, firing up his bandmates and keeping the crowd right with him. He made proper use of the catwalk, too. The surviving heroes of the California glam rock scene delivered a concert built on a bag of classics from the debut »No Respect«. Even in their mature years the band keeps an exceptional tightness, freshness and power, so the show came off wonderfully in tune. With a frontman this charismatic, and the experience of the other members (besides Davy, three more from the original lineup: guitarists Jamie Scott and Danny West and bassist Ashley Mitchell), Vain delivered the first real »party« festival wake-up call, next to Warlord’s static set.
Next up were Kissin’ Dynamite. Another set of locals, who opened the 2010 edition of the festival as rising stars. Back then they were first on the bill. The quintet presented their freshly released studio album »Money, Sex & Power« and once again impressed with their remarkable tightness and unity. Most eyes, of course, were on singer Hannes, who commanded the stage with exceptional energy and a polished stage persona, packed with excellent singing and perfect stage movement. The band is in a constant live gallop, and it shows in the flawless chemistry and hair-splittingly polished stage performance. Confident and fiercely committed. This is a band that played last year in the middle of the worst heat at Tolmin’s Metaldays festival, and with that kind of power on stage they simply can’t disappoint.
Quite a bit more interest was drawn by Riot V. This is the legitimate successor to the life and work of New York metal veterans Riot, whose founder and driving force, brilliant composer, arranger and guitarist Mark Reale, passed away in 2012. The crew carries on without Reale under the name Riot V, led by original Riot members guitarist Mike Flyntz and bassist Don Van Stavern. The band found an exceptional singer in Todd Michael Hall, whose vocal tone and whole approach are uncannily similar to Riot’s most famous vocalist, Tony Moore. The second guitar spot in Riot V is filled by young Nick Lee, and on drums, in place of Bobby Jarzombek, who played that very day (heads up!) with Sebastian Bach and became a regular member of Fates Warning in 2011, sat the seasoned Frank Gilchriest (Virgin Steele). Riot V’s set counted as one of the most commanding of the festival’s first day. Thanks to an outstanding repertoire made up exclusively of famous Riot classics, capped off by the long-awaited and famous bomb Thundersteel. The razor-sharp picking of precisely measured guitar harmonies in thirds from the Flyntz/Lee duo, their bravura soloing led by the experienced Flyntz, who naturally took the lion’s share of the guitar work in the new Riot, and above all the band saved its skin thanks to the incredible Todd Michael Hall, whose vocals pulled off amazing acrobatics, and who always enchanted whenever he managed to get remarkably close to some truly hard-to-sing (highest) lines of Tony Moore’s trademark. Riot V’s set was over in the blink of an eye. Even though the guys had barely an hour on stage. That’s how tight and dense with substance the show was. And let’s not even start on the stage dynamics. The band will play very soon at Metaldays, as headliners of the second stage. A live experience that all fans of the traditional old-school metal heritage simply must taste! By the way! The band also played a completely new song, Metal Warrior, and you couldn’t wish for a better approximation of the classic Riot works in its compositional output, so the upcoming new Riot V album promises a great deal!
After Riot V came another top-notch show and certainly one of the cathartic peaks of the festival’s first day. The performance of Bay Area thrash metal veterans Exodus. Their first with Steve Zetro Souza back since 2004. If you remember, Exodus played with Zetro in June 2004 at the K4 club in Ljubljana too. That was one of the band’s last shows with Zetro in the lineup at the time, before they carried on with Rob Dukes on lead vocals. Exodus showed up at Bang Your Head!!! as if they’d arrived from another planet. One thing was clear instantly! »Zetro« = Exodus. Despite the generous poundage the man has comfortably piled on over the last decade, Zetro is in fact Exodus’s saving grace. Whatever clash of heavy personalities caused his departure from the band years ago, with his particular stage charisma Zetro is a vocalist of outstanding frontman caliber. The man is a commander who picks the right words at the right moment, making fun of himself, the band members and the crowd in a warm, mischievous way. He urges the crowd to do all sorts of silly things in front of the stage. Before The Toxic Waltz he cautiously asked everyone whether they’d brought their dancing shoes. Of course the show by the brilliantly sweaty and reborn Exodus delivered a pile of mosh pits, a pile of horseplay, beer spilling and head smashing. The combination of two heavyweight guitarists, Gary Holt, who has grown a Gandalf beard as well as a healthy helping of decorative lard, teamed up with the always fiercely committed Lee Altus (Heathen), worked superbly. Relentless, ferocious, with the sharpness of cutting that the very idea of a primordial »thrash metal« bible demands. The band threw a bit more material from »Tempo of the Damned« (2002) into the set list and of course kept up the devilish relentlessness of the dossier with »Bonded By Blood« classics. As said. Exodus’s set counted as one of the highlights of the first day.
After Exodus came another attraction. The appearance of one of the most important guitarists in the entire history of modern heavy metal and hard rock expression. The famous Michael Schenker and his backing band. Through the seventies, when he created some unforgettable evergreen classics for UFO, it was Schenker who brought lead guitar playing to a new generation by masterfully balancing the usual blues elements, which had often dominated solos before he arrived, with neoclassical musicality, to the point where solos themselves took on the strong character of an equal player within a given rock or metal composition. In countless solos by Schenker’s followers you can spot the inspiration of this fascinating musical artist at every step.
Schenker, who released a new studio album for his new band »Michael Schenker’s Temple of Rock«, appeared on stage with a backing band that includes two more ex-Scorpions, bassist Francis Bucholz and drummer Herman Rarebell. So with Schenker himself there were three »ex« Scorpions on stage. The crew is rounded out by the one-of-a-kind Scottish singer Doogie White (ex-Rainbow, ex-Ingwie J. Malmsteen) and multi-instrumentalist Wayne Findlay. The latter is a classically trained guitar shredder. Perhaps a less ringing name in Michael Schenker’s crew, though he has worked in the past with a plethora of musicians historically linked to Michael Schenker in one way or another. Given the huge expectations of what the legendary guitarist would deliver, the feelings after the show were mixed. The band disappointed a bit with the set list, which had no fewer than three Scorpions songs, while the two UFO tracks, opener Doctor Doctor and closer Rock Bottom, were totally justified and very much welcome. Why Michael Schenker needs to play Scorpions material only he knows, since he has a lovely plethora of excellent solo works from every era of his career. The second problem, which somewhat spoiled the overall impression, was once again the dreadful tuning of the guitars. You could barely hear Schenker among the other instruments, and again it was especially bothersome during his solos. If you weren’t standing on his side, the right side in front of the stage, you could barely pick Schenker out in the mix. There was a brand-new song, Where the Wind Wind Blows, the classic Armed And Ready, and Before Devil Knows You Are Dead, which the late rock icon Ronnie James Dio created for Schenker. Despite the less favorable set list and poor sound, watching Schenker on stage was a special kind of honor. Taking in the famous moves of Schenker’s pioneering and stage theater, with his right hand raised high in the air, lifting his famous Flyin’ V guitars, even though the show didn’t »grab« you the way you’d expect.
The name Sebastian Bach certainly means something on the maps of the heavy metal and hard rock trade. But not at any price. Given how his former Skid Row buddies are doing today with Solinger on vocals, and given the orphaned ideas of Bach’s latest studio work, as well as his patchy stage show, it was quite a surprising realization that Bach was placed so high on the bill, because expectations of what he’d deliver were extremely low. Really low. And the experience? Sadly, as expected. A disastrous show. Not worth a single second wasted. Right from the start Bach showed off his vocal condition in a very unpleasant way. You can tell the man doesn’t practice his voice or use it regularly. He quickly ran out of breath, and the closer the show got to the end, the worse his voice served him. He sounded like the failed croaking of a cold-ridden magpie that can no longer squeeze even a scrap of melody out of its vocal cords, the way Skid Row classics demand. Surrounded by a younger-generation guitarist and bassist, the guitarist on top of everything doing dreadful backing vocals, and by the otherwise eye-catching drummer Bobby Jarzombek – an illogical and expensive choice given how undemanding the lead rhythms of this material are, Bach disappointed with his superior rock-star behavior, venting his frustration at being unable to sing by throwing the mic to the floor and blaming the sound tech, claiming he couldn’t sing because his microphone wasn’t working. Of course that wasn’t true. The mic was working damn well, Bach simply can’t sing anymore, it seems. As for Skid Row material, it made up the bulk of Bach’s repertoire, which let the »sleeping beauty on the pea« partly patch up his performance immaturity, but we can definitely cross off any future visits to his concerts and focus only on Skid Row shows from now on. Without Sebastian Bach in the lineup, of course.
The first day of the festival drew fewer acts to the main stage. Why? The set by the day’s headliner Axel Rudi Pell was incredibly long. It was forged as a musical adventure through the different eras of his career. Starting with Steeler, then on to his solo career as A.R.P. or the Axel Rudi Pell band, while in the theatrical finale of this three-hour marathon the man devoted attention to performing ultimate rock classics in the company of special guests who left a real mark on the rock scene with their persona and work. But let’s take it from the top. The spectacle opened with four Steeler classics, with the bass swapped between Volker Krawczak, who played the opening Call Her Princess (»Steeler«, 1984), and his successor in the band Roland Hag for Night After Night (»Strike Back«, 1986), Rockin’ the City (»Strike Back«, 1986) and Undercover Animal (»Undercover Animal«, 1988). Interesting that the band skipped at least one number from the album »Rulin’ the Earth« (1985). To start, Steeler played in their original lineups: Axel Rudi Pell on guitar, Tom Eder on rhythm guitar, drummer Jan Yildiral and the two bassists mentioned above. Definitely a moment in Pell’s career that will be hard to ever repeat.
Volker Krawczak returns to the stage on bass, Jörg Michael (ex-Saxon, ex-Stratovarius, ex-Running Wild, ex-.Rage, ex-Grave Digger) sits behind the drums, and the famous Rob Rock (solo, Impelllitteri) takes the mic, so on stage we get an incarnation of the first A.R.P. band lineup, continuing the show with the song Nasty Reputation. It quickly turned out that Rock, who played as Rob rock on the festival’s second day this year, is still in superb vocal form, and also that Axel is not exactly a talkative stage performer. Even in the few modest moments when he stepped up to the mic to say a few words. That’s why he has always gladly left this role to the singers of his band. Rudi, shifted to the right side of the stage, soloed peacefully through the set and showed no great desire to jump around the stage and grab attention. But that evening our troubadour Rudi, baroque-frilled in his silk shirt, had to deal with other things he hadn’t planned for. Through the first part of the show he had to spend at least half the set working with the sound engineers to fix the guitar sound. As you noticed earlier, this report notes the poor sound conditions across the festival’s first day, for which this year’s choice of the festival’s main sound engineers is surely to blame. Still, since Axel Rudi Pell is a perfectionist and, on top of that, very stubborn, his persistence paid off big time. The sound was finally sorted and the guitars »grabbed« the way they should. After all, this was an anniversary event, backed by multiple cameras, meaning the show was being recorded. In the days after the concert, Axel Rudi Pell officially confirmed the release of a new live document of this show, as a Blu-ray, a double live CD and a DVD. So he was justified in »going nuts« and making a scene with the sound techs.
Rock stayed on stage for just one song. For the next one, Warrior, he swapped places with Jeff Scott Soto, who theatrically flung two pairs of Ray-Ban glasses into the crowd as he came on (they were probably cheap replicas, otherwise Jeff wouldn’t have tossed them around so generously). Like his predecessor Rob Rock, Soto confirmed once more his outstanding vocal form, which also made him one of the most impressive vocalists at this year’s Frontiers Rock festival in the Italian town of Trezzo sull’Adda near Milan. The songs Warrior and Fool Fool, from the period when the band had Soto on vocals and Michael on drums, led the show to the brand-new Burning Chain (»Into the Storm«, 2014), where A.R.P. incarnated in their present-day form, with Johnny Gioeli (Hardline) and drumming veteran Bobby Rondinelli, who has probably seen the Great Flood among other things (ex-Black Sababth, ex-Rainbow, ex-Blue Oyster Cult, ex-The Lizards, ex-Riot,…), taking the stage. On keyboards, from Nasty Reputation onward, was Ferdy Dörneberg.
Next came the central part of the spectacle, with later Pell works and a presentation of the new album »Into the Storm« (besides Burning Chains, also the cover of Neil Young’s Hey, Hey My, My and the new single Long Way To Go), with the expected medley of The Masquerade Ball and Casbah, then a combination of the newer Too Late into which Pell worked the ancient Eternal Prisoner (in the original, Jeff Scott Soto performs this song as well as Casbah). This part was closed by Rock the Nation (»Mystica«, 2006), which, played in the middle of Germany at that time, undoubtedly went down a treat on the eve of the 2014 World Cup final, when Germany and Argentina clashed.
The closing part of Axel Rudi Pell’s career trilogy of sorts consisted of songs that inspired the musician through his career, and which Axel Rudi Pell matured and developed as an artist with. For the occasion Pell invited legendary rock stars as special guests. First up on stage was Vinnie Appice (ex-Black Sabbath) with his drums, who played a drum duet with Rondinelli. After 15 minutes of two drummers’ cannon fire, the show continued in the classic way. It was opened by a cover of the ironclad repertoire of Deep Pruple, Black Night. Pretty Maids vocalist Ronnie Atkins jumped in on vocals, having replaced Joe Lynn Turner at the last moment (in the official promo announcements Turner was supposed to sing this song). Atkins adapted his vocal specifics, which usually accompany Pretty Maids material, superbly, imitating the unique Ian Gillan as closely as possible. After that, another special guest surprised everyone by coming on stage. John Lawton (ex-Uriah Heep), as the band tackled the excellent Uriah Heep classic from the Lawton era, Sympathy, continued with the predictable Tush (ZZ Top) and settled into the song Pell still includes in his live shows today, called Mistreated. Lawton proved a very fitting choice, though Coverdale’s original remains an untouchable piece of rock history. Next comes the continuation of Pell’s obsession with the persona and work of Ritchie Blackmore. On stage appears a man in an elegant shiny tuxedo, with a smooth hairdo and glistening brilliantine. None other than Graham Bonnet (ex-Rainbow, Alcatrazz, Impellitteri). The band continues its rock mass with the Rainbow classics Since You’ve Been Gone and Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll. Interesting that Pell avoided including Stargazer. For the grand finale, Pell’s mission closes the event with the somewhat predictable and worn-out inclusion of the Deep Purple monument Smoke On the Water, and absolutely all the players in this marathon event arrive on stage. Several singers share the lead vocals in it.
The evening was somewhat spoiled by the weather, as after the second third of the show it properly poured down from the sky. Luckily it was a twenty-minute downpour that didn’t seriously threaten the event, and otherwise there’s not much to add. Axel did in grand style what he’d been announcing for almost a whole year. He triumphantly closed his first 25 years of career with a big stage spectacle, the kind that probably won’t be repeated in his otherwise rich career. Axel is a workaholic and not a year goes by without him putting out some official music document, whether it’s a new studio album, a live release or compilations.
So the first day ended in line with Bang Your Head!!! tradition. At least one of the festival’s two evenings belongs to a headliner who’s a home-grown act. Not necessarily every year, but the organizer mostly gives the headliner role for at least one night to a German act. Given his venerable years of creating and his rich discography, Axel Rudi Pell undoubtedly earned that position and made the most of it. So we can hardly wait for the release of his new live document!
Setlist
WARLORD:
1. Lucifer’s Hammer
2. Child of the Damned
3. Winter Tears
4. Aliens
5. Black Mass
6. Kill Zone
7. Winds of Thor
8. Deliver Us From Evil
9. 70.000 Sorrows
KISSIN’ DYNAMITE:
1. Sleaze Deluxe
2. Sex Is War
3. She’s A Killer
4. Love Me, Hate Me
5. Welcome To The Jungle
6. I Will Be King
7. Operation Supernova
8. D.N.A.
9. Money, Sex & Power
RIOT V:
1. Narita
2. Fight or Fall
3. Johnny’s Back
4. Wings Are for Angels
5. Angel Eyes
6. Flight of the Warrior
7. Bloodstreets
8. Metal Warrior
9. Swords and Tequila
10. Warrior
11. Thundersteel
EXODUS:
1. Bonded by Blood
2. War Is My Shepherd
3. Piranha
4. And Then There Were None
5. Blacklist
6. A Lesson in Violence
7. Brain Dead
8. The Toxic Waltz
9. Strike of the Beast
MICHAEL SCHENKER’S TEMPLE OF ROCK:
1. Doctor Doctor
2. Where the Wild Wind Blows
3. Lovedrive
4. Another Piece of Meat
5. Assault Attack
6. Armed & Ready
7. Instrumental
8. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
9. Lost Horizons
10. Rock You Like a Hurricane
11. Rock Bottom
SEBASTIAN BACH:
1. Slave to the Grind
2. Temptation
3. The Threat
4. Big Guns
5. Piece of Me
6. 18 and Life
7. American Metalhead
8. Taking Back Tomorrow
9. Monkey Business
10. I Remember You
11. All My Friends Are Dead
12. Youth Gone Wild
AXEL RUDI PELL:
1. Call Her Princess
2. Night After Night
3. Rockin’ the City
4. Undercover Animal
5. Nasty Reputation
6. Warrior
7. Fool Fool
8. Burning Chains
9. Strong as a Rock
10. Long Way to Go
11. Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
12. Mystica
13. Too Late / Eternal Prisoner / Too Late
14. The Masquerade Ball / Casbah
15. Rock the Nation
16. Drum Battle
17. Black Night
18. Sympathy
19. Tush
20. Mistreated
21. Since You Been Gone
22. Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll
23. Smoke on the Water
Photo Gallery
