Lineup: Axel Rudi Pell, Accuser, Traitor, Sebastian Bach, Exodus, Kissin’ Dynamite, Michael Schenker’s Sonic Temple, Vain, Warlord, Riot V
Location: Balingen / Messegelände / Germany
Date: Friday, July 11, 2014
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, and true to tradition it once again lined up some seriously interesting names. The first day was mostly about celebrating 25 years of music-making by the famous German guitar hero who often gets tagged as the German Blackmore, Axel Rudi Pell. He cooked up an almost three-hour spectacle for day one, but more on that below. Other highlights of the day’s schedule include Warlord, Riot V, the naughty glam rockers Vain, and an appearance by rock classic Michael Schenker. Last but not least, the Bay Area thrash metal champions Exodus, with Steve Zetro Souza back on vocals, added plenty of variety to the first day’s bill.
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 cancelled at the last moment and Balingen locals Traitor stepped in. The quartet, currently Gerd Hery (guitar, backing vocals), Lorenz Kandolf (bass), Andreas Mozer (drums, vocals) and Matthias Koch (guitar, backing vocals), spent a good half hour acting out the ABCs of the German old-school thrash metal tradition. With their 2009 debut “Thrash Command” in their pocket, the band promises a new studio album this year. Bold, confident, committed morning neighing was just the thing for a festival site slowly waking up and getting on with the essentials, from brushing teeth to brewing coffee. Their successors on stage, Accuser are likewise regarded as standard-bearers of the old German thrash metal school. A heap of aggression inherited from the old-school racket of Germany’s great Teutonic thrash trio, where touches of the catchy melodic rhetoric of the likes of Paradox make a sensible parallel, as does the groove of the more modern Dew-Scented. And of course both Traitor and Accuser show plenty of love for Slayer’s aggression.
After that ominous overture of genuine thrash metal vistas, Warlord took the stage. This was probably no more than the fifth show of the career of this otherwise legendary band, whom the wheel of fate flung into a long period of dormancy after 1986, with a brief flash between 2000 and 2002. But with “The Holy Empire”, their fourth studio album, the band returned to the scene in 2013, in a lineup with original members Bill Tsamis on guitar and drummer Mark Zonder. On vocals is Cypriot Nicholas Leptos (Arrayan Path, Astronomikon), and filling in for bassist Philip Bynoe (Steve Vai) for this show was the no less fantastic bassist Gary Wehrcamp, the renowned guitar wizard of the progressive metallers Shadow Gallery. On stage the quartet is rounded out by an additional guitarist of Italian descent, Paolo Viani, and keyboardist Angelo Vafeiadis. So today’s Warlord are very “Mediterranean” in flavor. The crowd had certainly come to hear the older classics, which were embodied by 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, buzzing bees, which probably reflects the fact that the group doesn’t have much live mileage and doesn’t pay much attention to the finer points of stage sound. Unlike the barely audible guitars, though, the bass playing of Gary Wehrkamp came through loud and clear, impressive for its remarkable precision and wonderful warmth of tone. As expected, the band worked the new studio album into the set, playing Kill Zone and 70.000 Sorrows. They closed the show with the latter. The surely very pleasing setlist was also spiced up by another old song, 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 tell that, with the exception of Mark Zonder and Gary Wehrkamp, the crew has neither much live nor, let alone, studio mileage, so they’ll need to work more on stage dynamics in the future.
That Warlord weren’t to blame for the miserable sound, and that the culprits were the sloppy sound techs, was confirmed by the next band up, Vain. Who’d have thought Vain could make it over to Europe? Even though the band’s best years are behind them, Davy Vain and crew give no such impression on stage. The energetic vocalist proved to be a man born to be an entertainer. The barefoot singer ran back and forth tirelessly through the whole gig, 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 gig backed by a bag full of classics from the debut “No Respect”. The band has held on to remarkable tightness, freshness and power into its mature years, which is why the show came across so well-oiled. With such a charismatic frontman up front and the experience of the other members, who include three more from the original lineup besides Davy (guitarists Jamie Scott and Danny West and bassist Ashley Mitchell), and next to Warlord’s static show, Vain brought the first real “party” festival wake-up call.
Next up were Kissin’ Dynamite. More locals, who opened the 2010 edition of the Bang Your Head!!! 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. Of course most eyes were on vocalist Hannes, who commanded the stage with huge energy and a polished stage presence, with excellent singing and perfect stage movement. The band is on a constant live gallop, and that shows in their perfect chemistry and hair-splittingly polished stage performance. Confident and fiercely committed. A band that played last year in the middle of the worst heat at Tolmin’s Metaldays festival can’t possibly let you down with that kind of power on stage.
Far more interest was drawn by the show from Riot V. They’re the legitimate heirs to the legacy of the New York metal veterans Riot, whose founder and driving force, the 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 outstanding vocalist in Todd Michael Hall, whose tone and approach are a dead ringer for Riot’s most famous singer, Tony Moore. The second guitar slot in Riot V is filled by the young Nick Lee, and on drums, in place of Bobby Jarzombek, who played this very day (note!) 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 a stellar repertoire made up exclusively of famous Riot classics, capped off with the long-awaited and renowned shrapnel blast Thundersteel. The razor-sharp picking of precisely measured guitar harmonies in thirds from the Flyntz/Lee guitar duo, their virtuoso soloing, led by the experienced Flyntz, who naturally took the lion’s share of the guitar work in the new Riot, but above all the band saved its skin thanks to the incredible Todd Michael Hall, whose vocal acrobatics were always spellbinding when he managed to come remarkably close to some truly hard-to-reach (highest) lines that were Tony Moore’s trademark. Riot V’s show was over in the blink of an eye. Even though the guys had only a bit under an hour. That’s how tight and dense the show was. And let’s not even start on the stage dynamics. The band will be playing very soon at the Metaldays festival, as the main draw of the second stage. A live experience that all fans of the traditional old-school metal legacy simply have to taste! By the way! The group also played a brand-new song in the set, Metal Warrior, and you couldn’t wish for a better approximation of the classic Riot material in terms of songwriting, so the upcoming new Riot V album promises a lot!
After Riot V came another top-notch performance and definitely one of the cathartic peaks of the festival’s first day. The show by the 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 before they continued their career with Rob Dukes on lead vocals. Exodus showed up at Bang Your Head!!! as if they’d arrived from another planet. One thing became clear in an instant! “Zetro” = Exodus. Despite the hefty weight the man has comfortably put on over the last decade, Zetro is actually Exodus’s saving grace. Whatever the clash of heavy personalities that caused his departure from the band years ago, with his particular stage charisma Zetro is a vocalist with the caliber of an exceptional frontman. The man is a commander who picks the right words at the right moment, making fun of himself, the band members and the audience 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 carefully asked those present whether they’d brought their dancing shoes. Of course the show by the brilliantly sweat-soaked and reborn Exodus delivered a pile of mosh pits, a pile of mayhem, beer showers and headbanging. The combination of two outstanding heavyweight guitarists, Gary Holt, who has grown a Gandalf beard as well as a nice helping of decorative belly fat, teamed with the always ferociously committed Lee Altus (Heathen), worked superbly. Relentless, tenacious, with the sharpness of shredding that the concept of the primordial “thrash metal” bible demands. The band put a bit more material from the album “Tempo of the Damned” (2002) into the setlist and of course kept up the relentlessness of the devilish dossier with the “Bonded By Blood” classics. As I said. Exodus’s show was one of the highlights of the first day.
After Exodus came another attraction. A set by one of the most important guitarists in the whole history of modern heavy metal and hard rock expression. The famous Michael Schenker with his backing band. It was Schenker who, through the seventies, when he created some unforgettable evergreen classics for UFO, brought lead guitar playing to a new generation by masterfully balancing the usual elements of blues music, which until his arrival often dominated solos, with a neoclassical musicality, to the point where the solos themselves took on the powerful weight of an equal character within a given rock or metal composition. In countless solos by Schenker’s followers you can spot, at every step, the inspiration from the legacy of this fascinating musical artist.
Schenker, who released a new studio album for his new band “Michael Schenker’s Temple of Rock”, took the stage with a backing band that includes two more ex-Scorpions members, bassist Francis Bucholz and drummer Herman Rarebell. So with Schenker himself, three “former” Scorpions shared the stage. The crew is rounded out by the one-of-a-kind Scottish vocalist Doogie White (ex-Rainbow, ex-Ingwie J. Malmsteen) and multi-instrumentalist Wayne Findlay. The latter is a classically trained guitar shredder. Perhaps a less glamorous name in Michael Schenker’s crew, but one who has worked in the past with a plethora of musicians historically connected to Michael Schenker in one way or another. Given the high expectations of what the legendary guitarist would deliver, feelings after the show were mixed. The band disappointed a bit with the setlist, which included as many as three Scorpions songs, while the two UFO songs, the opening Doctor Doctor and closing Rock Bottom, were totally justified and very welcome. Why Michael Schenker needs to play Scorpions material only he knows, since he has a lovely plethora of outstanding solo work from every era of his musical career. The second problem that somewhat spoiled the overall impression was, once again, the dreadful guitar mix. 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 of the sound. There was a brand-new song, Where the Wind Wind Blows, the classic Armed And Ready, and also Before Devil Knows You Are Dead, which the late rock icon Ronnie James Dio created for Schenker. Despite the less favorable setlist and the poor sound, watching Schenker on stage was a special kind of honor. Watching the famous moves of Schenker’s pioneering style and stage theater, with his right hand held high in the air, raising his famous Flyin’ V guitars, even if the show didn’t “grab” you as you’d have expected.
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 surprising to find Bach placed so high on the bill, since expectations of what he’d deliver were extremely low. Really low. And the experience? Sadly just as expected. A disastrous show. Not worth a split second. Right from the start Bach showed off his vocal condition in a most unpleasant way. You can tell the man doesn’t practice and doesn’t use his voice regularly. He ran out of breath quickly, 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’t squeeze even a pinch of melody out of its vocal cords, as the Skid Row classics demand. Surrounded by a guitarist and bassist of the younger generation, the guitarist of whom also delivered dreadful backing vocals on top of everything, and by the otherwise attractive drummer Bobby Jarzombek – an illogical and expensive choice given how undemanding the lead rhythms of the material are – Bach disappointed with his superior star behavior, expressing his frustration at being unable to sing properly by throwing the mic to the ground and blaming the sound tech, claiming he couldn’t sing because his mic wasn’t working. Which of course wasn’t true. The mic was working damn well, it’s just that Bach simply can’t sing properly anymore. As for Skid Row material, it made up the bulk of Bach’s repertoire, with which the “sleeping beauty on the pea” partly patched over his performing immaturity, but in any case we can simply write off attending his live shows and, in the future, focus only on Skid Row gigs. Without Sebastian Bach in the lineup, of course.
The first day drew fewer acts to the main stage. Why? Because the set by the first 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 moving 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 significant mark on the rock scene with their persona and work. But let’s take it in order. The spectacle opened with four Steeler classics, with the bass duties swapped between Volker Krawczak, who played the opener 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). Steeler opened in their original lineups: Axel Rudi Pell on guitar, Tom Eder on rhythm guitar, drummer Jan Yildiral and both of the aforementioned bassists. Certainly a moment in Pell’s career that will be hard to repeat in the future.
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, giving us an incarnation of the first lineup of the A.R.P. band, which continues the show with the song Nasty Reputation. It quickly turned out that Rock, who performed as Rob rock on the festival’s second day this year. is still in superb vocal form, and also that Axel isn’t all that skilled at stage performing. Even in the few modest moments of the show when he stepped up to the mic to say a few words. That’s why he has always gladly left that role largely to the singers of his band. Rudi, shifted over to the right side of the stage, soloed peacefully through the show and showed no great desire to jump around the stage and grab attention. But this evening our troubadour Rudi, baroquely decked out in a 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’ve already noticed, 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 out and the guitars “grabbed” the way they should. This was a jubilee event, backed by multiple cameras, which meant the show was being recorded. In the days after the show, Axel Rudi Pell officially confirmed the release of a new live document of this performance, as a Blu-ray, a double live CD and a DVD. So he was fully justified in “going nuts” and making his point to the sound techs.
Rock stayed on stage for just one song. For the next one, Warrior, he and Jeff Scott Soto swapped places, and Soto theatrically hurled two pairs of Ray Ban glasses into the crowd as he came on (probably cheap replicas, otherwise Jeff wouldn’t be tossing them around so generously). Like his predecessor Rob Rock, Soto once again confirmed the excellent vocal form that made him one of the most impressive vocalists at this year’s Frontiers Rock festival in the Italian town of Trezzo sul’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 into the brand-new Burning Chain (“Into the Storm”, 2014), where A.R.P. incarnated in their present-day form, with Johnny Gioeli (Hardline) and the drumming veteran who has probably seen, among other things, the Great Flood, Bobby Rondinelli (ex-Black Sababth, ex-Rainbow, ex-Blue Oyster Cult, ex-The Lizards, ex-Riot,…), taking the stage. From Nasty Reputation on, keyboards were handled on stage by Ferdy Dörneberg.
The central part of the spectacle followed, with Pell’s later works and a presentation of the new album “Into the Storm” (besides Burning Chains, also a 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, and then a combination of the newer Too Late into which Pell worked the ancient Eternal Prisoner (the original of which, like Casbah, is sung by Jeff Scott Soto). This part was closed by the song Rock the Nation (“Mystica”, 2006), which, played in the middle of Germany at that moment, undoubtedly felt great on the eve of the 2014 World Cup final, when Germany and Argentina faced off.
The final part of a kind of career trilogy for Axel Rudi Pell consisted of songs that have inspired the musician throughout his career and with which Axel Rudi Pell matured and developed as an artist. For the occasion, Pell invited legendary rock stars as special guests. The first to climb on stage, behind his own drums, was Vinnie Appice (ex-Black Sabbath), who performed a drum duet with Rondinelli. After 15 minutes of cannon fire from two drummers, the show carried on in the classic way. It was opened by a cover of the iron repertoire of Deep Purple’s Black Night. Pretty Maids vocalist Ronnie Atkins jumped in on vocals, replacing Joe Lynn Turner at the last moment at this point (in the official promo announcements Turner was supposed to sing this song). Atkins adapted his vocal specifics, which usually go with the Pretty Maids repertoire, excellently, imitating the utterly unique Ian Gillan as best he could. After that, another special guest surprised everyone by coming on stage. John Lawton (ex-Uriah Heep), as the band tackled the superb Uriah Heep classic of the Lawton era, Sympathy, continued with the predictable Tush (ZZ Top) and settled on a song that Pell still includes in his live shows to this day, 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 Richie Blackmore. On stage appears a man in an elegant, glittering tuxedo with a smooth hairdo and shining brilliantine. None other than Graham Bonnet (ex-Rainbow, Alcatrazz, Impellitteri). The band carries on its rock mass through performances of 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 a somewhat predictable and worn-out inclusion of the Deep Purple monument called Smoke On the Water, and absolutely all the players of this marathon event arrive on stage. Several singers share the lead vocals in it.
The evening was somewhat spoiled by the weather, as it properly poured from the sky after the second third of the show. 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 year. He triumphantly wrapped up his first 25 years of career with a big stage spectacle of a kind that probably won’t be repeated in his otherwise rich career. Axel is a workaholic and no year goes by without him putting out some official musical document, be it 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 two festival evenings belongs to a headliner who is a home-grown act. Not necessarily every year, but the organizer mostly hands the headliner role to a German act for at least one evening. Given his venerable years of making music and his rich discography, Axel Rudi Pell has without doubt earned that position and made the best possible use of it. So we can hardly wait for the release of his new live document!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
