Location: Vienna (Wien) / Szene / Austria
Date: Thursday, 11.11.2010
The upside of long drives to Vienna gigs is definitely that us music enthusiasts can stock up on all kinds of music media along the way through Austria, thanks to the well-stocked stores in the local shopping malls. That’s exactly what the Rockline crew did, grabbing almost the entire Lizzy Borden discography for next to nothing and riding its nostalgic rhythms all the way to the Szene club in Vienna, where Lynch mob were playing that night. It’s only a small hop from Lizzy Borden to Lynch mob. Both bands are pretty much textbook products of the eighties, except that the latter can boast, on top of that heritage, one of the most respected guitar names of our time.
George Lynch comes from the old guitar school inspired by Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, but his lightning-fast technique ties him to the younger generation of virtuosos too. Lynch mob is one of his side projects, born after the breakup of the legendary Dokken in the late eighties, and over the last two decades it has popped up on and off in various lineups. The latest album, Smoke and mirrors (Rockline review here), was recorded with Lynch, vocalist Oni Logan (a member of the band’s first incarnation), bassist Marco Mendoza and drummer Scott Coogan, but on the current tour the latter two have been replaced by Robbie Crane (of Ratt, who are currently on hold) and the excellent Brian Tichy, who has drummed for Foreigner and Billy Idol.
Vienna’s Szene is a charming club just a stone’s throw from the strict city center. It works along the lines of Ljubljana’s Orto (a daytime bar with a somewhat bigger concert room attached) and holds about 500 heads. The owners are often the gig promoters too, and this show was no exception. They surely had a hard time keeping their cool when Lynch and company showed up almost two hours late from Luxembourg, where they’d played the day before, and after a lukewarm set from the support bands (Sonic tension and Silverdirt) bolted straight from the van onto the stage.
Oni Logan, who won over the crowd right away, is a great counterweight to the stoic Lynch. George doesn’t talk to the audience at all, and even through the applause and ovations he rarely looks up from his guitars. We saw quite a few of them, but the one that definitely stood out was the original prototype of the ESP Tiger, which saved his life during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 by taking a bullet from one of the rioters. Ever since, George says, that guitar has been closer to his heart than any of his ex-wives or current ones. The show was solid and relaxed, maybe even too relaxed: a slightly tipsy Logan forgot the lyrics to Wicked sensation, so they had to stop the song and play it again from the top. But the fact that the gig felt like a public rehearsal didn’t spoil the mood one bit. Also because we got three tracks from Dokken’s golden era: the instrumental Mr. Scary, Tooth and nail, and Into the fire as an encore. Despite the circumstances, Oni sang these classics without a doubt far better than Don Dokken could, as he’s been plagued in recent years by the so-called Halford syndrome. Don has lost all his high vocal registers, which the latest Greatest hits album, with his re-recorded hits, makes pretty obvious.
So Lynch mob didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t the tightly orchestrated show we got the day before at Satrijani, but the intimate vibe, a lot like the one at Bluesiana in Carinthia, plus the spontaneity and chemistry of four seasoned stage cats made for something really special. The only downside of the gig was probably that they left the stage after just over an hour and a single encore. The trend of short sets, kicked off by Blackie Lawless, is clearly catching on with other reps of the once-prominent Sunset Strip scene, whose trademark was above all the first two ingredients of the famous slogan “sex, drugs and rock n’roll”. And since it’s also well known that George prefers to sign autographs for the female part of the crowd after shows, we didn’t join the line of long-haired youngsters who were (probably in vain) waiting at the backstage door. Instead we lingered a moment at the “official merchandise” table and then headed back onto the Austrian highway, which by then was wrapped in pitch darkness.
author: Tomo Jurca
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Lynch Mob: 1. She’s Evil But She’s Mine 2. River Of Love 3. Hell Child 4. Revolution Hero 5. Let The Music be Your Master 6. 21st Century Man 7. All I Want 8. We Will Remain 9. Mr. Scary 10. Wicked Sensation 11. Tooth n’ Nail —encore— 12. Into the Fire
