Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Munich / Zenith Halle / Germany
Concert date: December 1, 2012
Attendance: 6000
Ticket price: €42.00
The year has come full circle, the cold has set in, and as usual it’s brought along a new Motörhead tour of Great Britain and Germany, two countries traditionally loyal to heavy metal. Autumn after autumn, Motörhead sail through the standard stops across both countries and, as if on a bet, leave sold-out halls and happy hordes of devotees in their wake.
But this year with one novelty! At the end of the German tour, right before Lemmy and company pack their bags and spend the holidays on vacation, they’ll also stop in Ljubljana, at the very same »scene of the crime« that hosted the famous 1989 show, which Lemmy still remembers today for a bloody incident. The announced Ljubljana gig thinned out the usual crowd of travelers from the sunny side of the Alps to the date that’s traditionally closest to us, in Munich, but of course that didn’t stop Rockline from catching Motörhead one more time.
Aleš and I made it to the hall just before the end of the Bundesliga derby, where hometown Bayern and Borussia Dortmund clashed at the Allianz Arena, right next door to Zenith Halle. So we narrowly dodged the traffic jams and caught the opening act Diaries Of A Hero, who, judging by the length of the frontman’s beard, have some mileage behind them. Sadly (or luckily?), their modern style didn’t stir up much excitement in a crowd loyal to traditional metal. Into a varied song structure that ranged somewhere between thrash metal and metalcore, the Brits mixed a heap of worn-out breakdowns, digging themselves even deeper into the notion that they weren’t exactly rocking the metal world. Far from it – by the time they left the stage after a good half hour, they were already forgotten.
The curtain with the first support act’s name dropped to fully reveal the cover of Anthrax’s new record »Worship Music«, the one that gave the Americans back their long-lost credibility and put them back on the current metal map! Yes, this time Motörhead brought a really strong support act on tour! Time for a steel-plated mosh pit workout called Anthrax!
After lukewarm reviews of their shows on the »Big Four« tours over the past two years, I was skeptical about their form myself, but the New Yorkers managed to kick me straight in the groin with a bombastic show! They opened with the classic Caught in a Mosh and followed it with the new single Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t, which showed why people are saying Anthrax are the real deal again! The angry riffing and the trademark punchy multi-part vocals before the melodic chorus kicks in were something Anthrax managed to redefine and embody in the new material, so all three new songs found their place among the eighties classics with total credibility. They’d managed to find the old recipe again! Anthrax dedicated the song In The End to the departed brothers Ronnie James Dio and Dimebag Darrell, while the last new number, The Devil You Know, only turned up toward the end of the set.
Ian Scott and Rob Caggiano kept swapping places, and together with bassist Frank Bello they blasted the spirit of a proper eighties thrash metal party into the hall, the kind where nobody knows who’s drinking and who’s paying! Joey Belladonna is fantastic! The frontman, back in the original lineup, rampages around the stage with his hot-blooded Native American blood and keeps sparking the beginnings of a »war dance«. One of the funniest moments came right during the speed burner Indians, when a fan in a lavish feather headdress landed among the front rows, and of course Belladonna didn’t stay in his debt and paid him back in kind! With Deathrider from the debut »Fistful of Metal« (1984), Ian Scott thanked Motörhead for the creative inspiration at the start of their career, and from there Anthrax strung together Madhouse, with Belladonna tacking on the first verse of the Judas Priest classic Ripper as an intro, a cover of Joe Jackson’s Got The Time and, for the farewell, the unforgettable I Am the Law. An hour-long trip through the mischievously hard-hitting school of Anthrax, under the weight of fill-in drummer Jon Dette’s drum blows, decisively demolished the idea that Anthrax’s time had run out. They served up the best they’ve got, and they delivered!
After the break came the finale of the night, time for the immortal standard-bearers of the rawest version of rock’n’roll, time for Motörhead! Out of a cloud of thick fog, Mikkey Dee, Phil Campbell and Ian »Lemmy« Kilmister stepped out in front of the sold-out Zenith hall. Lemmy, in his usual fashion, walked up to the mic and growled the iron words: »Good evening, we are Motörhead«. Ice-cold words that nevertheless quickened heartbeats, set the blood boiling in our veins and sparked a fever! Now it’s for real!
Motörhead kicked off the show with I Know Hot to Die, which, as it turned out later, was the only song of more recent vintage on the setlist. Two years have passed since the last album »The Wörld Is Yours«, so working its key moments into the live show is already a thing of the past for this British heavy rock institution – which is of course grist to the mill for those who prefer Motörhead’s creative peak of the early eighties! Damage Case, Stay Clean and Metropolis recalled the golden days of Eddie Clarke, and after the triplet from »Overkill« (1979), Lemmy too took a few moments, the first of the evening, to catch his breath and address the pumped-up crowd.
Judging by what I saw, Lemmy Kilmister remains a creature treated almost like a deity! A man with a grim look and a static, cold-blooded stage presence, his forehead covered by that unmistakable Yankee hat with a sheriff’s badge in the middle, rode his boundless charisma to master a crowd that was all but eating out of his hand. Guitarist Campbell and Lemmy himself also know how to have fun with the Lemmy cult through their back-and-forth banter. Whenever it was time to step on the gas, Phil handed the mic over to the boss on the right side of the stage, who, with a few well-rehearsed jokes, kept the audience in the palm of his hand. Behind the two of them, pounding away at the drum kit, was Mikkey Dee, a drummer of Greek roots and the liveliest of the trio: unlike the seemingly calm guitar duo in front of him, he beat the kit like an animal, with only a tousled tuft of his hair bouncing above it.
The invasion of raw rock’n’roll noise on our eardrums continued after Campbell’s solo, which Lemmy used for a quick hop backstage to his oxygen mask, with a deep focus on classic material, though two songs from the album »1916« also made the set (The One to Sing the Blues and Going to Brazil). The bouncy riff treat Killed by Death signaled that the show was nearing its end. Drenched in sweat but seemingly perfectly calm, Lemmy, even after a good hour on stage, managed to vocally defy the relentless age that’s wearing him down physically more and more. Before they left the stage, the anthemic Ace of Spades wrapped things up, an energetic bomb that, like a deadly march, wrung the last atoms of strength out of the crowd below the stage. You could feel the genuine energy that, at least as far as Motörhead shows go, hits its zenith every time on German soil!
As a big thank-you to the classic rock they drew their inspiration from long ago, the Motorheads gave back on their return to the stage with the Thin Lizzy cover Are You Ready, before an hour and twenty minutes of intense hanging out came to its predictable end with the ancient earsplitter Overkill.
What to say at the end? Motörhead stay true to their slogan »everything louder than everyone else«, and their shows to one single goal: rock’n’roll mayhem, even if it means the odd miss in the eyes of music connoisseurs. Motörhead have always been messengers of primitive noise, and so they’re made for wrecking a venue rather than for listening to on your couch at home! »Bastards« in the truest sense of the word! But one thing is clear. Their time is slowly running out, which, given the constant touring, shows in Lemmy’s increasingly frail frame, and Motörhead shows have started getting shorter because of it. And that’s yet another reason why catching the Ljubljana show is a must! The fact is, we won’t be able to watch them forever… even though Lemmy is immortal!
Setlist
MOTÖRHEAD:
1. I Know How to Die
2. Damage Case
3. Stay Clean
4. Metropolis
5. Over the Top
6. Doctor Rock
7. Guitar Solo
8. The Chase Is Better Than the Catch
9. Rock It
10. You Better Run
11.The One to Sing the Blues
12. Drum Solo (plus The One To Sing The Blues outro)
13. Going to Brazil
14. Killed by Death
15. Ace of Spades
—encore—
16. Are You Ready
17. Overkill
ANTHRAX:
1. Worship (taped intro)
2. Caught in a Mosh
3. Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t
4. Antisocial
5. Indians
6. Hymn 1 (taped intro)
7. In the End
8. Deathrider
9. Madhouse
10. Got the Time
11. The Devil You Know
12. I Am the Law
13. Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll (taped outro)
Photo Gallery
