Location: Munich / Backstage (Halle) / Germany
Date: 07.10.2013
Denmark’s Pretty Maids are one of the few “survivors” of the hard-hitting, finely tuned school of melodic hard rock, stubbornly holding their ground on the scene since the early eighties. The last two albums in particular, “Pandemonium” (2010) and this year’s “Motherland” (2013), prove that after more than thirty years of grinding it out, Pretty Maids are still one of the finest hard rock institutions around, regularly delivering a superb creed of the noblest melodic hard rock breed. The inspiration isn’t fading. The band keeps getting better with age, and its two main men, singer Ronnie Atkins and guitarist Ken Hammer, are now true rock gurus of their craft.
On the first leg of the new Motherland tour, Pretty Maids were joined by the excellent German hard rockers Pink Cream 69 from Karlsruhe. In early October, though, a different name showed up as the opener on the second leg of the very same tour, and it sounds no less tempting. Bonfire, German hard rockers from Ingolstadt, who by far have the most mileage of all the bands mentioned. So the devil gave us no peace, and after catching Pretty Maids and Pink Cream 69 in Salzburg on 26.09.2013 (RockLine report HERE), we had to scratch that restless itch of curiosity in Munich as well, where at exactly eight o’clock the veterans of German, or let’s just say European, hard rock, Bonfire, hit the stage.
Bonfire basically don’t exist without singer Klaus Lessmann and guitarist Hans Ziller. This defiantly creative partnership of the two pillars of the Bonfire story keeps rolling undiminished into the new era, even though Bonfire can hardly brag about a regular, or let’s say consistent, flow of new studio releases that wouldn’t swing wildly in quality. The latest album, “Branded” from 2011, is luckily a very solid effort, but the band is sorely short on those in the new era. The one before it, “Double X”, came out way back in 2007.
Anyway. The lineup of Lessmann (vocals), Ziller (guitar), Chris “Yps” Limburg (guitar), Uwe Kohler (bass) and the fresh-faced drummer Harry Reischmann, who replaced his predecessor Dominik Hülhorst last year, opened the show with one of the better moments of the unfortunate 2009 album “The Räuber”. That was the song Bells Of Freedom. The crowd closed ranks and thrust their fists in the air for the “home team”. The first question on my mind was about Lessmann’s vocal form. Back in 2007 in Treviso, he left a pretty sorry impression. He proved me wrong in no time. Treviso was obviously just a bad day for the singer. Right from the start, his voice was in great shape, packing real power through every stretch of those lead melodies.
The rest of the gig played out almost entirely in classic Bonfire style. The first of the classics to ring out was Tony’s Roulette from the album “Point Blank” (1989). From there, things unfolded just the way a true fan of the band could only wish for. Bonfire confirmed that the concept of vocal harmonies is crystal clear to them in the current lineup too. Everyone sings harmonies except the drummer Harry. And that’s one of those polished virtues that gives this band real “soul” on stage as well. The next song confirmed it too, with one of the strongest riffs on the “Fireworks” album, the classic Never Mind, with a new, hungry chorus that kept the crowd flying high. Bonfire kept the live vibe at an outstanding level, and after Hot To Rock and Don’t Touch The Light they cooled down the red-hot venue with the ballad Fantasy, one of the band’s most famous ballads from their eighties golden age. The jam-packed Backstage club, with a good 400 heads inside, was fired up by the lively Klaus Lessmann, who cunningly used the slightly stretched-out breaks between songs to scatter all kinds of funny bits among the people. He mockingly compared the crowd reactions at Bonfire shows in different German cities, then explained that they’d deliberately handed him a black towel so that when he wipes himself with it during the show, nobody can actually see how much dirt is on him, and so on. A few times he literally had the crowd roaring with laughter. To every one of his “Danke schön”, the crowd thundered back in unison: “Bitte schön!” Klaus followed up with variations of thanks in English and Italian, hoping to find out how many foreign fans were in the room, but he always got only “Bitteschön” back. And when he finally said “Danekschön” once more, the crowd “destroyed” him with a thunderous English “Thank You!” Obviously a tried-and-tested ritual of Bonfire shows in Germany, one that they cultivate only on home stages and nowhere else. You could feel that unified spirit. That extraordinary bond between the German crowd and Bonfire and their music. And it’s true that Lessmann is an outstanding frontman who has the crowd eating out of his hand in a heartbeat. Effortlessly. A man of exceptional charisma.
The elder statesman Ziller and his younger guitar sidekick “Yps” once again showed remarkable chemistry in laying down guitar phrases and a superior seasoning of solo acrobatics. Among the newer songs, Just Follow the Rainbow from the album “Branded” (2011) was in the mix too, fitting perfectly alongside the band’s classic material and proving that as a composition it can hold its own with it on a setlist. The band made up for the shortfall from the debut album “Don’t Touch The Light” in the closing stretch of the show with the ballad You Make Me Feel, where the crowd once again passionately sang along to the verses. Next came the “cheerleader” and suddenly missable Proud Of My Country, which Lessmann introduced as a song meant for every Earthling. Then came a theatrically bombastic finale with the quietly expected Sweet Obsession. This excellent “Fireworks” classic announced the end. With it, Bonfire chopped off an outstanding performance and proved that even in the new era they’re an experience well worth seeing. For Slovenian fans, the only problem is that they don’t play live all that often, and never anywhere near Slovenia. So this chance in Munich couldn’t be allowed to slip away! And luckily, it didn’t. It’s also interesting that Bonfire are pretty much their own roadies. Sure, they have a tech who does most of the work on his own, but the most basic stuff is set up before the show and packed away afterwards by the band members themselves.
Pretty Maids needed a solid three quarters of an hour to take over the stage. That break was an (unpleasant) surprise already in Salzburg, Austria, and there’s no logical explanation for it. Usually the time “gap” in which the stage is “changed over” for the next band is just 15, at most 20 minutes. Well, Pretty Maids obviously aren’t in any hurry. The venue got packed to the last corner, and the German crowd, used to order, even started whistling during the uncomfortable wait. What stood out was the considerable number of people around 30 years old (give or take a year), and there were quite a few younger hard rock fans too, ones who had barely turned 20… Of course, the core of the crowd was made up of mature rockers and (inevitably) mature rockerettes, who were already drooling in the front rows during Bonfire’s set.
For Pretty Maids the stage grew even more “in depth” and “width”, and the quintet literally exploded in all directions when they finally took it at a quarter to ten in the evening! Since it was already clear at the Salzburg show that Ronnie Atkins’ voice is no longer as fresh as it used to be, Pretty Maids dropped the vocally more demanding Why So Serious from the second half of the set, so among the songs from Motherland it was succeeded by the album’s title track, and in the middle of the set they tucked in the vocally easier and widely loved classic ballad Savage Heart, which lit up the German crowd’s heads for good. The expected highlight was also the performance of Sykes/Lynott’s Please Don’t Leave Me This Way, which Ronnie again used to rest his overheated vocal cords, and the crowd sang the choruses on their own once more. What Pretty Maids bring to the table is the band’s incredible energy. It’s hard for anyone to stand next to them. And that was also the basic trait they used to overshadow Bonfire’s set before them. Besides huge charisma, Atkins as a frontman also has that exceptional gift and element of total commitment. When he’s on stage, he gives everything he’s got. And it’s not hard to feel. It’s what outweighs everything. All the expectations, all the quiet wishes you always carry when you arrive at a gig by your favorite band. The band’s “kinetics” are further boosted by the wild bassist Rene Shades, who keeps strolling over to Ken Hammer on the right and Atkins in the middle throughout the show. Shades, the latest permanent member, has fit into the band perfectly! The beastly drummer Allan Tschicaja chips in his share as well. In short! Fire from every position. Atkins once again sweated out gallons, and by the end of the regular part of the set, sweat was literally dripping off his clothes and hair.
The band once again built the repertoire around the first and the last two studio albums. And that was enough. The crowd was satisfied, and Pretty Maids kept raising the “atmosphere” as the show went on. The excellent Little Drops Of Heavben from the album “Pandemonium” has become a real classic and a fixture of the setlist in the three years since that studio release. It’s simply incredible to witness the wildly enthusiastic reaction of the crowd when Ronnie announced it. That’s why Pretty Maids wisely save this song for the obligatory encore, and that way bring the crowd to ecstasy before the closing haymaker delivered by the expected Future World.
Another outstanding show from the seasoned Danish hard rock aces, then, who once again proved they’re in full bloom of maturity! The fanatical crowd did its part. The German crowd is proverbially a bit reserved. Devoted, sure, but it doesn’t lose its composure and its head the way the temperament of, say, the Mediterranean countries would dictate. It’s far from “uptight”, as the Austrian one tends to be, but given how spoiled it is when it comes to live music, it doesn’t exactly experience catharsis at gigs. The Pretty Maids show proved me completely wrong on exactly this point. This time the crowd was an outstanding ally! Loud, devoted, fanatical. Even wild! Traits, in other words, that you don’t see as the norm with a German crowd. And so another ride on the Pretty Maids carousel brought the final expression of an extraordinary concert spell, the kind that only the best gigs deliver.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
BONFIRE:
1. Intro
2. Bells Of Freedom
3. Tony’s Roulette
4. Never Mind
5. Hot To Rock / Don’t Touch the Light
6. Fantasy
7. Just Follow The Rainbow
8. You Make Me Feel
9. Proud Of My Country
10. Sweet Obsession
PRETTY MAIDS:
1. Mother of All Lies
2. I See Ghosts
3. Love Games
4. Motherland
5. Sad to See You Suffer
6. Yellow Rain
7. Drum solo
8. It Comes at Night
9. Savage Heart
10. Rodeo
11. Please Don’t Leave Me (cover)
12. I.N.V.U.
13. Red, Hot and Heavy
—encore—
14. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Carmina Burana)
15. Back to Back
16. Little Drops of Heaven
17. Future World
