Location: Orpheum / Graz / Austria
Concert date: 08.04.2006
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: 30€
One of the coziest little venues around here, and after a longer break we’re back! The staff who work there are incredibly friendly too, and when I got talking with the promoter, he said it’s lucky Slovenia is so close, because our people coming to shows often save his skin. When I remarked that Orpheum is a phenomenal venue and that it’d be great if Slovenia got one like it, he wasn’t exactly thrilled, since he said he’d lose his Slovenian guests that way. Well, sure, a venue like that isn’t enough on its own in Slovenia, you also need “healthy” promoters, and apart from a few bright exceptions, they just don’t meet that requirement right now.
This one was insane. Worn out from interviews, I barely made it in time for the start of the show. A few Slovenian regulars were already waiting outside the hall, good old acquaintances and loyal Rage fans who’d come to enjoy the unique metal melodics of this excellent German band, which, despite its long tenure on the scene, is somehow unfortunately overlooked on the metal map even today, without the recognition it undoubtedly deserves more than enough.
The hall held around 300 people, and plenty more stayed outside waiting for Freedom Call to wrap up their set. Freedom Call kicked off at 9 p.m. They’d already played here at Orpheum as a support act back in 2001, before Hammerfall and Virgin Steele. In six years of existence, these hyperactive metalheads have put out 4 studio albums and one “live” album. The band plays typical German power metal dressed up in fantasy poetry. So anthemic and epic “über alles”. Warriors fearlessly lopping off the heads of dragons and other beasts of boundless human imagination, we salute you! Most Freedom Call songs lean on major-key lines, which means these guys are true happy-go-lucky metal merrymakers with cheeky grins plastered on their faces. Freedom Call delivered a tight, well-rehearsed show, offered decent sound for a support band, and put real effort into playing their material. They presented their current studio album “The Circle Of Life” (2005), and three new songs made it into the setlist. Standing out in the whole set was Mother Earth, one of those three, since it had some drama thanks to the way the riff was built, raw enough to cause a brief shift in the otherwise cheerful, positive mood. The guys won over the crowd, though you could tell many in the hall were “yawning” and clapping out of politeness. Chris shone in particular on vocals while “sawing” away on guitar at the same time. Still, the eye kept landing on Daniel Zimmermann, who, besides drumming for Freedom Call, is the drummer of the far more notorious Gamma Ray. Zimmermann made it clear once again that the small drum kit he’s forced to use as a support-act drummer is no match for him at all. The kit nearly toppled over and shook miserably the whole time under Dan’s double-bass “torpedoing” and bombastic rolls. So sometimes it seems Freedom Call are a much bigger attraction because of their renowned drummer than because of their music. A nice, professionally correct performance.
The only thing that spoiled the impression was that they were selling their guitar picks at the “merchandise” stand, which is a pretty outrageous move. Sure, they’re fighting tooth and nail for every cent, but it’s a kind of self-degradation. A pick is normally caught during the show by a real fan, but this way anyone can buy one, even someone who spent their gig drinking beer outside the hall and, bizarrely enough, making fun of them. Then again, it’s certainly a welcome source of quick cash.
Enough about Freedom Call. The headliners were there to remind us that the world isn’t as rosy as it looks to them. Rage, of course. A band that, in its new guise as a trio of three absolute oddballs, a hot spot of modern heavy metal, didn’t beat around the bush in the slightest. After a taped intro the stage exploded and the hall came alive. I’d seen Rage twice before. First on a “co-headlining” tour with Primal Fear (they played a good hour), then as support for Helloween (they played an hour). This was the first time they were “headliners” in my eyes. The stage was huge for three people. Rage came storming out and kicked off their set with Speak Of The Dead. Peter “Peavy” Wagner, who just an hour earlier, short on proper sleep, with glued-shut eyes, a thick fog in his head and a raspy throat, couldn’t manage anything beyond unintelligible mumbling while making coffee in the “backstage” kitchen, was reborn on stage. A different man. Compared to three years ago, his presence on stage “filled” the field of view a lot more. Figuratively, that would mean the guy put on some serious weight in that time, even grew himself a proper “Bavarian” belly. No, no… I’m taking it back already. Peavy is one of the greatest German metal band “leaders” and composers. A kind of legend. Now, on Peavy’s left, raging around, was the hyperactive Belarusian fan of ice hockey, fast cars and, as such, fast guitar playing, Victor Smolski, the “Belarusian Malmsteen” (or the “Swedish Smolski”). Always approachable for his fans, a talkative guitarist with a positive spirit, he was simply boiling over with energy, hungry to rampage across his guitar. The third man, stationed at the back, belongs to the handful of great metal drum gurus. Mike Terrana. In his trademark acrobatic, gymnastic pose he relentlessly pounded the drum kit, whose heads are probably held together by elephant hide, or the skin of a Greenland whale, to withstand all this untamed beating.
Rage are unbelievably fast on stage. Peavy and Victor “went berserk” left and right across the stage while Mike stretched his tentacles to the max and strained like mad to drown out both of his bandmates. If the happy little elves were singing their ditties earlier, Rage came on stage to sow blackness that literally swallowed us right away and blew Freedom Call off like a feather.
Peavy, a lover of skulls of every origin, was in great spirits on stage. He chatted with the crowd and was especially entertaining with his constant trademark grimacing and tongue-wagging, which recalled Gene Simmons (Kiss). The setlist consisted mostly of songs written by the current trio, with some old bombast à la Turn the Page, Enough is Enough and Baby I’m Your Nightmare. If they hadn’t won over the entire crowd before, Rage did it at the latest while playing the more than twenty-minute epic Suite Lingua Mortis. Without the accompaniment of their Prague orchestra, which plays on the track on the freshly released “Speak Of The Dead” (2006) album, but this is a song that proves the sheer class of these three musicians. “Peavy” bellowed through the show like a madman, at undiminished power. I expected him to run out of steam toward the end, but I was wrong. The guy heroically withstood the strain of ferociously ripping at his bass in combination with his vocal roaring. Suite Lingua Mortis of course included the orchestral arrangements in the background, played from tape. The sight of Smolski and what he was doing with his guitar was once again breathtaking. Rage played the suite with serious feeling, because of all their material it’s especially unusual and therefore especially appealing to play.
During Baby I’m Your Nightmare, a minor mishap occurred. At the end of the song, Terrana miraculously vanished from behind his drums. No, no. He didn’t fall off his stool, don’t worry. In the pause after the song, he turned up under the platform of his drum kit with a flashlight in hand, frantically feeling around on the floor. Some essential piece of the kit had flown far, far away, who knows where, during his outrageous brutality. Meanwhile, Peavy addressed the crowd, turned the whole thing into a joke and asked for a round of applause for the visibly “rattled” Mike. Meanwhile, Smolski didn’t hesitate for long and kept the audience busy with his excellent instrumental composition from the Rage record “Welcome To The Other Side” (2001) called Lunatic, where he showed off his signature trademark of soloing without a pick and “tapping” while “muting” the sound with his right palm. No question, the wizard of the guitar from the East shone across the board. Terrana got his five minutes too. The solo spot was announced by a taped voice in the background: “Ladies And Gentleman, let me present you the sexyest drumer in the world! Mike “the Troll” Terrana!”. Just like Smolski, Terrana proved he was absolutely toxic tonight and a McLaren of metal too, not on guitar but on drums. “The Troll” was mischievous and devastatingly furious!
After the highly atmospheric showpiece Suite Lingua Mortis, which gave everyone in Orpheum a thorough case of goosebumps, and the guitar solo, Rage stepped on the gas as usual and carried on into the closing part of the show with the explosive songs from the “Soundchaser” (2003) record, which we’d gotten thoroughly hungry for by then. The trio sweated buckets. At times the guys seemed to be in a trance on stage, Smolski especially during his solos! At the end Peavy gratefully dedicated Rage’s best-known song, Don’t Fear the Winter from the Perfect Man (1989) record, to all the Slovenian fans, which was a special honor for the small Slovenian handful present.
Rage thus wrapped up their show in the best possible fashion and fully justified the name of the band. The crowd demanded more. Higher Than The Sky (“End Of All Days”, 1996) opened the encore, after a witty walking blues jazzy “gag”! The excellent smasher turned into the Judas Priest classic Jawbreaker midway through, and the crowd flared up even more, then Rage perfectly returned to the main theme of Higher Than The Sky and carried their bravura performance to the end, loaded to the max with the wildness of untamed energy of the noblest metal pedigree. Damn… The show, which lasted an hour and 50 minutes, was over way too fast…
The Troll Terrana was visibly upset about the incident in the middle of the show and sort of flung a few sticks into the crowd before disappearing backstage, while Victor and Peavy showed signs of a deeper attachment to the loyal fans in the hall and said a very dignified goodbye to the people with some proper handshakes. Troll’s stubbornness, with which he proved how childish he is for his 46 years, most likely cost us the song Full Moon, which Rage cut from the encore as a result.
A Rage show is a stunning experience, recommended to everyone, and the simple fact of what just three people can do on a metal stage will cast a spell on you. They brought all their hellish punch and stage perfectionism, polished to the max, onto the stage with them. This is a band that doesn’t puff itself up by selling guitar picks, but plays the card of stage performance. With the philosophy “show what you’ve got in your pants on stage”. A show you walk away from with far more than you expected at the start. This time the feeling was all the stronger because Rage were the main act on stage and actually exploded without any restraint. “Metal up your ass!”
Setlist
FREEDOM CALL:
1. Warriors
2. We Are One
3. Hero Nation
4. Hunting High And Low
5. Metal Invasion
6. Another Day
7. Mother Earth
8. Ocean
9. Land Of Light
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10. Freedom Call
11. Hymn To The Brave
RAGE:
1. Speak Of The Dead
2. No Fear
3. Down
4. Turn The Page
5. Crucified
6. Straight To Hell
7. Drum Solo
8. Enough Is Enough
9. Baby, I’m your Nightmare
10. Lunatic (instrumental)
11. Suite Lingua Mortis
12. Guitar Solo
13. War Of Worlds
14. Human Metal
15. Don’t Fear The Winter
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16. Higher Than the Sky (incl. Jawbreaker)
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