Location: Seebronn / Baden-Württemberg / Germany
Date: 28.07.2012
Europe, Bob Geldof, Fish and the rest of the lineup gave us a cozy welcome on opening day of Germany’s Rock of Ages festival and helped us get used to the climate of the state of Baden-Württemberg. The organizers did put a bit of a damper on things, though: they don’t offer journalists any special camping zone, so I pitched my tent in the middle of the other festival-goers, about a ten-minute walk from the action. At the sister Bang Your Head!!! Festival, held every year a few dozen kilometers away, us journalists are put up right next to the entrance to the grounds. But no biggie, you really shouldn’t complain about every little thing!
Good vibes were then delivered even before the second day’s gigs kicked off by an old gig buddy, Alen a.k.a. Štorklja, a legend of Slovenian concert venues who has been living abroad for the past two years, so running into him again was a big surprise! The reunion absolutely had to be toasted with a beer or two, and our chat about the current gig scene and other aspects of life stretched right through the opening act of Saturday, when the young Swiss hard rockers MAXXWELL started shaking the festival crowd awake. A 45-minute set of punchy riffs loaded with melodic flourishes rumbled like thunder across the windswept wheat fields surrounding the whole site in the quiet early Saturday afternoon, and from what those who were there told me, the young Swiss lads did one hell of a job.
Second on the main (well, actually the only) festival stage were REGGATTA DE BLANC. As their name already gives away, borrowed from one of The Police’s albums, this is a band that plays the songs of those former new wave / rock giants. I’m personally not a fan of cover bands, since I think they eat up space in the music world that belongs to plenty of creative bands. Still, I have to admit that Reggatta De Blanc, whose members have German blood running through their veins, really delivered and put together a pleasant trip through the hits of The Police. The central figure of the show was, of course, the frontman, who had, and this is truly breathtaking, the exact same voice color as Sting! The good-humored trio on stage visibly enjoyed themselves, so with the bouncy Police rhythms it wasn’t hard to get even the crowd in front of the stage dancing. Roxanne, So Lonely, Walking in the Moon and the other hits, of which there are quite a few considering how short-lived this British trio was, went down well and proved that the spirit of The Police is still very much alive among the rock crowd.
When the early-afternoon sun stretched its tentacles harder over the festival grounds, PRAYING MANTIS took the stage, English heavy metal veterans that few people even know are still moving. This is an intriguing band that has had the most idiosyncratic development of all the representatives of the so-called NWOBHM wave. Over the years and a steady stream of releases, they strove for ever greater melodicism in heavy metal, survived a shipwreck into obscurity, and in recent years turned into a very tight unit, in fact the strongest lineup in the band’s now more than thirty-year history. It was precisely the frequent lineup changes over the years that caused the decline of this once-promising band, but in recent years brothers Tino and Chris Troy have finally managed to build a strong bond, which was capitalized on with the albums »Sanctuary« and »Metamorphosis«. Their show at Rock of Ages was therefore all about the newer songs that reflect the current optimistic spirit within the band, with the (very) newest tracks Children of the Earth, Panic in the Streets, Highway and Captured City not missing, of course, along with a few glances back to the nineties. The five-piece on stage really got into it! Praying Mantis devoted themselves completely to a perfectionist performance, both in the vocal harmonies and in the instrumental dialogues themselves. At times it seemed they had lost touch with the crowd because of how absorbed they were, but the likable guitarist Tino Troy knew how to break that spell with two bits of banter between songs. A real treat for the ears of all us fans of the band, who know how insanely hard it is to catch them on stage. As Tino Troy told me later in a short chat at the »signing«, it’s not down to them, but rather the market’s lack of interest that keeps them from playing more often. Sadly, despite all the quality they have, Praying Mantis have become a forgotten NWOBHM gem.
Next up was JEFF SCOTT SOTO, the would-be lead voice of AOR champions Journey, who lasted only a year and a half alongside Neal Schon and company, but is otherwise devoted heart and soul to the legacy of melodic hard rock. The year before, Soto played the main stage of the sister Bang Your Head!!! festival, and the organizers then invited him to Seebronn as well. Just like in Balingen, though, Soto’s set didn’t quite come together this time either. It’s hard to say whether it was a lack of coordination or some other communication problem between the stage and the sound desk, but the backing vocal lines of his guitarists, one of the central building blocks of Soto’s mighty melodic assault, weren’t one hundred percent, so understandably the crowd wasn’t eating out of his hand either. The frontman tried hard to get the crowd going by running around the stage and working the catwalk, but loud ovations just weren’t in the cards for him that day. During the set Soto touched on the current album »Damage Control«, and the end of the one-hour session, as in Balingen, went to a walk through the Talisman hits, with a catchy closing mix of the song I’ll Be Waiting with Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer.
For all rock lovers, the show by American band Y&T was one of the more interesting moments of this year’s festival. Not because Y&T would be some huge exclusive – in the last decade there has hardly been a year when they haven’t toured Europe – but simply because of what they are. This is an exceptional band that started playing in the second half of the seventies, when heavy metal was intensively developing out of hard rock, which makes them, with their unique style, a kind of fossil proof of musical evolution. Y&T built the set from their hits, mostly from the first half of the eighties, and for the fans they also threw in two gems from the album »Ten« (1990), Hard Times and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Everything on stage was just as it should be! Frontman and leader Dave Meniketti, in his recognizable manner, filled the music with feeling through a heartfelt performance, which peaked with the song Shine On, a dedication to the late longtime Y&T bassist Phil Kennemore, who lost his battle with cancer two years ago. The intensity of the show stayed high the whole time, since Y&T spread their best-known songs evenly across the set: Open Fire, Mean Streak and Winds Of Change echoed across the fields of Baden-Württemberg well before the end, for which the Americans saved Hurricane and Forever. A superb display of primal heavy metal sound, and after several encounters with the band in club dives in front of a hundred or two hundred heads, a weight also fell off my shoulders when I finally caught them at a show in front of several thousand people. If anyone, Y&T deserve crowds in front of the stage!
The second headliner of the festival’s second day was AXEL RUDI PELL, one of the finest German heavy metal guitarists, who enjoys cult status on home turf. After us photographers had shot each band from the pit first, security stopped us from entering the photo zone before his show, explaining that Pell’s pyrotechnics make it unsafe to watch the gig from right next to the stage. And it really did start with a bang! Already during the opening song Ghost in the Black the pyro cannons erupted and topped the epic punch of Pell’s music with a visual show that shone in all its rawness thanks to the evening dusk! Watching an Axel Rudi Pell concert is definitely an unforgettable experience, since his band consists of musicians of the highest pedigree, and the well-oiled machine shines effortlessly in delivering the mighty design of technically demanding symphonic songs. The »German Blackmore«, as some call Pell, cool as a spritzer, stretched songs out in jam fashion now and then, and Mike Terrana was there on drums too, showing off a rich palette of his skills mid-set. With the long instrumental passages that just seemed to have no end, and which mostly delighted fans of metal rhapsodies, vocalist Johnny Gioeli stayed in the background, as despite his natural frontman and vocal gifts he somehow unfortunately ends up in the second line of battle with Pell. One of the highlights of the evening was The Masquerade Ball – a thousand raised hands in the air and simultaneous singing confirmed the guitarist’s huge popularity, even if it seemed like the band on stage was saving their strength a bit. They gave the crowd just as much as it demanded – the heartfelt feeling was missing, even though that very virtue is the main ingredient of Pell’s musical self.
If the weather during Axel Rudi Pell’s set still held up to conditions fit for a modern, pampered human, the moment ALICE COOPER and his sizable crew of musicians attacked the stage, it poured buckets! While the stage was being prepared behind a huge curtain covering Cooper’s set in the making, the festival crowd kept glancing at the sky and praying for a dry end to the evening. We photographers in the pit were probably the loudest in our pleading, as the sky opened up during the opening number of the final festival set, Black Widow, torn between getting the best possible shot and running for cover, which would do our precious gear a nice favor.
It looked like Alice Cooper was lord of heaven and earth! Heavy drops of rain fell from the sky, lightning flashed somewhere in the background, and on stage Alice Cooper staged his own death – like we were in the middle of Judgment Day! The opening song was followed by Brutal Planet and I’m Eighteen, during which Cooper marched on stage with a cane that he played around with in his trademark style for the next few minutes. Alice Cooper played Seebronn as part of the long-running »No More Mr. Nice Guy« tour, with which he celebrated his early lineup’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and for it he once again thoroughly shuffled his backing band: we already met bassist Chuck Garrick and guitarist Damon Johnson two years ago in Italy (report here), while guitarists Tommy Henriksen and Orianthi and drummer Glen Sobel were the fresh blood.
Since the tour was dedicated to the memory of his early career, all fans of his classic sound got their money’s worth. At solo shows he still worked individual songs from his latest album »Welcome 2 My Nightmare« into the packed timeline, but a crammed setlist tailored to the festival hustle didn’t allow that, which is a great shame given that the 2011 album is his best in a very, very long time. The old fox knows exactly how to please a crowd! A huge part of his show is built on ramping up the atmosphere by weaving several stories into one connected whole that leaves the audience breathless. It was no different this time, when he wowed even me with a few tricks, even though I was watching him for the fourth time and was convinced he couldn’t surprise me anymore. Early in the show it looked like a young woman had slipped past security onto the stage and then harassed bassist Garrick while he played, but when midway through the show an unnamed young woman repeated the stunt and, to the crowd’s horror, attacked Cooper himself, he simply stabbed her with a medieval sword! The rain, which despite the phenomenal stage show managed to thin out the crowd, started to ease off in the middle of the set. The theatrical fun tipped over into the final part via sweets like Halo of Flies (with an extended instrumental showcase), Muscle of Love and the obligatory Poison, and that’s where the most anticipated moment of the night happened. During the song Wicked Young Man, the executioners managed to overpower Cooper and lead him to the guillotine, where he met his end in front of a ten-thousand-head crowd. As usual, the next few minutes went to the other musicians promoting themselves, who let loose with I Love the Dead, before the final reprise, when their boss returned to the stage and together they played School’s Out and Elected.
With yet another fantastic show, Alice Cooper justified his billing as headliner of this likable German festival and put the cherry on top of a full day of following the main stage. Even though he sticks stubbornly to his steel-clad setlist from tour to tour, Alice Cooper still knows how to surprise regular visitors with songs that haven’t been played in a long time, this time for example two each from the albums »Hey Stoopid« (1991) and »Brutal Planet« (2000). Together with the awareness that he is an exceptional icon and a musician who has influenced a whole generation of young rockers more than enough, I’ll be at his shockingly grand show again sometime.
author: Urban Bolta
photos: Urban Bolta
PRAYING MANTIS:
1. Children of the Earth
2. Panic in the Streets
3. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
4. Turn the Tide
5. Borderline
6. Highway
7. Turn the Tables
8. Captured City
JEFF SCOTT SOTO:
1. Take U Down
2. 21st Century
3. Damage Control
4. One Love
(W.E.T. cover)
5. Look Inside Your Heart
6. Eyes of Love
7. Soul Divine
8. Break Your Chains / Day By Day / Give Me a Sign / Dangerous / Just Between Us / Mysterious (This Time It’s Serious)
9. I’ll Be Waiting
——————
10. Stand Up
11. Livin’ the Life
Y&T:
1. From the Moon / Open Fire
2. Hard Times
3. Black Tiger
4. Mean Streak
5. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
6. Shine On
7. Blind Patriot
8. Winds of Change
9. Don’t Bring Me Down
10. I’m Coming Home
11. I’ll Cry for You
12. Rescue Me
13. Hurricane
14. Forever
AXEL RUDI PELL:
1. Ghost in the Black
2. Strong as a Rock
3. Before I Die
4. The Masquerade Ball / Casbah / Dreaming Dead
5. Drum Solo
6. Mystica
7. Oceans of Time
8. Circle of the Oath
9. Tear Down the Walls / Nasty Reputation
10. Rock the Nation
ALICE COOPER:
1. The Black Widow
2. Brutal Planet
3. I’m Eighteen
4. Under My Wheels
5. Billion Dollar Babies
6. No More Mr. Nice Guy
7. Hey Stoopid
8. Is It My Body
9. Halo of Flies (including bass/drum jam/solo)
10. Muscle of Love
Guitar Solo (Orianthi)
11. Feed My Frankenstein
12. Poison
13. Wicked Young Man
14. I Love the Dead (excerpt)
15. School’s Out (with parts of Another Brick … more)
—————-
16. Elected
