Artist: UFO
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2005
Rating: 3.5/5
Heh, heh, heh. Good old UFO with a brand-new live album. The album was recorded at one of the shows in May 2004 in Germany. Really, really nice. There’s no Michael Schenker on the album. Oh well. You just have to make peace with that. UFO radiate a refined maturity on this album. Compared to the notorious live classic “Strangers In The Night” (1979), you can feel that these guys, who were rowdy young lads 25 years ago, are now ”seasoned old hands” on stage.
Is Vinnie Moore a match for Schenker? Moore isn’t a guitarist who demands the spotlight, and you can feel that on “Showtime”. You can feel Vinnie’s respect. The guitar, despite the gorgeous passages that Vinnie nails perfectly and that follow Schenker’s originals very pleasingly, often sits balanced in the mix and isn’t front and center the way it was with Schenker. The solos aren’t copies of the originals, Moore winds his way through them in his own style, and that’s exactly where he proves why he got the job with UFO and the tough task of replacing the practically irreplaceable. He absolutely fills the trustworthy, big shoes of Michael’s legacy. There’s just one single little problem. He can be as brilliant a guitarist as you like, but a copy is never what the original is. So a noticeable chunk of the band’s soul is still missing after Schenker’s departure.
At this show the band was presenting the album “You Are Here” (2004), and out of 16 songs in total, four are from that album. Interestingly, Baby Blue and Mr. Freeze, which are great numbers, open the second CD. Both are on the lazier side, and the third track is Love To Love. Anyone who knows the song knows that a few minutes go by before UFO kick into the rock’n’roll drive of this great song, so you have to be patient for quite a while before the second CD finally catches fire in a rockin’ way. It would have been better if the second CD had started with Love To Love.
Of course the band’s cult classics are once again the center of attention, shining over everything else. Overall, the finale is seriously hot, with the ever stretched-out Rock Bottom, then the hit that can’t be missing from the set list, Doctor Doctor with its evergreen triple harmony, and the encore Shoot Shoot. Out of all the tracks, Love To Love shines the brightest. It’s once again the high point of the record, especially in terms of atmosphere. This is UFO’s romantic half-ballad, fully on par, weight-wise, with Since I’ve Been Lovin You by Led Zeppelin, July Morning by Uriah Heep or Mistreated by Deep Purple. In short, a track you have to take your hat off to. In it, Phil Mogg proves once again what a great singer he is, a singer with an exceptional feel for the sophistication of the setting. Dec is totally on point the whole way through.
UFO are indestructible. They won’t quit! The live album is excellent. The guys are tight, with an approach that has become much more refined over the years, I’d even say more laid-back and easygoing. They still enjoy themselves on stage as if they’d played their first garage gig of their career the day before yesterday. “Showtime” is definitely a very, very nice live classic “hard rock” record from a classic hard rock band. An album with which the legends delight us once again, and a nice sign that there’s still plenty of fuel left in the tank of this unidentified flying craft.
Lineup
Phil Moog – vocals
Vinnie Moore – guitar
Paul Raymond – keyboards
Pete Way – bass
Jason Bonham – drums
Production
Tommy Newton
Tracklist
CD 1.:
1. Mother Mary
2. When Daylight Goes To Town
3. Let It Roll
4. Out On The Streets
5. This Kidds
6. Wild One
7. Fighting Man
8. Only You Can Rock Me
CD 2.:
1. Baby Blue
2. Mr Freeze
3. Love To Love
4. Too Hot To Handle
5. Lights Out
6. Rock Bottom
7. Doctor Doctor
8. Shoot Shoot
Running time: 98:41
