Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Zagreb / Pogon Jedinstvo / Croatia
Concert date: October 24, 2012
Attendance: 550
When Accept announced in early 2010 that they were getting back together and firing up the machine again without Udo Dirkschnider, nobody imagined how serious these guys were about it! Their comeback album »Blood of the Nations« swept up best heavy metal album of the year honors like it was nothing, and this spring the German veterans’ great form was confirmed by its follow-up, »Stalingrad«.
Since the comeback album, Accept have been constantly active on the live front too. One tour follows another, and in summer it’s all hopping from one festival stage to the next. No breaks, no mercy! Their first European dates with new singer Mark Tornillo up front focused on the markets of countries traditionally friendly to heavy metal (Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavia) and as such were (almost) out of reach for Slovenian fans. Then last year the Metalcamp festival brought them to us for the first time, and the autumn »Staingrad« tour, which stopped at Ljubljana’s Kino Šiška at the end of October, got everyone even more hyped. Well, even before the real mini metal holiday in Ljubljana, Rockline took a trip to Zagreb too, where Accept played the day before.
Accept were supposed to play the Boogaloo club, but that popular Zagreb venue currently has no usable permit, so most of its shows have been moved to the Pogon Jedinstvo hall. The club, with roughly the same capacity as our Cvetličarna, sits in Zagreb’s mini »Metelkova« complex next to the Močvara club on the left bank of the Sava.
Before the Germans, Hollow Haze took the stage, an Italian band with a decade of activity behind them. More than the opening act’s clichéd approach, it was the cold autumn weather that managed to fill the inside of the hall – the Italians didn’t serve up anything earth-shattering, and what’s more, their heavy flirting with the mold of the German power metal school à la Primal Fear (especially in the choruses) was downright funny.
Then it was time for the connoisseurs! From the very first beats of the night’s opening Accept track Hang, Drawn and Quariered it was clear the sound would be excellent! The club’s elongated shape has great acoustic predispositions, which the guys at the mixing desk knew how to exploit, finding the right balance in the sound between Hoffmann’s and Frank’s guitars and of course the rhythm section. A great omen for the next two hours together!
Accept devoted the first half of the show to promoting the new album, slotting 4 new tracks in among the evergreen classics from the eighties, including the banger Hellfire, the epic war tale Stalingrad and the very atmospheric Shadow Soldiers.
The five on stage were in great spirits again this time! Sharing smiles with the crowd and each other showed overflowing good vibes and a hunger to prove themselves that is still going strong a good two years after the reunion! The guitar trio of Frank / Baltes / Hoffmann generally huddled together for the choruses and gave the likable Tornillo strong backing vocal support. But watch out! Sharp eyes probably didn’t miss the physical exhaustion of rhythm guitarist Herman Frank, who hid his graying hair under a cap and during the choruses only occasionally stepped up to the mic, but stayed silent. Judging by the stage presence of the trio Tornillo / Baltes / Hoffmann, who charged around the stage, the years have clearly worn down Frank the most. Stuck on the left side of the stage, he diligently did his job, but he had nothing left for much more.
Accept also stretch the running time of their shows with instrumental interludes, but they pull it off far more gracefully than many bands of a similar caliber, with Helloween at the head of the pack… In the middle of the show the band’s first string, the bald-headed Wolf Hoffmann, shone with a solo spot, and Baltes and Hoffmann also stretched the classic Princess of the Dawn with a rich instrumental addition (just like on the »Blood of the Nations« tour). Frontman Mark Tornillo held up well too! The man who came out of anonymity when Accept reunited and was forced to expose himself to constant comparisons with his predecessor Udo humbly set out on the road to proving himself two years ago, and in that time he has already won the heart of every Accept fan! In Zagreb too, with the rasping lines he dragged up from the very depths of his throat, he made the Accept fortress indestructible! To send off the regular set, two uncompromising riff-fests from two different generations hit us: Pandemic and Fast as a Shark.
The encore was the same as on earlier tours: the marching anthem Metal Heart, probably the best song of their new era, Teutonic Terror, and for the »grande finale« Balls to the Wall, during which the whole hall, all the way back past the mixing desk and beyond, saw their darlings off the stage with hands raised high in the air! The two-hour show confirmed that the old-timers who once helped define the very notion of heavy metal still eat plenty of younger bands for lunch, even though I personally would have liked more noticeable changes in the repertoire. Let’s be honest, apart from the songs from the current album »Stalingrad«, there were no changes on the set list that those of us who caught them on earlier tours would have been all that happy about.
Setlist
1. Hung, Drawn and Quartered
2. Hellfire
3. Restless and Wild
4. Losers and Winners
5. Stalingrad
6. Breaker
7. Bucket Full of Hate
8. Monsterman
9. Shadow Soldiers
10. Guitar Solo (Wolf Hoffmann)
11. Neon Nights
12. Bulletproof
13. Aiming High
14. Princess of the Dawn
15. Up to the Limit
16. No Shelter
17. Pandemic
18. Fast as a Shark
—encore—
19. Metal Heart
20. Teutonic Terror
21. Balls to the Wall
22. Bound to Fail (taped outro)
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